The 1-17 Chiefs found a new way to lose, again. Herm Edwards had issues with time outs, again. Maurice Leggett has big error, again.

Chiefs 19, Chargers 20

I actually thought the Chiefs were going to pull it out. I’ve had to keep my excitement down the last two seasons, otherwise I probably would’ve had a heart attack with the Chiefs losing 17 of the last 18 games. But against my better judgment, I thought we might have a chance to start a POSITIVE streak for the great Herm Edwards by winning two in a row at San Diego.

But Herm’s team did what Herm’s team does best: gives you just enough hope to think you have a chance before brutally ripping your heart out and stomping it on the floor.

Kansas City’s Mike Cox gets his first NFL carry with the game on the line? That makes sense.

The Chiefs offense has done jack the last three second halves in a row. Why? Could it be the other team can make halftime adjustments?

The Chiefs played hard and competitive for three games? Big deal. They’re professionals, they’re SUPPOSED to play hard and be competitive.

I wonder how Brodie Croyle might have done using an offense that compliments a quarterbacks skills like the Chiefs are running now?

Time Outs

Once again Herm has issues with time outs.

At 0:26 in the 4th quarter against Tampa Bay, Herm cleverly stops the clock to give Tampa a chance to catch their breath and call a good play. The strategy fails as Tampa Bay catches their breath and calls a good play. Chiefs lose.

At 3:53 in the 4th quarter at San Diego, with Rivers sacked, no timeout is called and 40 seconds run off the clock.

At 2:24 in the 4th quarter with the clock ALREADY STOPPED, Kansas City calls a timeout.

Luckily for Herm, THIS TIME, those gaffs did not cost the Chiefs the game, but it’s nice to see Herm polish his timeout skills for a later time when it WILL cost the Chiefs a game (you know, like last week).

Don’t take my word for it, Len and Mitch could not believe the mishandling of the timeouts.

Herm blew the Jets game with the three running plays, blew the Bucs game with the timeout, and almost blew the final drive with more wacky timeout mismanagement.

Herm also almost blew the Broncos game with the spineless play-calling on the two first and goals with no attempts at the end zone, settling for field goals.

This is Herm’s main problem, he is a horrible game-day decision maker. Even if we make the playoffs next year, what has he done to show you we won’t screw it up (i.e. Colts ’06)?

Just because the team has played hard for three straight games does not erase the fact that he is 1-17 in his last 18 games. Just because the sun shines on a dog’s ass once in a while, doesn’t mean he knows how to use time outs.

We wouldn’t even be in this position if Herm wasn’t so desperate that he let Chan Gailey call plays the way that Chan can. Before the Jets game, would you have known Mike Solari really was not with the team anymore?

The Chiefs have talent, but what they are missing is competent leadership. Most of the other bad teams last year opted to replace their loser coaches and start new quarterbacks, but the Chiefs thought they should keep the winning coach/QB combo that worked so well in ’07. Good call!

So while Atlanta, Miami, Baltimore and the New York Jets (same coach, but new starting QB) keep winning, Detroit, Oakland and the Chiefs keep losing.

Herm “I’m an Opponent of Moving the Ball” Edwards has driven this team so far into the ground, that anything they do now seems like an improvement. A leopard can’t change his spots, and Herm is still a douche.

Going for Two

Edwards hinted after the Patriots game he might have ordered the Chiefs to try for a two-point conversion had they scored a touchdown in the final moments.

From the KC Star 9/9/08:

On Monday he said he’d already made up his mind that they would have.

“Absolutely,” he said. “We wanted to win the game. I just felt that at that point, you’ve got to go for two. There was no question in my mind. I already knew the play we were going to run and it had a chance to go.”

Edwards, of course, wouldn’t disclose what the play was.

JD: Is the Patriot 2-point play the same as the Charger 2-point play? Because that looked like a mess. If you ran a different play for the Chargers, why not use the mysterious Patriots play? Since it “had a chance” to go.

As for the decision to go for two against San Diego, coaches, like quarterbacks, get far too much credit for wins and far too much blame for losses sometimes. What that means is it’s a great call if it works, it’s a terrible call if it fails.

I think the question should not be “Should they go for two?”, but “Why did they run a stupid roll-out play that cut off half the field?”

