Are the 3-0 Chiefs for real?
 

http://fifthdown.blogs.nytimes.com/2...IXNEWS&ei=5099

Is it safe to believe in the Chiefs?

Kansas City won 6 of 41 games entering 2010, and has already reached half that total this season. In the 1990s, Arrowhead Stadium was one of the toughest places to play: Kansas City’s 63 home wins in the decade was one behind San Francisco. Now? Arrowhead Stadium has again become a house of horrors. The Chiefs were the biggest underdog to win in Week 1, and in Week 3 they covered by 30.5 points against the 49ers.


It’s tempting to dismiss the Chiefs’ victories so far – one, in driving rain against San Diego and two against bottom-dwellers Cleveland and San Francisco. But the Browns held a fourth-quarter lead in Baltimore this week, and the 49ers outgained (and arguably outplayed) the defending Super Bowl champion Saints last week. At some point, a 3-0 record is a 3-0 record. Or is it?

A total of 108 teams, including three this year, have started 3-0 since 1990. But the Chiefs are just the sixth team to do so after winning no more than four games the season before. A quick review of the first five teams:

2006 Saints: The Katrina Saints went 3-13, playing without a home for the entire season. But they followed that up with one of the best off-seasons in league history, adding Coach Sean Payton, QB Drew Brees, RB Reggie Bush, RG Jahri Evans and WR Marques Colston. The Saints won their first three games, led the league in total offense and reached the N.F.C. championship game. The core of that team would help New Orleans win Super Bowl XLIV three years later.

2002 Panthers: Carolina lost its last 15 games in ’01, and George Seifert hasn’t coached a game since. The Panthers brought in John Fox from the Giants to replace him, and Fox has been in Charlotte ever since. The Panthers drafted Julius Peppers with the second overall pick, and he teamed with Kris Jenkins, Mike Rucker and Brentson Buckner to give Carolina one of the game’s best front four. The Panthers lost their next 8 games after their fast start, but won 4 of their last 5 in 2002 and won the N.F.C. championship game in ’03.

2001 Chargers: San Diego’s offense in 2000 was so bad that …. Ryan Leaf was the quarterback, and the passing game was the team’s strength. San Diego’s 3.03 yards-per-carry average in ’00 remains the lowest by any team in the last 15 years. In the off-season, the Chargers passed on the chance to draft Michael Vick and traded down to grab LaDainian Tomlinson. That bolstered the running game, and CB Ryan McNeil and DE Marcellus Wiley helped make the defense respectable. Doug Flutie replaced Leaf at quarterback, and took advantage of a soft schedule to guide San Diego to a 3-0 start. It turned out to be a mirage; San Diego finished the year 5-11, and didn’t post a winning record until 2004.

1999 Rams: St. Louis’s face-lift in 1999 would make anyone jealous. The Rams drafted WR Torry Holt, traded for RB Marshall Faulk, signed QB Trent Green and picked up OC Mike Martz. After Green went down with a knee injury in the preseason, Kurt Warner was inserted as the quarterback. Paired with LT Orlando Pace and WR Isaac Bruce, Faulk, Holt, Warner and Martz helped form the Greatest Show on Turf, one of the game’s greatest offenses. St. Louis outscored its first three opponents, 100-27, and continued to outscore just about everyone the rest of the year. The defense and special teams benefited when two second-year players, London Fletcher and Az-Zahir Hakim, took on more prominent roles. St. Louis completed the transition by winning the Super Bowl that season, after going 4-12 in 1998.

1995 Rams: The Lame Duck Rams went 4-12 in 1994, their last season in Anaheim. Jerome Bettis had a marvelous rookie season in ’93 for Los Angeles, but averaged just 3.2 yards on 319 carries in 1994. QB Chris Miller struggled to complete passes (54.6%) and win games (2-8 record). Playing the first half of the 1995 season in St. Louis’s Busch Stadium, the Rams got off to a 4-0 start, although only one of those wins came by more than one score. The Rams didn’t commit a single turnover in the first month of the season, another sign that they might not be as good as their record. Isaac Bruce was the breakout player of the year, recording the second-most receiving yards in N.F.L. history (1,781). But five of his six biggest games came in St. Louis losses, and the Rams ended the year 7-9. One reason for the breakout year by Bruce was the addition of a new wide receivers coach in the off-season: Mike Martz.

Where does Kansas City fit into this model? In case you didn’t follow their off-season moves, the Chiefs:

1) Raided the Southeastern Conference’s all-star team, drafting S Eric Berry (Tennessee), WR/PR/KR/RB Dexter McCluster (Mississippi) and CB/KR/PR Javier Arenas (Alabama) in the first two rounds. All three have played a big part in Kansas City’s turnaround through the first three weeks. Iowa rookie TE Tony Moeaki has 12 receptions and two touchdowns already (the video of his sensational catch Sunday is at the top of his post).

2) Took veterans from three A.F.C. rivals, signing RB Thomas Jones from the Jets, C Casey Wiegmann from the Broncos and RG Ryan Lilja from the Colts. The three have helped turn the offense into a power-rushing team when the mood strikes. To help the passing game, Kansas City brought in Charlie Weis as the offensive coordinator.

