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A VERY TROUBLING STATISTIC
November 10th – 5:21 PM

Dick Vermeil was obsessed with the turnover margin when he was Kansas City’s head coach. He was obsessed with the statistic, because in the NFL winning the turnover battle is usually a direct correlation with churning out victories.

This year, when an NFL team is positive in the turnover department, the overall record across the league is 83-25 (.769). The Chiefs have been positive in five games this season. That’s over half!

If statistics held true, the Chiefs should be no worse than 3-2 in those games. Unfortunately Kansas City is the exception, the outlier if you will. Go ahead and make one of those fancy bell curve graphs that you did in your college or high school statistics class, the Chiefs are that blip way outside the bell. The Chiefs are 1-4 in those games.

“We finished in the plus again in turnovers for the fifth time and if you look at the entire league and teams that have ended up in the plus category it’s 82 wins to 20-something losses and we’re against the norm,” Chiefs head coach Todd Haley said. “That’s very frustrating to us as a staff and as a team. Four times we’ve ended up in plus and haven’t come out on top.“

What can you say other than keep winning the turnover battle on defense? Eventually the Chiefs must fall back into the norm, right? For a bit more perspective, last year the Chiefs were 2-6 when turning in a positive turnover ratio (half the games!). The rest of the league - 156-48-1. Hell, maybe we’re just cursed.

It truly is a troubling statistic at the moment.

JOHNSON A FREE AGENT
November 10th – 4:20 PM

RB Larry Johnson has cleared waivers and now becomes a free agent. Johnson is free to sign with any of the league’s 32 teams.

TEAM NEEDS A WIN
November 10th – 3:18 PM

For two weeks, Chiefs head coach Todd Haley kept his thoughts on the Larry Johnson situation to himself. Maybe that was the route he wanted to take, or maybe he wanted to state his stance at the time. Regardless, Haley’s decision not to comment was by far the smartest decision a head coach could make given the set of legal circumstances surrounding a two-week suspension that ultimately ended for good yesterday.

On Monday, however, Todd Haley talked. He shared the club’s thought process, it’s rationale and where he thought the team’s run game was headed going forward. He was also asked whether the Johnson distraction hampered his efforts in continuing to prepare his team to play football.

“I think the job itself is a big job and a hard job,” Haley said. “As I’ve said before here when you have one win to show for your efforts that makes it tougher because you know going in it’s a big job and you want to have positive results. Myself as a coach and the way I’ve been taught and the way I think is there’s a way to win these games and we haven’t done it.“

That’s how Haley answered that question. Pretty impressive if you ask me. Haley was thrown a softball question that could have set him up to talk about how a situation such as the one that the Chiefs dealt with are detrimental to the progress of a young football team. Instead, Haley turned the focus back on himself.

“So, as far as I’m concerned, I’m not doing my job well enough and my staff isn’t doing its job well enough,” Haley said. “Whatever the situation, good and great coaches find ways to get their players to win. So, tired or not tired, that’s all I really care about. I went into (Sunday) believing we could win that game. After watching the tape I believe we could have won that game if we had done things a certain way. It didn’t work out that way.”

Even though the team is sitting at 1-7, Haley and his coaches are going to work as if the team was in the middle of a division race. The practice sessions certainly haven’t taken a hit when it comes to intensity. This team continues to try and improve. This team continues to work their tails off to try and compete. It just hasn’t come to fruition yet. Keeping a 1-7 team focused is hard enough, with or without a side distraction such as the one the club faced with Johnson.

“You’d just like to have some wins and I’d like these players to have some wins to show for the effort we’re putting in,” Haley said. “Right now it’s not there and we need to get it there, need to figure out ways to win regardless of the circumstances.”

The next opportunity comes against the team that Chiefs fans love to beat.

A LOOK AT BOBBY WADE
November 10th – 10:27 AM

WR Bobby Wade’s inactive status on Sunday was the major “surprise” before kickoff in Jacksonville. A story that would have normally drawn a long line of questioning after the game on Monday was swept under the rug, so to speak, due to the Chiefs running back situation.

Chiefs head coach Todd Haley was asked yesterday about Wade one time, on the very final question before the (very long) press conference concluded.

“That was strictly a roster deal on game-day, a very tough decision, but there are a lot of factors involved in that,” Haley answered. “It was roster, special teams and those types of things.“

The decision to keep Wade inactive was likely a very tough decision considering Wade was the Chiefs second-leading receiver behind Dwayne Bowe heading into Sunday’s game. Wade also served as the Chiefs primary punt returner. In his absence, RB Dantrell Savage took over the primary punt return duties. Savage has since moved into the first position on the depth chart at that position.

Obviously, with six receivers on the roster, each player cannot be active. Technically all six could have been active, but the 45-man gameday roster would certainly suffer in other areas should Haley have decided to keep all six “up.“

With that in mind, let’s take a look at each of the roles that receivers other than Wade serve on the Chiefs roster.

*WR Dwayne Bowe - Chiefs #1 receiving target.
*WR Chris Chambers - Team obviously wanted to see what they had when Chambers started just five days into his Chiefs tenure. Kansas City ended up getting two TDs from him.
*WR Lance Long - After an impressive Chiefs debut before the bye week, the Chiefs appeared ready to take an extended look at Long. The result was a game-high 11 targets and a team-high eight receptions.
*WR Terrance Copper - Hands down, the most valuable special teams performer on the Chiefs roster. Copper plays a role on nearly every special teams unit.
*WR Mark Bradley - Had served alongside Wade as the Chiefs second option in the receiving game. Chambers obviously got a look at that role on Sunday.

