It’s not a tough record to beat.

Priest Holmes holds Kansas City’s franchise record for career rushing yards. His number is 6,070. That’s good for fifth lowest in the league, ahead of only Tampa Bay, New England, Carolina, and Houston. The number itself isn’t that special. What is special is how he did it and how quickly he did it–63 starts in 65 games, over half of which came on the wrong side of an injury that would have ended the careers of most backs. He did it all with limited natural ability too. At no point in his career was he the fastest or strongest back on the team, but he was always the smartest and the best prepared.

In light of everything the Chiefs have been through since with Holmes’s replacement, it’s hard to remember exactly how maligned the holy one was by the team’s fans. Mercurial by nature, Priest infrequently granted interviews, made few public appearances, and never traveled with the team while injured. The latter isn’t altogether uncommon–Andy Reid, for instance, doesn’t allow his injured players to travel with the team under any circumstance–but it rubbed a lot of fans the wrong way. His decision to sit out an entire season in 2006, claiming the need to further rehabilitate from a midseason injury in 2005, rubbed fans the wrong way too, particularly when he announced in October of 2007 that he planned to return. Fans felt Priest had let the team down. He had, in their estimation, placed his own desires over the team’s needs, holding out for longer than needed, knowing full well the offense was struggling in his absence. (more…)

It’s a good thing the Chiefs wore their throwback helmets against the Chargers on Sunday. Otherwise, someone might have mistaken them for the team that eked out a victory over the Redskins seven days earlier. That team was mistake prone but mentally tough; athletically challenged but physically commanding. Apparently Tank Tyler was that team’s muse. His absence was the only change, but the shape of the team was radically different.

I’ll admit that I was among the foolhardy few that predicted a Kansas City win. I felt that the win over Washington would serve as a catalyst, sparking the team to more similarly opportunistic wins over similarly underachieving opponents. I overestimated the chemistry, however. This team clearly has none. They are an experiment gone wrong. (more…)

The Kansas City Chiefs barred RB Larry Johnson from practicing with the team or participating in team activities on Tuesday, saying they are continuing to investigate his recent comments in which he reportedly belittled coach Todd Haley via Twitter and reportedly used gay slurs addressing media in the locker room.

The decision on Johnson appears indefinite, as no timetable given for his return.

Haley is expected to address the situation surrounding Johnson during a news conference Tuesday, which is scheduled for 2:40 p.m. ET. That news conference can be seen live on NFL Network.

The Chiefs released a statement Tuesday announcing the decision on Johnson. (more…)

As I wrote this article, the New England Patriots had the opportunity (but declined, as a show of mercy) to break two substantial NFL records: most points in a shutout (the record is 66) and most points by a single team in a game (72). The Pats got sloppy last week and lost to a team they should have beat, so they did what Belichick’s Patriot teams do: make an example of the next team they play. That was the mindset that carried them to the Super Bowl in 2003: Lawyer Milloy, hellbent on vengeance against his former team, led the Bills to a 31-0 shutout in week one. New England finished the regular season 14-2, on their way to their second of three Super Bowl wins in a four year span. Likewise, the team showed similar fire in 2007 amidst allegations of cheating and preseason speculation that they no longer held the competitive edge they had in years past. To prove those speculations to be inaccurate, the Pats embarrassed most of their opponents, surpassing 30 points in 12 of 16 regular season contests.

Meanwhile, a few hours ago the Kansas City Chiefs secured their first victory in nearly a year by beating the Redskins, 14-6. Low scoring affairs like that are usually indicative of matches between two dominant defenses. Not so in this case. There was a bad offense and a bad defense on the throne in Kansas City; there was a bad offense and a fair defense on the throne in Washington. (more…)

In my May 6 article (Post-Draft Musings, Part 1: In the Kitchen with Scott Pioli and Todd Haley) I warned that rookie coaches and GMs often come into their first assignment believing they have all of the answers. Newcomers come from successful organizations, and they’ve learned their trade from watching successful role models. Successful role models execute unsuccessful maneuvers from time to time, however, and sometimes even the best pupil lacks the discernment to understand which of those maneuvers flopped the hardest. They mimic the good, but sometimes they mimic the bad too.

It is from the latter that Todd Haley culled his mid-practice stunt last Friday, wherein he pulled his coaching staff from the field, leaving the players to guide their own final gameday preparations. That move was taken from the Bill Parcells playbook. Specifically, Parcells walked out of a New York Jets practice on October 15, 1998. Haley was one of his assistants at the time. Prior to the walkout, the Jets were 2-3. They finished the season 10-1. Haley undoubtedly viewed the move as a turning point for the team, and he hoped that mimicking the maneuver would produce similar results for his struggling Kansas City team. (more…)

There is a pivotal scene in the movie Tin Cup, Kevin Costner’s ode to underachieving, alcoholic golfers, wherein Costner’s character breaks every club in his bag except his 7-iron. He then proceeds to shoot par through the remainder of the course using a single club. Later on, he asks Don Johnson’s character if he ever shot par with a 7-iron. Johnson replies, “Well hell, Roy…. it never even occurred to me to try.”

