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THE MORNING AFTER – SAN DIEGO, PART II
November 30th – 6:00 AM

If there wasn’t an NFL precedent for what turnovers can do to a football game, there certainly is now. The Chiefs were a blue print for turnover turmoil on Sunday at Qualcomm Stadium.

The Chargers turned three Kansas City turnovers into 21 first half points to put, what began as a competitive game, quickly out of reach. The scoring impact of two fumbles and an interception was certainly uncharacteristic for the Chiefs. Kansas City had entered Sunday’s game the Chiefs had allowed opponents to score just 23 points off giveaways, a mark that ranked behind only Baltimore (13), New England (17) and Indianapolis (21) in the NFL.

San Diego more than doubled that total yesterday when they added their 28th point off a turnover after a high snap to begin the second half. At one point, the Chargers scored 14 points off turnovers in less than 30 seconds.

“Pretty simple in this game, in my opinion,” Chiefs head coach Todd Haley said. “We turned it over four times and that translated into 28 points that we can’t overcome.”

The Chiefs four turnovers yesterday were a season high. Coupled with the three giveaways in the team’s October 25th meeting with San Diego, the Chargers have accounted for nearly half (seven of 15) of Kansas City’s total offensive giveaways this season.

“If you turn the ball over, it’s going to get out of hand quick, which is exactly what happened” Haley said. “At the end it’s ugly.”

The Chiefs would like to forget both of their seasonal meetings with the Chargers from 2009 as San Diego has squashed Kansas City momentum in both meetings. In the two teams’ first meeting, the Chiefs were riding high after their first victory of the season in Washington – San Diego squashed that good feeling with a 37-7 win. This week, the Chiefs entered the ballgame winners of their last two games and fresh off a victory over the defending Super Bowl Champions – San Diego squashed that good feeling 43-14.

“I didn’t have any disillusions that we all of a sudden went from one thing to another,” Haley said. “It is a process of improving, but I did feel we were making progress. But today, it didn’t show.

“I looked at this game to kind of an opportunity to see where we were,” Haley continued. “We came off a very big win against a good team, we had the Thanksgiving week to deal with and then play the division leaders.”

For whatever reason, San Diego has crashed Kansas City’s party on two occasions this season – with authority. The team may be the hottest in the league at the moment and Kansas City truly ran into a buzz saw at Qualcomm Sunday afternoon.

Sunday was definitely one that we’d all like to forget, but that’s not the way it works. Let’s “Take 5” from yesterday’s Chiefs/Chargers game in San Diego.

Charles’ Day Clouded
Sunday further yielded hints as to just how special RB Jamaal Charles may be. Charles made a handful of runs that are as top-notch as any in the NFL. His ability to literally run around defenders is paralleled by few at this level of play. Charles established a career high with 147 yards from scrimmage (93 rushing, 54 receiving). Those 147 yards represented 51.8% of the Chiefs total offensive output (284 total yards).

Unfortunately, one play cast a cloud on Charles’ otherwise impressive day.

“We were in a groove and moving the ball until I turned over the ball,” Charles said of his second quarter fumble. “That’s one thing that I can’t do. I tried to spin out of the tackle and coach told me to never spin. They just ripped the ball out.”

Charles’ fumble came as the Chiefs were putting together a solid second quarter drive the looked like it might end with TD to tie the score at 14. Instead, San Diego capitalized on Charles’ fumble to go up 21-7 and then snowballed that score with another TD just under a half-minute later on a Matt Cassel fumble. Unfortunately, Charles’ fumble represented a bit of a turning point in the game. Things just got worse from that point on.

“It was about to be a good game, but it just turned around fast when I turned the football over,” Charles finished.

The fumble represented Charles’ first since coughing up the opening kickoff on October 4th vs. the N.Y. Giants. He had done an excellent job of keeping the football secure since taking over the club’s feature running back role three weeks ago.

However, even after that critical fumble and the boulder that followed it Charles’ head coach took notice of Charles’ impressive overall day.

“This Jamaal Charles is without a doubt, minus the fumble which really hurt us, is showing that he can be a pretty good back,” Haley said.