Based off of the obvious, it looks like the final active wide receiver slot came down to a battle between Wade and Mark Bradley. Last week, Bradley won out. This week, we’ll see if Wade returns to the Chiefs receiving core.

TAILBACK TUSSLE
November 10th – 6:09 AM

The two-back system (or maybe even three) appears to have arrived in Kansas City. The stork officially made the delivery overnight on Sunday. Call it what you may, though most tag the concept as “Running Back By Committee.” The end result is that rushing the football is no longer a one-man show in Kansas City.

“Going forward, it will probably be more of a running back by committee,” RB Kolby Smith said. “It won’t just be totally on one running back’s shoulders.”

We received a sneak peak of the concept on Sunday, albeit a small one. The Chiefs only ran the football a total of 12 times between their three running backs – Smith, Jamaal Charles and Dantrell Savage. The three runners spilt carries at a near perfect ratio in relation to their perceived slot on the depth chart. Charles led the team with six carries, while Smith toted the football four times and Savage rounded out the bunch with a pair of rushes.

“I like the [rushing] average especially from Jamaal and Kolby,” Chiefs head coach Todd Haley said. “When they have a four-plus average [per run] I think that’s a pretty good sign. I think they did a really good job in blitz pickup. I don’t think I called enough runs. The game kind of dictated it. We were getting in a bunch of run formations and we were getting heavy pressure and I probably let that dictate some of my decisions too much.”

Overall, the Chiefs threw the football 39 times and ran the football on just 14 coactions when a pair of QB Matt Cassel scrambles are added to the total. Kansas City’s pass-run ratio finished at nearly a 4-1 clip. Even so, that small window was still enough to give both Haley and Chiefs fans a glimpse at what the Chiefs rushing attack will look like as we embark upon the coming weeks.

“I think the guys came out and competed and I was really happy for Kolby because this was no minor deal that he’s come back from and it’s been a long way back,” Haley said. “There are a lot of different things that a running back has to deal with specifically dealing with live action.

“On Thursday I sent a signal that those running backs were fair game and go knock the heck out of them and our defense gladly did to have them ready,” Haley continued. “But I don’t think until Kolby ran that one down in the Red Zone where [#] 42 almost knocked his head off and Kolby popped up that I knew. That was a good sign. He’s worked really hard and is a good kid and made it through unscathed.”

Haley wasted no time in getting Smith on the field Sunday afternoon. On just the Chiefs third play from scrimmage, Smith found himself in the game, serving as a lead blocker for a Charles run around the right edge. The result was Smith cutting down a blocker in the second level to help spring Charles for an eight-yard gain. Hopefully, the pair will continue to be a nice complement for one another.

When looking across the league, a multiple-back rushing approach may be just what the Chiefs need to improve upon a run game that ranks 24th in the NFL. The Chiefs are the only team still searching for its first rushing score nine weeks into the regular season.

As a whole, the NFL seems to have been evolving into a league where the most successful rushing teams employ multiple runners. Thus far, the Chiefs haven’t been part of that revolution. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as Johnson turned in back-to-back 1,700-yard seasons from 2005-06, but the last season that Kansas City implemented a true two-back rushing attack (not due to injury) was with Tony Richardson and Kimble Anders in 2000.

Utilizing multiple runners, however, is not something that’s new to Todd Haley. Haley guided the Arizona Cardinals to a record-setting offensive season and an NFC Championship by splitting carries between RBs Edgerrin James and Tim Hightower a year ago. Haley’s boss, Chiefs GM Scott Pioli, also saw the Patriots utilize multiple ball carries a year ago when RBs Sammy Morris, Kevin Faulk, LaMont Jordan and BenJarvus Green-Ellis all rushed for 275 yards or more.

Entering 2009, nearly a third of the NFL’s 32 teams were anticipated to use a running back by committee approach. The technique may make fantasy football owners cringe, but the multiple-back approach is widely successful from a reality football perspective.

A year ago, three of the top four rushing teams featured runners that shared their club’s rushing duties. All four teams made the playoffs.

Here’s how the top four looked following the 2008 season…

1. N.Y. Giants (2,518 rushing yards) – Brandon Jacobs (219-1,089); Derrick Ward (182-1,025); Ahmad Bradshaw (67-355).
2. Atlanta Falcons (2,443 rushing yards) – Michael Turner (376-1,699); Jerious Norwood (95-489)
3. Carolina Panthers (2,437 rushing yards) – DeAngelo Williams (273-1,515); Jonathan Stewart (184-836)
4. Baltimore Ravens (2,376 rushing yards) – Le’ron McClain (232-902); Willis McGahee (170-671); Ray Rice (107-454)

And how does the league look halfway through the 2009 season? You guessed it…the top four teams are filled with multiple runners shouldering the rushing load.

1. N.Y. Jets (1,421 rushing yards) – Thomas Jones (149-704); Leon Washington (72-331)
2. Tennessee Titans (1,288 rushing yards) – Chris Johnson (144-959); LenDale White (56-198)
3. N.Y. Giants (1,250 rushing yards) – Brandon Jacobs (151-617); Ahmad Bradshaw (103-515)
4. Carolina Panthers (1,224 rushing yards) – DeAngelo Williams (149-768); Jonathan Stewart (87-384).

We’ll see how the final numbers shake out, but the trend doesn’t seem to be changing.

A switch to the “running back by committee” approach certainly won’t be an overnight fix for the Chiefs rushing game, but it can’t hurt either. Although the sample size was extremely small, early returns showed a better rushing product last Sunday. There is now true competition for carries in a backfield where playing time is up for grabs.

Let the hot hand (or legs) take the cake. That’s how it’s supposed to be anyway.