Here is another observation that hasn’t been talked about a lot. It took three plays to get a touchdown from the 1-yard line, yet the Chiefs thought they could get it in on one try from the 2-yard line?

Joe Posnanski

Last week after the Tampa game, Mr. Posnanski wrote this:

POSNANSKI: “Herm Edwards kept insisting that his team was playing with intensity. You know one surefire way to tell that a team is not playing especially hard? When the coach has to keep telling you how hard they’re playing.”

This week, the headline of Mr. Posnanski’s column was:

“Chiefs Are Making Strides Under Edwards”
11/10/08
JD: So, last week the team wasn’t playing hard for Herm, but this week Herm’s doing a good job? Really? If Herm’s doing such a good job, why were they not playing hard?

I posed this query to Mr. Posnanski, but alas, he did not respond. What a surprise.

Maurice Leggett Gaff Watch

#31 Priest Holmes, I mean Maurice Leggett, for the third week in a row, has been involved in crucial plays that cost the Chiefs the game.

Against the Jets, he whiffed on a punt return tackle that the Jets returned to the 50-yard line setting up their game-winning drive.

Against the Bucs, he was right there blowing the coverage on the Bucs game-winning touchdown.

Against the Chargers, he had a big pass interference penalty on San Diego’s game winning drive.

The same people that think Herm deserves 37 more chances are also the same people that think Leggett should be benched. That makes sense.

Hermisms

Q: Are all these injuries you’ve suffered just bad luck or it something conditioning-wise?

EDWARDS: “You don’t know why that happens. We’ve just had a rash of them. Most of them we know can get healed. We know they will come back; it’s just a matter of when they come back.”

JD: For someone who “knows what he is doing”, Herm sure answers “I don’t know” a lot. I wish I would’ve kept track of how many times he doesn’t know why things happen because it seems to be at least once a week. Yep, definitely someone you want to keep around and fix things.

Q: What do you do at practice this week? Do you go lighter?

EDWARDS: “They’re in condition. They’re well conditioned. That’s not the problem at all. When you go through practices with only so many bodies it can be counter-productive on game day because of the rest factor. They’re in condition and it doesn’t have anything to do with conditioning at all.”

JD: Herm’s “3-Speak” returns, where Herm mentions “condition” four times (instead of the normal three) in five sentences. I’m going to guess the Chiefs injury bug is “condition” related.

Q: What makes you adjust how you ready a team for a season? Some said Marty worked them too hard, this other guy was too soft. What do you look at? Not tough enough or too tough?

EDWARDS: “These (injuries) are coming in week eight and week nine. That has nothing to do with the season. It’s a little bit of bad luck, I guess. It happens and you don’t why. You always research and wonder why other teams have no one hurt. I’ve gone through seasons where no one gets hurt. This is just one of those years right now.”

JD: Second time this press conference Herm doesn’t know why something happened. Who knows why bad things happen to the Chiefs and they aren’t winning? I guess it was just bad luck that made Herm call that timeout against Tampa.

Q: Is (Larry Johnson) your starter?

EDWARDS: “He’s going to be in the mix.”

JD: Here comes the Hermy Shuffle where he does a little dance instead of just answering the F’N question. This is why a lot of people, like me, can’t stand Herm “I Know That” Edwards. Herm has to play elusive and mysterious on issues that really don’t require it. Larry hasn’t played in a month, he’s NOT starting. Why is it so F’N hard to say that?

Q: How was Gunther on the sideline during this? (dealing with rookies & defensive helmet microphones)

EDWARDS: “The worst thing that happened to him, and we talked about it at the owner’s meeting, was the helmet to defensive players system. On offense it goes to the quarterback. On defense you only have two. We talked at the owner’s meeting what if two guys get hurt on defense who are wearing the microphones? Then what do you do?”

“Well, the rule is that’s it. You don’t get to use the helmet anymore. You’re out of luck. Well, guess what? It happened to us. Sure. So, Gun is screaming at the equipment guy, almost having a heart attack hollering at the guy, ‘get the microphone in this guy’s helmet now.’ I had to walk over and say, ‘Gun, it’s against the rules. You can’t do that.”

JD: I would have loved to have been on the sideline to see Gunther screaming at the equipment guy.

Will the Chiefs finally get over the hump and put a team away, or will they find yet another way to lose. Tune in next week!