Overrated? Maybe the Chiefs' 7-3 start was fool's gold after all
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- It wasn't so much the six sacks, the 214 rushing yards allowed, the third-down failures, the errors forced and unforced, the 13-point home defeat that felt more like 25.
Well, OK, it was all those things. But it was also this:
Denver's Broncos held a mirror up to the Kansas City Chiefs, then splashed cold water on their face in front of Al Michaels, Cris Collinsworth and all the free world to see.
Nice team. Gamers. Scrappers. A family, in the truest football sense.
Not Denver.
Not a serious Super Bowl contender, let alone the biggest dog in the AFC West.
That 7-3 was not the fool's gold that 9-0 was, but it was fool's gold nonetheless.
This game was about Mike McGlynn and Ryan Harris and Josh Mauga and James Michael-Johnson and Jaye Howard and Ron Parker and all the underdog stories that made this charmed season seemed so ... charmed.
Until it wasn't.
Flip through our photo album of Chiefs cheerleaders.
"A good team like that, Denver, you've got to bring your A game in all phases," linebacker Justin Houston said after his Chiefs fell, 29-16, to rival Denver, capping a sweep of the Broncos that knocked Kansas City to third in the AFC West. "And it wasn't."
Peyton Manning doesn't give two vertebrae about your Cinderellas. Or the various charming backstories of your street free agents.
No. 18 was the most damning indictment of all Sunday night at Arrowhead Stadium, and yet not for the usual reasons. Peytie Pie was efficient, timely, smart (as always), but also statistically mediocre: 17 completions on 34 attempts, 179 passing yards, two scores.
Eleven out of 10 Chiefs fans, given that line, would've snapped it up in two heartbeats. And expected to come out of that kind of game sitting atop the division.
One problem: Denver had a plan, and the plan -- on an evening when the wind chills got to the mid-teens quickly and stayed there -- was to out-Chief the Chiefs: Get a quick lead, rush the snot out of the other quarterback, run left, run right, run up the gut and get the hell out of Dodge.
"Their ability to run the football also adds another dimension to that offense," coach Andy Reid said. "So you've got to be able to shut down one or the other. And we weren't shutting down either."
In a consistently inconsistent season, the 2014 Chiefs, through all the injuries and turnover and turmoil, have offered at least two constants:
1. The first eight minutes of Sunday's contest notwithstanding -- and as Houston pointed out, that can't happen against Denver, evah, evah, evah -- the Andy Gang plays hard. Above their heads, below their heads, at their level, whatever that level is, it's generally not about lack of want-to.
2. This run defense misses defensive end Mike DeVito a little and inside linebacker Derrick Johnson a lot. Over their past three losses, two of which have transpired since Nov. 20, the Chiefs have given up an average of 188.3 yards on the ground, and that's not even counting the 204 surrendered in a win over Seattle on Nov. 16.
LET'S GO CHIEFS: Check out these photos of fans and the excitement around Chiefs football.
The Andy Gang made a fantasy sensation of the Raiders' Latavius Murray (four carries, 112 yards, two scores) and a household name out of the Broncos' C.J. Anderson (32 carries, 168 yards). The high-stepping Anderson also lit up a good Miami defense the week before, but you can see the fault lines forming, and they're getting deeper by the week.
Denver held the ball for 39 minutes. On the road.
It was as if the Chiefs went into the fight with both hands up, always protecting the face, and the Broncos just kept punching away happily at either side of the solar plexus.
"We've been a good tackling team," Reid said. "And the last couple of weeks here we haven't done very well."
The stats don't lie: A defense that doesn't force turnovers and tends to give up a lot of rushing yards is living on borrowed time. We didn't see it, of course, because this team was so stunning on third down, so good at getting off the field when it absolutely had to (see Seattle), come hell or high water.
But whatever Oakland saw, Denver saw, too, because that's the way the NFL works. Stretch play, counter play, stretch again, counter again. The Chiefs weren't just out-classed; they were out-coached, right from the get-go -- and with this roster, and this schedule, that can't happen, either. A fort of chewing gum and chicken wire can stand only so long before the strands start to break.
"There's really not a phase that I can point to that's a positive," Reid said.
The Chiefs force a stop and a Denver punt, a shank, and it somehow bounces off Marcus Cooper and back into waiting Bronco arms. With 3:55 left in the contest, wideout Donnie Avery knifes free for a 20-yard gain to the Denver 34. Then the ball comes loose, and the Broncos' Bradley Roby smothers it at the 31.
"We've just got to capitalize on the opportunities that we have and not make mistakes," Avery sighed. "Obviously, I made a big one (tonight), by fumbling the ball to keep us from going in and scoring."
Even old reliables had to endure the strange and the quirky. With 1:12 left in quarter, the hosts down 14-0, long snapper Thomas Gafford gets whistled for a false start at the Chiefs' 27. The zebras told him he'd jerked his head too forcefully.
"I've done that a bunch of times," Gafford said. "Never been called for it before. Done it a bunch of times."
Strange moment. Strange, strange game.
"It was very strange to me, too. But we've got to make our own bounces. And we didn't do that."
Sometimes, it's just not your night. Sometimes, it's just not your division, either.
You can follow Sean Keeler on Twitter at @SeanKeeler or email him at seanmkeeler@gmail.com.
