Teicher: Chiefs’ decade ending on a dark note

[Tribal Warfare]

Chiefs’ decade ending on a dark note
By ADAM TEICHER
The Kansas City Star

The Chiefs had their shining moments in the first 10 seasons of the new millennium. They won an AFC West title, qualified for the postseason as a wild-card entrant another time and for a time possessed a dazzling collection of offensive stars that almost weekly put on a stunning display.

But this decade will be defined by how it’s ending, and that’s with one of the darkest periods in franchise history.

The Chiefs last Sunday played their final home game of the decade in front of their smallest announced crowd (53,315) in 17 years. The actual attendance was something smaller but those hearty souls watching the Chiefs lose to the Cleveland Browns 41-34 were the only ones in Kansas City to witness the game. The Chiefs for the first time since 1990 failed to sell enough tickets to avoid a local television blackout.

It took a couple of seasons for it to happen, but declining fan interest finally caught up to the decay on the field. The 2009 Chiefs are 3-11 heading into today’s game at Cincinnati, giving them five wins in their last 39 regular-season games.

The Chiefs are in their first year under general manager Scott Pioli and head coach Todd Haley, but the change in administration has made no difference on the field. The Chiefs are showing few signs of life, and all indications are that it will be awhile before the Chiefs are again competitive and Arrowhead Stadium is consistently full.

The decade was one of the most tumultuous in club history. The Chiefs lost two of the franchise icons. The first was nine-time Pro Bowl linebacker Derrick Thomas, who died in February 2000 of complications from injuries he received in an auto accident.

The other was Lamar Hunt, who founded the franchise in 1960 as the Dallas Texans and three years later moved them to Kansas City, where they were renamed as the Chiefs. Hunt, a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, passed away in December 2006 at the age of 74. He was succeeded by his son, Clark.

The Chiefs changed head coaches four times and general managers once. They found the right combination only once, in 2003, when their high-scoring offense carried them to a 13-3 record and their only AFC West championship of the decade.

But the Chiefs lost their playoff game 38-31 to Indianapolis at Arrowhead Stadium.

The Chiefs also made the playoffs as a wild-card entrant under Herm Edwards in 2006, but from there the program decayed quickly. Years of lousy drafting finally caught up to the Chiefs and led to last winter’s ouster of president/general manager Carl Peterson and Edwards.