From the FanPosts. -Chris

Wait, another one?

Oh yes. When I make promises, I keep them. That’s why I’ve decided to finish this trilogy off right, making it all about the quarterback. Well, sort of. While I did decide to name this threequel Punt, Pass, & Kick as a tribute to the youth skills competition, I also did it to recognize the quarterback, the most important position out on the field, and to acknowledge the two most underrated and underappreciated positions on the field, the punter and kicker (even though Minnesota Vikings Punter Chris Kluwe already beat me to that).

While this installment will analyze only three main positions, I do expect this post to be longer than my previous two pieces, Will Chiefs Records Be Broken and Will Chiefs Records Be Broken Part II: Defensive Edition, which were 1,018 words and 1,179 words respectively. Let’s see how it goes as I continue to try to be the next Joe Posnanski of football statistics.

First off, let’s start with the punter here in KC, Dustin Colquitt. Since he was drafted in 2005, Colquitt has been one of the more consistent punters in the NFL. He is in second place in just about every punting category (all five of them that I could find), usually behind the late and great Jerrel Wilson. Wilson has 46,139 total career punt yards (which is good for thirteenth in NFL history), and 44,218 of those yards came in the fifteen seasons Wilson spent with the Chiefs.

In only six seasons though, Dustin Colquitt has close to half of Wilson’s punt yards with 21,410. I think that since Colquitt will only be getting better as he goes on, he will probably either break or come close to Wilson’s record as long as he stays healthy (although, I don’t think him reaching that record would actually be a good thing for us…). Colquitt also has 485 total punts to Jerrel Wilson’s 1,018, which is a record that Dustin could also realistically break if still healthy.

The next position we’ll look at is kicking, where Ryan Succop is very close to breaking the top five in pretty much every category. The one particular stat that I’ll pay close attention to, however, is total field goals made, where Succop is in sixth place with 45. This puts him behind Nick Lowery (329), Jan Stenerud (279), Pete Stoyanovich (93), Lawrence Tynes (68), and He Who Shall Not Be Named (49).

Field goal kicking is a pretty consistent stat, so as long as a team has a good kicker they should be able to get about 18-25 field goals in every year. It all really comes down to whether Ryan Succop is our guy for the next decade, and I believe he is. He had a great rookie year and had a solid year last year as well, so I think as long as Succop continues to improve and make field goals for us he should be able to pass up Stenerud and come close to Lowery without too many problems.

So here we go. Without further ado, here is the very last section of the Chiefs records saga. This last section is all about the passing game, where we’ll look at quarterback Matt Cassel. Matt is in eighth place in passing yards (6,040), seventh in passing touchdowns (43), eleventh in interceptions (23), and eighth in passes completed (533). I’ll go ahead and break these down further, starting with passing yards.

In front of Cassel in passing yards is Len Dawson (28,507), Trent Green (21,459), Bill Kenney (17,277), Steve Deberg (11,873), Mike Livingston (11,295), Elvis Grbac (10,643), and Steve Bono (6489). Now, the reason why Matt Cassel breaking records is such a big question is because there are still many people that continue to question Matt as our quarterback here in KC. Some people have embraced him, while others still do not seem so impressed.

In my opinion, Cassel has proved that he has plenty of heart and is an extremely hard worker, and I truly believe that he is our guy. He has shown flashes of being a great player. He has also shown times where he can be not so good, but I think the bad stuff will improve with the addition of better wide receivers and new quarterbacks coach Jim Zorn.

So, as far as I can tell, Matt will continue to improve and will play great throughout the rest of his contract, which I believe has four more years. If we keep him beyond that is anyone’s guess though, because he will be 33 at the end of his contract and Scott Pioli might want to go young. But after the next four seasons, I think Cassel has a pretty good shot to beat out Bill Kenney for third place in passing yards. After all, Cassel has averaged 3020 yards per season here in KC, so if he does that in the next four seasons then he will have 18,120 total yards. This feat is definitely possible, and if he improves further and has a couple great seasons then I can see him challenging Trent Green’s record, especially if he stays longer than four seasons.

As far as passing touchdowns go, Matt is in a very similar situation that he is in with the yards. The top three in passing touchdowns are once again Len Dawson (237), Trent Green (118), and Bill Kenney (105). Cassel drastically improved his touchdown – interception ratio this past season, and if he can continue to get at least 20-25 passing touchdowns per season over the next four seasons, he will definitely beat Bill Kenney for third place and will even pass up Trent Green for second. Matt is basically in the same exact situation for passes completed as well, likely beating out Kenney (1330) for third and challenging Green (1720) for second.

The last statistic that I’ll look at is the ultimate negative stat: the interception. This is a record that we all hope Matt will not break. Last season, Matt cut his interceptions in half, going from 16 in 2009 to only 7 in 2010. If Matt can stay under 14 interceptions per season for four seasons, which seems pretty reasonable, then he should be safe and won’t even crack the top four, where Len Dawson (178), Bill Kenney (86), and Trent Green (85) lead once again, with Mike Livingston barely trailing in fourth with 83.

So I think we can determine one thing from this post, and that is Len Dawson’s records will remain untouched for quite some time here in KC.

But even though Matt Cassel likely will not reach Dawson’s records, I do think he is good enough to get top three in these categories (the positive ones), and that’s all I need out of him. If he can improve and put together consistent good seasons with periodic greatness, then that will be enough for him to take us to the Super Bowl. After all, we have plenty of other record breaking players ready to back him up when the time comes.