Babb: Chiefs realize West could have been won
 

Chiefs realize West could have been won
By KENT BABB
The Kansas City Star

Damion McIntosh will be paying attention Sunday night. That’s when two teams he thinks the Chiefs should have — and, more important, could have — beaten will play for the AFC West title.

He’ll be rooting for Denver over San Diego. McIntosh said he doesn’t like the Chargers’ style.

“It’s cockiness,” said McIntosh, the Chiefs’ right tackle. “Like they deserve to be there.”

Whether San Diego deserves the division title or not, it will have a chance the Chiefs might have been a few victories, and maybe a few players, from contending for. If the Chargers beat the Broncos on Sunday night, they’ll win the division with an 8-8 record.

The Chiefs, 2-13, enter this weekend with five fewer victories than San Diego, but seven of Kansas City’s 13 losses have been by seven points or less. And at the end of a season in which the AFC West is stumbling through its most winnable year ever, that leaves a particularly bitter taste in the Chiefs locker room.

“If we could have won just six of those games,” veteran cornerback Patrick Surtain said. “Yeah, you think that way, especially when you see a team that’s 8-8 going to win our division. I don’t think any amount of veterans would have helped us; we’ve just been snake-bit for some reason. It’s been that kind of year. It kind of hurts.”

What hurt the Chiefs most was their head-to-head contests against those teams atop the division. Kansas City beat the Broncos at Arrowhead Stadium in week four. But three weeks ago, the Chiefs blew a halftime lead to Denver a week before blowing another halftime lead to San Diego, the Chiefs’ second one-point loss to the Chargers this season.

Those kinds of games left players in bad moods for many reasons. Now that it’s clear a few more victories might have included the Chiefs in the division-title conversation, some players don’t even want to talk about it.

“That’s wishing,” backup defensive tackle Ron Edwards said. “I don’t wish. I don’t hope. Hope is for next year.”

The Chiefs have been playing for next year almost as soon as this year began. They underwent a massive rebuilding movement that coach Herm Edwards estimated this week is nearly complete. He said another offseason that includes signing the right free agents and being smart on NFL draft weekend might put the Chiefs in next year’s playoff chase, a year earlier than Edwards predicted before this season.

Edwards lobbied last offseason for the Chiefs to abstain from signing major free agents, instead preferring to shift playing time to the team’s many youngsters. Edwards has said the Chiefs will be better for it in the long run. Then again, that was before a team with a losing record was one win from winning its division.

Edwards said this week he will not be haunted by speculation that the Chiefs could have contended with a few more experienced players and some better luck. He said he would have liked to win more games this season, but that’s all but over now.

One of Kansas City’s few veterans, left guard Brian Waters, said the parity in the AFC West is a good sign for next year’s Chiefs. He said after the Denver loss that he thought Kansas City was as good as any of its division opponents.

He was asked about that statement this week, and Waters said he still thinks the Chiefs weren’t far this season from being competitive.

“We’re not as bad as our record may look,” he said. “You look at the way we played against Denver, you look at the way we played against San Diego, and you tell me that we’re that much worse than either one of those two. I mean, seriously.

“One or two players, one or two plays — where they come from, where those plays come from, that’s essentially what this football team has got to learn.”

Maybe it was San Diego’s preseason pick as a Super Bowl favorite that stuck in McIntosh’s mind. Maybe it was that, even when the Chargers were all but eliminated from playoff discussions, they kept coming back.

Maybe McIntosh isn’t over the fact that the Chargers twice beat the Chiefs this season, the last time with quarterback Philip Rivers throwing a go-ahead touchdown pass and running up the field at Arrowhead with his hand raised.

Or maybe it’s that the Chiefs just couldn’t win when they most needed to, and now they’ll be watching a pair of mediocre teams playing Sunday night for a division title the Chiefs were never close to.

“It’s boiled down to this now,” McIntosh said. “It really doesn’t matter because they’re both our foes. It’s wide open. We could’ve had that opportunity if we were able to pull out some of those games. But it leaves a bright spot for next year. We can win this division. We’re getting there.”

Coudl have, should have, but 2-13 says, not even ****ing close.

When you're 2-13 mulling over how you "could have been there" is frankly laughable.

GTFO Herm!!! :cuss:

In truth .. they were in over half their games but couldn't finish them ...

That is the NFL today, even bad teams don't get blown out very often.

These guys are ****ing brainwashed and delusional as hell.

That's on Herm. His psychology sucks ass.

[QUOTE=Claythan;5327816]These guys are ****ing brainwashed and delusional as hell.QUOTE]

Frankly that is a good thing. They think they can win and should win every game they go into. What Herm has done attitude with these guys is pretty impressive. They go out and play hard every single week even though they are 2-13. You can blame a lot of stuff on Herm but not how he has handled his players mentally and emotionally this year.

[quote=Rigodan;5327821]They think they are good enough to win the division. They're not even ****ing close.

We have a team full of Stuart Smalley mother****ers being led by the King of Daily Affirmations.

Maybe if someone had told Herm he had to pay some ****ing dues in the college ranks and wasn't qualified to be a head coach the Jets and Chiefs could have avoided wasting the better part of a decade.

Jesus ****ing Christ. We're the Kansas City Chiefs, and we're good enough, smart enough, and gosh darn it, we could have won the division this year!

Hell, with that attitude, no wonder assclowns like Pollard are still making the same mistakes three years after they were drafted.

But yeah, it's a good thing.

[QUOTE=Rigodan;5327821]hey! don't come out here with your optimism and positivity and shit.... ok?

6 ****ing games from winning the division. 6 and this is what's written?

Good lord almighty. I can't wait until this team is rid of this horrible aftertaste called Herman Edwards.

Where the hell does Babb come from?

Is he the new KCCHIEFS mouthpiece?

Aside from Wier, this guy has the most non-insightful, non-meaningful articles EVARR!

Puh-lease! A column about how we "should have, could have made it" when we are 2-13 and quotes from MacIntosh and Ron Edwards? ROFL

What a friggen joke.

THis is an insult on the citizens of your great city.

I'm glad he wrote it.

He exposed the locker room for being the delusional sons of bitches they are.

It's disgusting.

Babb is not a great writer as far as I'm concerned.