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THE MORNING AFTER – SAN DIEGO
October 26th – 7:27 AM

Disappointed. Mad. Let down.

Those were Chiefs head coach Todd Haley’s self-described post-game feelings. His feelings matched that of many Chiefs fans across the country after an Arrowhead route by division rival San Diego. CB Brandon Carr added another one – “embarrassing.”

“I’m the head coach of the team and I’m running the offense,” Haley said. “We have to be better than that. We have to be better at protecting. We have to be better at run blocking. We have to be better at catching the ball. We can’t tip the ball to them and we have to be better at quarterback. That’s the bottom line.”

In other words, the Chiefs need to get better at just about everything. Outside a few sporadically placed explosive runs/returns by RB Jamaal Charles and a brief surge early in the third quarter that brought the game back to 20-7, there wasn’t much for the Chiefs to hang their hat on yesterday at Arrowhead. Heck, there wasn’t even a hook to simply attempt to hang a hat.

Bluntly put, there wasn’t much of anything positive for Chiefs fans to take a look at, let alone stomach, on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

All the things that have haunted the Chiefs this season appeared, re-appeared and came back one more time to bite Kansas City in the 37-7 lopsided loss to San Diego. Kansas City was three-of-fifteen on third downs, committed seven penalties and allowed three plays of 50-yards or more. The normally rock-solid special teams unit posted “0-fer” on field goal attempts and had a punt blocked for a touchdown.

Even QB Matt Cassel, who hadn’t thrown an INT in 150 consecutive passes, fell off the wagon and gave up three picks while turning in a career-worst 25.4 QB rating as a starter.

“It’s a team effort,” Haley said. “We have to do a better job of protecting our quarterback. He was under duress again from start to finish. But the quarterback’s job is to move the team down the field. I’ll watch the tape, but the quarterback can’t throw interceptions, he has to protect the football at all costs and he has to hit open guys.”

The Chiefs weren’t only beaten in all three phases of Sunday’s game, they were beaten badly. Coming off the franchise’s first victory in nearly a year (11/30/08 at Oakland), Sunday’s performance represented a worst-case scenario for this young team. Kansas City came out extremely flat and found themselves in a three-score hole (20-0) before simply being able to achieve even a single first down.

“It’s real tough to get anything going when you are in a hole that quick, that fast,” RB Larry Johnson said. “You do what you can do to try and salvage the rest of the game and the rest of the plays by eliminating the mistakes we made.”

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much left to salvage for the Chiefs after San Diego’s early scoring barrage. The Chiefs weren’t only unable to build momentum off last weekend’s win, but they also yielded any amount of confidence gained from the win at Washington as well.

“We tried to go out there and execute all the plays that Coach (Haley) called but we were out there dropping balls, overthrowing wide receivers, not opening holes for the backs,” Charles said. “We just have to get together as an offense and go out there and make plays and not give up when we’re down.”

The biggest killer of the game might have come courtesy of hometown hero, RB Darren Sproles. After a more than lackluster first half, the Chiefs somehow had swung the momentum back in their favor and appeared poised to make a run at San Diego when Kansas City opened the third quarter with a 10-play, 65-yard TD drive to make the score 20-7. An ensuing San Diego three-and-out gave the Chiefs the football back and had re-energized Arrowhead.

The buzz kill came when the Chiefs had to punt, but the dagger came when Sproles busted loose a 58-yard TD reception to extend San Diego’s lead to 20 points once more. The five-minute window of hope had closed rather quickly for the Arrowhead faithful. It was just a tease.

The play was a disaster all around. S Mike Brown showed his blitz too early, QB Phillip Rivers saw the tipped-hand and checked to a new play at the line. The Chiefs then appeared to stay in the same defensive call as Rivers audibled, blitzed, and left Sproles unaccounted for in man coverage for the 58-yard score. It was too easy. Sproles took the pass in the flats and was never touched.

Overall, the blunder may have been the Chiefs most glaring mental error of the 2009 season. It was one in which blame could be spread all around. That play, in a nut shell, represented the Chiefs day as a whole.

“We just didn’t play well at all,” DE Glenn Dorsey said. “Nobody did. You can’t come out and play like that and think you’re going to win. It’s a bad loss, it hurt. We just have to rally together and get better this bye week and just get ready for the rest of the season.”

The loss wasn’t nearly as disappointing as its fashion. After taking a big step forward in Washington, the Chiefs took two bigger steps backward, just seven days later. That’s the most disappointing part.

“It was a disappointing performance, and that’s not okay,” Haley finished.