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Chiefs' fans have few reasons for holiday cheer

Greg Shelley Written by Greg Shelley, Friday December 11 2009
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If your NFL team is 5-7 or 6-6, you are probably finding reasons to despair.  Take a look at a team with only three wins and find some reasons to rejoice.

 

If you are like me and happen to be a fan of one of the many five or six win teams in the NFL, you have probably spent considerable time lamenting the ones that got away or were fumbled away. You are also probably quite disappointed in your team right now. Well, when your team is in the middle of the road, feeling the crush of diminished hopes for a playoff chance, it’s definitely difficult to find any sunshine. Still, one of the things you can do to cheer yourself up is take a glance at the state of any one of those six teams that are off to a worse start than yours—Tampa Bay, St. Louis, Detroit, Cleveland, Kansas City, Oakland, and Buffalo.
 
You could, for instance, be suffering like the Kansas City Chiefs fans who have only three wins to boast. They did have a key victory over Pittsburgh several weeks back, but even that has been diminished by the fact that the Steelers are in the midst of a five-game losing skid and have since lost to the Raiders and the Browns. At 3-9, the Chiefs only have one AFC team with a worse record—the Browns. The Chiefs’ record is 28th in the entire league and they haven’t even had a winning record since 2006 when they finished 9-7. They are looking at a second straight year of finishing last in their division, behind the lowly Raiders.
 
The unfortunate Chiefs are 30th in total offense (29th in passing with just 167.6 yards per game and 24th in rushing). They are last in total defense, surrendering almost 400 yards and 27.2 points per game. Only Detroit and Tampa Bay give up more points, and no one gives up more total yards. So, it’s not like you can say the Chiefs are just a few pieces away from completing the puzzle—they need a vastly improved defense and offense.
 
The Chiefs brought in the impressive Matt Cassel this year which cost them a second-round pick (34th overall) in the 2009 draft, and some fans out there want to blame him for part of the problem. Some have said that he was just a product of the Patriots’ system and they point to his 53.9% completion rate this year as a sign. However, the Chiefs are doing their new QB no favors by having the 24th rushing offense in the league and only giving him the 17th most passing attempts. He is, by the way, allowed to throw the ball 23% less than the Patriots do on average. Still, 13 of the 20 Chiefs offensive touchdowns have come off of Cassel’s arm despite the fact that the team’s best receiver, Dwayne Bowe, has only played in eight games this year compliments of his league suspension. Cassel is definitely not part of the problem, but the Chiefs do have lots of problems to fix and they are not likely to get it all fixed in one season or one draft, even if they are in good shape to get the fifth overall pick in 2010.
 
At any rate, here’s hoping that this glance at a team with lots of troubles has helped to cheer up any of you who are still rooting for those teams closer to the .500 mark. As for the fans of the Chiefs, they are going to need even more patience and probably have a lengthy wait before this team gets significantly better. Still, they should take heart knowing that they do have a solid General Manager and a promising new Head Coach, both of whom are still in their first year with the team. Hey, the team has already won one more than last year’s total and they still get to play the Bills and Browns at home before going on the road to the Bengals and the Broncos for likely beat downs. You see, there is reason to believe that the Chiefs could win two more games this year, even if there isn’t much hope that the next home game won’t be blacked out to local TV.

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