Week 10 @ SD			Week 14 @ DEN
Offense	Defense		Offense	Defense
WR 82 D.Bowe	LDE 91 T.Hali	*	WR 82 D.Bowe	LE 91 T.Hali
LT 76 B.Albert	LT 93 T.Tyler	*	LT 76 B.Albert	RT 72 G.Dorsey
LG 54 B.Waters	RT 72 G.Dorsey	*	LG 54 B.Waters	RE 94 J.Babin
C 64 R.Niswanger	RDE 70 A.Boone	*	C 64 R.Niswanger	MLB 56 D.Johnson
RG 73 A.Jones	LOLB 59 D.Edwards	*	RG 74 W.Smith	OLB 50 R.Boiman
RT 77 D.McIntosh	MLB 55 P.Thomas	*	RT 77 D.McIntosh	CB 31 M.Leggett
TE 88 T.Gonzalez	ROLB 50 R.Boiman	*	TE 88 T.Gonzalez	LCB 39 B.Carr
WR 83 M.Bradley	LCB 39 B.Carr	*	TE 87 B.Cottam	LT 93 T.Tyler
QB 4 T.Thigpen	RCB 31 M.Leggett	*	WR 81 D.Darling	RCB 24 B.Flowers
TE 87 B.Cottam	SS 49 B.Pollard	*	QB 4 T.Thigpen	FS 44 J.Page
RB 25 J.Charles	FS 44 J.Page	*	RB 27 L.Johnson	SS 49 B.Pollard

What a difference in only five weeks.

The Chiefs have been battling tons of injuries all season long and they seem to have slowed down a bit over the past few weeks. Even still, this weekend the Chiefs will likely field seven starters that did not start against the Chargers in Week 10. The starters who did play in Week 10 who may not play this weekend are bolded in the table above.

WR Mark Bradley is fighting a stingy calf injury that has kept him out the last two weeks and much of the game against the Buffalo Bills.

Center Rudy Niswanger again injured his knee in Week 13 and will likely be done for the year.

G Adrian Jones fully participated in practice yesterday after missing four games with a sprained ankle. He'll likely start actually, if Wade Smith moves to center to replace Rudy Niswanger.

RB Jamaal Charles started in place of the inactive Larry Johnson in Week 10. Larry will get the starting nod this week.

LBs Pat Thomas has missed the last four games and Donnie Edwards has missed the last three. Thomas participated fully in practice yesterday and Edwards was limited. Interestingly enough, the Chiefs only listed two linebackers in their starting line up last week.

DE Alfonso Boone has up to last weekend been starting for the Chiefs in the latter half of the season. He's a player who you never hear about anymore.

The Chargers will likely face seven or so new starters on the Chiefs' team that they didn't face in Week 10. That's one third of the starting lineup.

Advantages of having the new starters? Disadvantages? What new starter makes the most difference, good or bad?

And the bottom of the AFC, and possibly even the bottom of the NFL.

I compare this loss to last year's second loss to Denver on December 9th. We were dealt a demoralizing blow by a division rival who isn't even good. No use suffering too much over this loss so let's jump right in. DJ has his take on the game coming up in just a bit so make sure you check back.

Lack of a Strategy

There was little to no organized plan by the Kansas City Chiefs coaching staff going into this game. The schizophrenic offensive attack of recent practice squad member Marques Hagans, Damon Huard, a completely unprepared Tyler Thigpen and an uninspired Larry Johnson was a complete dud for the Chiefs on Sunday.

The need to get Jamaal Charles the ball more, which Herm Edwards mentioned earlier this week, was completely ignored. Charles was handed the ball three times and caught only one pass. I'm still at a loss for an explanation for this.

Along with getting Jamaal Charles the ball more, how about getting it to Larry Johnson a few more times than twelve for the entire game? I'm puzzled by this one.

Dwayne Bowe, who caught six passes for 90 yards, was far and away the most productive player on the field. Tony Gonzalez caught a touchdown and five passes but never really factored into the "rhythm" of the offense. There was no varied attack employed really at any point during the game. Again, poor planning in my opinion.

Finally, Marques Hagans' entrance and play during the game felt weird. Is this a Herm Edwards offense? It felt like Herm was trying to show how off how experimental he can be but he never pulled it off.

Too invested in the youth movement

I have repeatedly mentioned in the previous weeks my extreme skepticism of Tyler Thigpen's ability to play quarterback in the NFL. That skepticism was confirmed yesterday as a confused Thigpen passed for 151 yards (14/33) and one interception. The major issue I had with that move was that Thigpen was completely unprepared for yesterday's game, much like the Chiefs' offensive strategy. I know he's the third string quarterback but at the very least you need that player to know the nuances of the position and read defenses. Thigpen did none of that yesterday and should have, really should have had at least two interceptions, if not more.

The problem with experimenting so heavily with the quarterback is that position is one of the few if not the only positions that can negatively affect the rest of the entire team. Again, I know that the Chiefs' hand was forced into playing Thigpen but I am making the argument that his roster spot alone is a serious personnel mistake. He shouldn't have been in there in the first place.

Savage Inactive

So, how do you like B.J. Sams? Dantrell Savage was inactive and since I haven't heard any other reason to suggest why he was, it seems like the Chiefs are starting to prefer B.J. Sams in the kick return game. Who knows, Savage could be active next week and Sams could sit. Whoever plays, the Chiefs special teams attack is boring. We will fight bad field position all year long and it will hurt us every game.

Rush defense has become a major problem

See, the Oakland Raiders actually watched the last few Chiefs games it appears and found out that if you want to, your team can run all over this defense.

