ChiefsPlanet - Chiefs Teicher: Chiefs encouraged by Thigpen; cancel meeting with Culpepper

Chiefs encouraged by Thigpen; cancel meeting with Culpepper
By ADAM TEICHER
The Kansas City Star

Tyler Thigpen didn’t realize just how much things had changed, how much he had changed, until he reviewed the video Monday.

He saw himself throwing darts in the previous day’s 28-24 Chiefs loss to the Jets at the Meadowlands. Absent were the balls sent zipping off to nowhere. In their place were on-target throws that frequently beat good coverage.

One of the more vivid examples of Thigpen’s dramatic improvement came on his 19-yard touchdown pass to Tony Gonzalez in the first quarter. Gonzalez was covered by both cornerback Dwight Lowery and linebacker Calvin Pace, but Thigpen’s throw went where only Gonzalez could get it.

That’s the type of play, Thigpen only now realized, he couldn’t have made before.

“A couple of weeks ago, I wouldn’t have even tried to throw that one to Tony,” Thigpen said Monday. “I wouldn’t have had the confidence. That play was a big difference for me.

“I know I’m here for a reason. If I wasn’t good enough to play or didn’t have the talent, I wouldn’t be in the National Football League. So it was just time to trust my instincts and just go out and play just like it was backyard ball.”

Suddenly, the Chiefs’ need to sign Daunte Culpepper to stabilize their quarterback play doesn’t seem as urgent. The Chiefs were planning to meet this week with Culpepper, a three-time Pro Bowler, but the visit was abruptly canceled, a move that could end the talks between the quarterback and the team.

It’s coincidence, probably, that the conversation between Culpepper and the Chiefs was scrapped in the hours after Thigpen delivered the team’s best-quarterbacked game of the season.

There’s real danger in making a judgment based on one game, good or bad. Sunday’s game against Tampa Bay at Arrowhead Stadium will be a better test for Thigpen. The Bucs, second in the NFL in scoring defense and fifth in yardage, are much stronger defensively than the Jets.

“It gives you some hope that the guy can continue to play like that, that he’s going to get better,” coach Herm Edwards said. “And you’ve got a guy who’s consistent at the quarterback position. I don’t think we’ve started two games with the same guy starting at quarterback yet. So that gives you that stability. Now hopefully he can go out there this week. The problem this week again is he’s playing one of the better defenses in football.

“I think that helps you when you get a guy who plays the way he played. You go, ‘Wait, wait, this guy did pretty good.’ I think he gave everybody some confidence, not only himself but also the team.”

Even when Culpepper’s signing with the Chiefs looked probable, he would have needed at least a week or two before he was ready to play. Thigpen could have made the Chiefs’ eventual decision to bench him a difficult one.

“He did a good job, he really did for his second start and playing against a pretty good defense on the road,” Edwards said. “He didn’t do everything right. But for his second time starting, I think he did a pretty good job. He moved the team, he moved the ball. That’s progress. From his last game, he got better.”

Thigpen said he only realized the Chiefs were talking with Culpepper on Monday after reading something about it on the Internet.

“I’m going to worry about the things I can control,” he said.

The way he plays falls under that category. Thigpen entered the Jets game having completed 42 percent of his passes with two touchdowns and four interceptions.

His passer rating, a complicated statistical measure of a quarterback’s efficiency, of 44.3 was the lowest among the 34 NFL quarterbacks with enough pass attempts to be ranked.

Against the Jets, Thigpen was 25 of 36 (69 percent) with two touchdowns and no interceptions. His passer rating was 110.9, which is higher than that of the NFL’s season leader, Philip Rivers of San Diego.

Thigpen searched for an explanation for this startling transformation but didn’t hit on one he liked until he stumbled on this one.

“Something,” he said, “just clicked.”

The Chiefs can only hope.

“I knew what to expect and was more comfortable in the situation,” he said. “It was my second start and really like my third start because the Oakland game was pretty much a whole game.

“The biggest thing is that I didn’t turn the ball over. I was really just trying to keep the chains moving. It’s better to hit the 5-yard pass than throw a 50-yard go-route that’s out of the guy’s reach. It’s so much better seeing the ball complete and knowing you’ve given the receiver a chance to do something with it.”