No Answers Explain This One

Oct 06, 2008, 9:05:32 AM by Bob Gretz - FAQ

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – The Chiefs did not play well on Sunday against the Carolina Panthers at Bank of America Stadium.

OK, that’s an understatement. It makes it sound like a few things went wrong and the Chiefs killed their own chances of winning the game at some point.

What we saw from the Chiefs in losing 34-0 was a performance so bad it defies explanation.

“We didn’t see that coming at all,” said Herm Edwards. “We came in here and acted like we never played before. It’s puzzling.”

The Chiefs never had a chance to win this game, at least not any time after the opening whistle. Listen, the Panthers are a good enough team and the Chiefs are a young and inexperienced enough team that Edwards boys could have played well and still lost this game. That’s part of the template when you have a young team.

However, this performance was unexpected. The Chiefs went out and repeated their horrid performance from the Oakland game of three weeks ago. In fact, this effort may have been the worst overall performance by a Chiefs team in many, many years.

That Oakland performance was bad, but this was worse because last week the Chiefs showed what they were capable of doing in their victory over Denver.

That’s why the head coach was at a loss to explain how his team could ineptly allow the Panthers to run out to a 21-point lead early in the second quarter, a margin that destroyed any possibility that the Chiefs could get themselves back in the game. Down by two touchdowns, and the Chiefs could have stayed within their game plan and methodically worked their way back into the game.

Go down by three TDs and the game plans go out the window because quite frankly, how many times is this offense going to be able to score more than three touchdowns on the road? Not often, based on recent history.

Yes, there were game plans for Carolina and yes the Chiefs practiced last week. I watched every second of their sessions on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. It was good, solid, sound work from a team that had a little more bounce in its step than at any time in the previous month.

The coaching staff worked long and hard breaking down Carolina and trying to put their players in the best positions to be successful. And by all evidence during practice, this team worked hard and assimilated the information.

And yes, I understand it did not look like it. That’s indisputable. Whatever this team was taught, they forgot come Sunday afternoon. They stumbled and bumbled around like they were collected in the parking lots moments before the game, handed uniforms and given a five-minute primer on how to play football.

This wasn’t just one guy making mistakes, or one side of the football screwing up the plan. This was every single person on both offense and defense. I know when the tape of this game is dissected by the coaching staff they will find something good, but heaven knows what that might be as there was not be an abundance of good performances.

Edwards, the players, everyone could pull out that catch-all phrase of “being a young team” as explanation for what happened. But everyone, including the Chiefs themselves have grown tired of that excuse. The Chiefs should be beyond this type of performance. Carolina is a good football team, and again, even on a good day for the red and gold, the Panthers may have won. But the Panthers barely worked up a sweat because the Chiefs kept handing them opportunity after opportunity.

With a young team what generally happens is this: baby step forward, baby step forward, big step backward, baby step forward, big step forward, baby step backward, baby step forward. It’s a herky-jerky roll through the season. So far in ‘08 the Chiefs have gone baby step forward in New England, big step backward against Oakland, step backward against Atlanta, big step forward against Denver and now a huge step backwards against Carolina. They are losing ground and losing games.

Sadly for them, they have two weeks to live with this stinker.

The next fortnight may very well make or break this team’s season. The Chiefs must get a lot of work done over the bye week. There must be some serious soul searching on the offensive and defensive coaching staffs on the way they are handling this group. At a time where they probably need a break from the game, these players need to dive head first into what’s happened and what’s going to happen.

All this is necessary because the Chiefs are capable of so much more than what they showed against the Panthers. Young maybe, but nobody wants to put up with under-achievement.

Although the answers may not have come to mind in the moments after the game, Herm Edwards, his staff and his players have to find them. More importantly, they must make sure that complete breakdowns like what happened on Sunday never happen again.

The opinions offered in this column do not necessarily reflect those of the Kansas City Chiefs.

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A former beat reporter who covered the Pittsburgh Steelers during their glory years, Gretz covered the Chiefs for the Kansas City Star for nine years. He is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame's Board of Selectors. He has been the senior columnist for the Chiefs web site since its inception.