I don’t know if the coaches and execs of the Kansas City Chiefs ever watched that movie, but if they did, they took the wrong half of that scene to heart. Every season they take a few more 7-irons to each game, casting aside the clubs they really need to be competitive. The organization has made practice of shedding its most talented player at the end of each year, sometimes owing to retirement (Willie Roaf and Will Shields), but far too often to trades that fail to yield results (Jared Allen, Tony Gonzalez, and even Trent Green). The result? A team of role players. Good athletes. No stars. (more…)

Scouting players for a professional football team is one of the toughest, most thankless jobs in sports. This is a point I’ve made at least once or twice before, and it’s one I will continue to make. For starters, football teams are twice as large as baseball teams and five times as large as basketball. Furthermore, there is no proper farm system or minor league. There are secondary leagues like the CFL and AFL, but secondary leagues don’t present coaches and scouts with the opportunity to properly observe a player’s work ethic. Instead, they must rely on limited drafts (seven rounds, shortened ultimately from 17 prior to 1977), informed largely by game footage and multiplayer talent showcases like the NFL Combine.

It is no wonder, then, that when coaches turn to free agency and the waiver wire to round out teams, they tend to seek out players they know. It’s the reason why Gunther Cunningham, for instance, called on players like Carlos Hall, Rocky Boiman, and most recently Turk McBride to shore up the bottom half of his defenses–not because he expected them to develop into star players mid-career, but because he understood what to expect from them. That consistency, or, in some players’ cases, consistent inconsistency, makes a coach’s job simpler, and for an incoming coach or GM, it keeps at bay a bevy of potential headaches that comes from in-depth evaluation of all of his predecessor’s picks. (more…)

Some statistics are meaningless. Passer rating is one of them. Here’s why: yesterday, Matt Cassel posted a 124.5 passer rating. He completed 78% of his passes, including two touchdowns. Kevin Kolb, by contrast, posted a 120.6 passer rating, completing 70% of his passes, also including two touchdowns. Based on those figures, one would conclude that both quarterbacks’ performances were nearly equally matched.

Passer rating, of course, fails to take into account total yardage in any meaningful manner. Yes, Cassel completed 14 of 18 passes, but he gained only 90 yards in the process. Tack on Bradley’s 26 yard completion to Bobby Wade, and you’ve still got the least productive air attack for a Kansas City Chiefs team since week 12 of 1997, when Rich Gannon posted 98 yards in a 24-22 win over the Broncos. Gannon didn’t need to do a whole lot that particular week–Tamarick Vanover hustled for 205 yards on six kick returns and two punt returns. Marcus Allen and Greg Hill did their part too, with the former finding the endzone twice and the latter breaking a key 35-yard rush. (more…)

The season is more than two weeks long. The season is more than two weeks long. The season is more than two weeks long.

Keep repeating that over and over, and maybe it will lessen the sting of watching your team lose to the Raiders at home. Maybe it will lessen the sting of watching them be bested by a quarterback who completed fewer than 30% of his passes. Maybe it will lessen the sting of watching them run roughshod over a respectable defense, only to spite themselves with the kind of mental mistakes that should have been abandoned at the end of training camp. Maybe. But probably not. (more…)

The Kansas City Chiefs announced on Tuesday that the club has signed free agent WR Bobby Wade.

Wade (5-10, 186) has appeared in 90 games (44 starts) with Chicago (2003-05), Tennessee (2005-06) and Minnesota (2007-08). He has caught 208 passes for 2,491 yards (11.9 avg.) with seven TDs and owns 19 rushes for 82 yards. He has registered 50 kickoff returns for 1,194 yards (23.9 avg.) and 57 punt returns for 500 yards (8.8 avg.) with a TD. He has seen duty in one postseason contest, catching three passes for 24 yards.

He finished his collegiate career ranked first in Arizona history with 230 receptions for 3,351 yards (14.6 avg.) with 23 touchdowns. Wade’s 4,785 all-purpose yards were fourth in school history. Wade prepped at Desert Vista High School in Phoenix, Arizona.

The Chiefs waived LB Turk McBride on Tuesday. McBride played in 25 games (10 starts) for Kansas City from 2007-08.

via Kansas City Chiefs – Chiefs Sign Free Agent WR Bobby Wade.