The Kansas City Chiefs started their game against the Cleveland Browns off with a bang, but after the first play, things went downhill for the rest of the afternoon and Kansas City lost the game, 30-7. With the loss, the Chiefs season record fell to 2-11.
After taking a touchback on the opening kick-off, Kansas City’s Jamaal Charles took the first play of the game 80 yards downfield for a touchdown. It was Charles’ second-longest play of the year after his 81-yard touchdown run against New Orleans in Week 3.
After going two years without scoring a touchdown on their opening drive, the Chiefs have now accomplished the feat in back-to-back games. 12 seconds into the game, the Chiefs led 7-0 and most of their fans hadn’t settled into their seats to watch it yet.
The defense held the Browns to just one first down on the next drive and KC’s offense once again moved the ball down the field, this time on the hands of WR Dwayne Bowe, who caught two passes for 70 yards on the drive.
But after KC had the ball first-and-goal at the Browns 4-yard line, things started to go bad. Then kicker Ryan Succop clanked a 27-yard field goal off the left upright, missing his first field goal between 20-29 yards in his career. Chiefs fans that have been paying attention this season probably realized at that moment that things were about to get ugly.
They did. The Browns went right downfield and had their own first-and-goal situation, but settled for a field goal. Unlike the Chiefs, they made their kick and KC led 7-3.
But on the first play of the second quarter, Cleveland got the longest punt return for a touchdown in franchise history, a 93-yard romp by WR Travis Benjamin, and suddenly the Chiefs were trailing 10-7 and the sleepy Browns crowd was wide awake and back into it.
Unfortunately for Kansas City, Bowe was lost in the second quarter on a vicious, but legal, hit that caused the receiver to apparently vomit on the field. Bowe went into the locker room and, like the Chiefs offense, never returned to the game.
For complete stats of the game from NFL.com, click here.
Cleveland went on to methodically blow out the Chiefs, and the Chiefs methodically resembled the team that has been blown out for much of the season. QB Brady Quinn was terrible, but after Bowe left the game, one couldn’t tell if it was Quinn or his receivers to blame. Regardless, the offense outside of Charles was non-existent.
Charles himself had to leave the game with a shoulder injury, but he returned to finish the contest with 165 rushing yards on 18 carries. It was a typically superhuman effort by one of the best running backs in the league whose year is being wasted on this team.
In the end, Cleveland coach Pat Shurmur got the kind of nice win at home that will look good to the new owner and might get him one more year to coach the team. KC coach Romeo Crennel, whose behavior and steadiness in light of the Jovan Belcher tragedy has further cemented his reputation in Kansas City as an extraordinarily nice man, got the kind of loss that will get him fired one hour after the season ends.
Chiefs fans now have to wonder if he’ll be heading to the unemployment line WITH General Manager Scott Pioli, or by himself.
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Like this article? If you want your Chiefs news with an Examiner twist delivered to your in-box, click on the SUBSCRIBE button above. It’s FREE and you can cancel at any time. Now that the Belcher tragedy is over and the little girl is taken care of, Chiefs fans can get back to being outraged, surly, cranky and just plain p*ssed-off by this team’s utter lack of ability to play this game. Most of the time, I’ll try to use a sense of humor about all this.
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Finally, on a much more serious note, here are two links for anyone that needs help with domestic violence and/or sexual assault. The first link is the Kansas Coalition against sexual & domestic violence and the second link is the Missouri Coalition Against Domestic & Sexual Violence. Or, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or the National Sexual Assault Hotline, 1-800-656-4673.
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