Redemption Sunday
There was no redemption for the Chiefs as a team on Sunday, but on a personal level WR Chris Chambers had a nice game against his former employer. Chambers led the Chiefs with seven catches for 70 yards and a touchdown and tied the game at 7-7 early in the second quarter before the Chiefs turnover barrage began.

At one point there was quite an individual battle going as Chambers and Chargers WR Malcom Floyd (the player the ultimately pushed Chambers out of San Diego) were going catch-for-catch on consecutive series’. Floyd finished the day with three receptions for 85 yards.

“Chris is a bright spot for us,” Haley said. “He’s a guy who has assimilated himself into the team fairly quickly. He’s a professional, was beat up a bit going into this and made some plays for us early to keep it a game. It appeared he did what was asked of him to give us a chance to win.”

Chambers may have turned in a nice day and done what was asked of him on Sunday, but that was no consolation to the former Charger. As once familiar San Diego news outlets approached him in the locker room yesterday, Chambers was not smiling.

“I wanted to come out and get a victory, that was the main thing,” Chambers said.

His seven catches were a season high and almost matched his total over seven games in San Diego earlier this year (nine catches). Still, that wasn’t enough at the end of the day for Chambers.

“I had three weeks to kind of prepare for this, get in a rhythm and learn the offense” Chambers continued. It started off well and we had opportunities, but we didn’t get the job done. Hats off to them, they’re really going full steam ahead right now.”

Chiefs fans are certainly happy that Chambers is a member of their team as opposed to the Chargers. His shallow crossing pattern for a touchdown and dart to the corner shows that he’s more than just a deep threat.

Zone Soft-Spots
Chargers TE Antonio Gates turned in a seven-catch, 118-yard performance that included two touchdowns. Gates was the biggest part of San Diego’s offense on Sunday and beat the Chiefs on plays that have been all too familiar this season.

Kansas City’s defense has been hurt by solid tight end play throughout the season, primarily around the hash marks from about eight to 20 yards downfield. Tight ends Todd Heap, Heath Miller and Gates all exploited this area of the field in chunking the football through Kansas City’s defense.

The area of the field behind the linebackers and in front of the safeties is typically a vulnerable part for zone drops, but the area has seemed to continually affect the Chiefs throughout 2009. Typically the gap to hit targets in this area closes quickly, but for Chiefs defenders it hasn’t.

“We have to look at the tape, because there are some things that we had been doing better to give ourselves a chance to keep that from happening,” Haley said. “Give them credit, they looked like they executed pretty well. Too many guys were running open.

“Antonio is obviously a very good player and if not the best, one of the best, tight ends in this league,” Haley continued. “You’d like that player not to be a big part of beating you.”

Head Scratchers
Two of Kansas City’s four turnovers were serious head scratchers. Both of these fumbles, one of which resulted in a TD, came on high shotgun snaps from C Rudy Niswanger. Niswanger is typically one of the most technically and fundamentally sound Chiefs offensive lineman week-in and week-out. The two high snaps were extremely surprising.

“I’ve not seen a problem with Rudy until today,” Haley said. “Clearly there were a couple of those that really hurt us. To this point, that’s something that I’d never seen as an issue with Rudy. They kind of came out of nowhere.

“He’s a standup guy and he’s willing to take on anything,” Haley continued. “We’ll look at it, see what was going on and if we put him in a compromising spot or what the deal was.”

Sure enough, Niswanger didn’t shy way from the media waiting to talk to him at his locker following the game. He also seemed at a loss for words as to what exactly happened.

“I don’t know (what happened),” Niswanger said. “It’s one of those things where I haven’t seen it on replay and I don’t know what happened. To say would be speculating. Whatever it is, I’ve got to fix it, go back to work and be better going forward.”

Keeping It Simple
The message can be delivered a number of ways and there are plenty of areas to be analyzed from this game, but S Jon McGraw might have summed up the day’s entirety best in just 23 words.

“They beat us in every phase of the game,” S Jon McGraw said. “It’s frustrating not being able to build off of what we did last week.”