The Chiefs have used great special teams, a stingy defense and a big-play offense to get their three wins. Dexter McCluster took a punt back 94 yards for a score against the Chargers, and he and Arenas have scared opposing special-teams coaches every week. Jamaal Charles had a 56-yard touchdown run that provided a key spark against the Chargers, has had a 20+ yard reception each of the past two weeks, and is averaging an absurd 7.0 yards per carry so far. Matt Cassel threw touchdown passes of 31 yards and 45 yards to McCluster and Dwayne Bowe against the 49ers. Meanwhile, steady Thomas Jones has rushed for over 80 yards in each game this year.

As for the defense, Tamba Hali has 3.5 sacks, Brandon Flowers is becoming one of the game’s top corners, and Derrick Johnson and Glenn Dorsey are playing the way former first-round picks are supposed to play. Kansas City’s most impressive feat to date? Holding opponents to 31 points in three games, before a garbage-time touchdown as time expired at the end of last week.

One thing, though ….

Last year still matters.

Yes, certain teams turn it around, but in general, 3-0 teams that have won a lot of games the previous year tend to win more games. A total of 105 teams from 1990 to 2009 started 3-0, but how they played the rest of the year was highly correlated with how they played in the prior season.

# Tms Wins Playoffs
<5 5 8.4 40%
5--7 21 9.8 62%
8 17 10.8 76%
9--10 25 11.0 92%
11--12 24 11.1 71%
>12 13 11.3 85%

The Great Jamaal Charles

Charles had one of the wildest second-half splits in league history last season, rushing for 968 yards and gaining 6.01 yards per rush in the final eight games. But to the dismay of his fantasy football owners this season, the Chiefs’ coaching staff has used him as a change-of-pace back. Charles seems sure to get more carries as the season progresses, though, based on his production so far. He’s one of just 12 players since 1970 to average at least 7 yards per carry, minimum 30 carries, through his team’s first three games:

Player Year Team Rsh Yds Y/A TD
Tiki Barber 2000 NYG 41 326 7.95 4
Norm Bulaich 1971 BAL 33 261 7.91 1
Robert Smith 1997 MIN 39 308 7.90 1
Tony Dorsett 1981 DAL 56 423 7.55 1
Charlie Garner 2002 RAI 32 240 7.50 2
Correll Buckhalter 2009 DEN 31 230 7.42 1
Michael Turner 2006 SD 30 221 7.37 1
Jamal Lewis 2003 RAV 68 496 7.29 4
George Rogers 1983 NO 34 248 7.29 2
Essex Johnson 1973 CIN 47 342 7.28 2
Tony Collins 1983 NE 43 312 7.26 3
Jamaal Charles 2010 KC 34 238 7.00 1

Nope, this has all been a Priest Holmes dream.

Chiefs are legit this year. But their schedule that isn't as difficult as others surely helps.

Well, they're real people.

They play a real sport. There's real contact and hitting.

They play in a real stadium.

REAL people come to watch the team.

Yep, I'd say they're pretty real to me.

If they beat Indy I will profess my love to Haley and will beg him to tell me to **** off. Then I will ask him to autograph the wife's boobs.

You need to have a talk with the wife. Word around here is that he not only autographed, but tatooed them ta-tas ROFL

If he wins the bowl he can do .......

For Real?

Well the record is for real... But this is a young, young team... Who know where it will go from here.

But you cant help but be excited about the direction of this franchise and the way the team is playing right now. Again, who knows how the season will play out, but the future in KC is bright!!!

The biggest difference this year is the quality of our coaching. Even our good teams of the 90s/early 00s had Achilles' heel ****tard coaches (Raye, Stock, Robinson, Gunther II, Marty in the Playoffs, etc.). I like to think the current group would be smart enough to cut Elliot, start Gannon over Grbac, or have Greg Robinson quietly killed, sealed in a barrel and dumped into the Missouri River.

Dude must have turned off his TV with 3 seconds remaining.

If I was SF GM I would have fired Singletary after that game.

Seriously I would have.

Why....WHY would you call 3 TO's in the last min or so when you're down
31-3??? What on earth makes anyone think you can come back? You're risking someone getting injured just so you can "end the game with something positive". And waddya know, the last play of the game one of their WR's got hurt. Don't know the extent, I think he ended up being ok, but after seeing that, I would've fired his ass.

It was almost like a few yrs back we played STL Rams and were winning 31-14 and it was the last play of the game, instead of Bulger taking the knee, Scott Linehan thought it would be a good idea to thrown one last long ball to Kevin Curtis. We played a shell 2-deep zone and Sammie Knight waited and was lickin' his chops and he just completely destroyed Curtis on the last play. Shit like that should get some of these HC's fired on the ****ing spot.

The defense is semi-legit but the offense has been getting by on gimmicks. The O-line can't blow anybody off the ball consistently in the power game, Cassell isn't a dropback passer, and without all the high school type misdirection stuff they would have nothing. Wanna see what the offense is apt to look like in week 10 go back and watch them play against a team that had all offseason to study them - week 1 againt S.D. Sooner or later teams will figure it out and the Chiefs offense/Cassell will implode, just like McDouche's 6-0 offense imploded last year in Denver.

It is a fluke. KC is riding getting all the breaks and playing a poor Cleveland team, a san diego team that has always been Norv'd early in the year and an imploding SF team. KC will be like the donkeys last year once the breaks quit going on their way and they get away from camarohead.

Three missed field goals?

How the **** do miss that last one? ROFL

****in ouch.

Shit happens he was probably partying all night in Scottsdale and got some strange pussy and mixed her drink up with his and drugged himself. Still doesn't change that KC is a pretender though. Winning on trick plays and kick returns will end.