The Raiders dominated, completely dominated the line of scrimmage. Oakland topped 300 yards rushing on 47 attempts. Check out the balance of this attack, which likely would have been worse if Justin Fargas had not left the game with an injury early in the first half.

The final numbers for Oakland were Darren McFadden (164 yards); Michael Bush (90 yards); and Justin Fargas (43 yards). Talk about letting anyone and everyone run over your defense.

Let's take a quick look back at how teams have fared on the ground against our defense, starting with Week 1 of the 2007 season.

Turk McBride was injured yesterday and walked off the field under his own power. I haven't heard anything on him but I do know that the backups at defensive end are weak. Alfonso Boone is an alright replacement but I had a hint of a feeling that McBride was on the path to exciting things this season. I hope he's back soon.

You can't say much more than it was a total failure by all parties when a team gives up 300 yards rushing.

Special teams led by Pollard

Two fumble recoveries and a knack for almost blocking many a punt has made Bernard Pollard the player on special teams. Pollard also chased down a speeding Darren McFadden to make a last ditch tackle and forced a fumble out of bounds. Unfortunately, the Chiefs' offense went three and out after the first recovery and then Thigpen threw an INT on the second possession after the fumble recovery.

Bright spots

Dwayne Bowe made those of you who bad mouthed his talent last week look bad this week. 45 of Bowe's 90 yards receiving came on the team's only scoring drive. His 30-yard catch down the sideline in the 4th quarter was the catch of the NFL season, without question.

If I'm going to rag on the rush defense I might as well point out that the Chiefs defense held the Raiders passing attack to 55 yards. Although I suspect this was about 25% effort by our guys and 75% because the Raiders' passing offense is worse than ours.

Should rebuilding be this painful?

No, it should not be. To a certain degree you can blame this loss on the inexperience at many key positions but I believe that most of the blame for this loss is on the coaching staff. As I've mentioned before, what was the plan of attack on offense? Why weren't there adjustments made to stop the Raiders' rushing attack? 233 of their rushing yards came in the second half.

Last week, when Brodie Croyle was injured, I finally found myself admitting that he likely wasn't the quarterback of the future in Kansas City. It had taken a long time for me to do that in face of a lot of evidence to the contrary and I'm nearing that point with Herm Edwards. I need to see some improvement and not total breakdowns. Herm needs to stop repeating the same mistakes everyone always says he makes.

The Basement

The Raiders suck and we suck even more. NFL teams have shown in the past how quickly they can turn things around but I'm skeptical with this group.

More so than any other feeling, I'm confused by yesterday's loss. What were the objectives on offense and defense to stop the Raiders? What were the conversations happening between the coaching staff? Why are there seemingly no logical explanations for a lot of what happened yesterday?

I don't know about you but I'm more than ready to start talking about the New England Patriots and the start of the regular season. Last night, Larry Johnson and Tony Gonzalez didn't play. Brodie Croyle was in the game for sixteen plays, only attempting four passes within that period. The Rams made similar personnel decisions - the majority of what will be their regular season starters did not play.

In other words, this Kansas City Chiefs team will not resemble the one that will take the field two Sundays from now at 12 o'clock.

Regardless, here's quick rundown of what happened last night.

Offense

The Chiefs rolled in the first half and most notably in the first quarter. After halftime, the offense was basically a no-show.

Calling the offense a no-show isn't a criticism. This was the final half of a painful preseason and I'm sure everyone on the field, aside from the bubble players, were ready to leave at any time.

The running game was the most pleasant surprise of last night. Jamaal Charles, Jackie Battle and Kolby Smith all ran the ball effectively. Smith scored two touchdowns in the first quarter on runs of fourteen and four yards. Get used to Chiefs fans saying Jamaal Charles is fast. Charles zigged and zagged his way past a number of Rams defenders on his way to rushing for 43 yards on six carries.

One stat that makes me overjoyed to see was the thirteen rushing first downs versus the three passing first downs. Usually, the ratio has been reversed.

Defense

The defense was able to force two turnovers, one on a big hit delivered by Bernard Pollard and the other on a fourth quarter interception by DaJuan Morgan. Nothing about the play of the defense was especially spectacular. The game leaders in the box score are all second to third string players. Like with the offense, the Chiefs starting defense didn't spend much time on the field.

Kicking Game

Connor Barth kicked two successful extra points and Nick Novak kicked one. Both made all of their attempts and I suspect had their been another touchdown scored by the Chiefs, Novak would have come in and kicked that point after. It appeared that the coaching staff was going to rotate the kickers as opportunities arose. The race for the starting spot is still a dead heat. And Nick Novak has just been announced as the Chiefs kicker in Week 1. Barth will be put on waivers.

It's finally time to look forward to a meaningful, regular season game.

We'll be monitoring the cut situation throughout the day and the weekend so stay tuned.

Sorry about the downtime earlier this morning. Everything should be good now.

With the news that the Falcons signed quarterback and #3 overall pick Matt Ryan to the tune (Why does that phrase exist in connection with signing contracts?) of $74 million, with $34 million in guarantees, that naturally makes us Kansas City Chiefs fans curious as to what our own top five draft pick will garner.

Take a look at the table below, which lists the last five top defensive tackle picks and their contract information. It also lists the contract information for the previous five #5 overall picks. Remember - it's all about the guaranteed money. Also, keep in mind that these aren't exact numbers. There is no comprehensive list (The USA Today contract database is a great resource but doesn't list full contract amounts) that I can find, so I relied mainly on newspaper reports for my contract information.

Year	Rd	Sel #	Player	School	Team	~Maximum Value	Guarantees
2007	1	10	Amobi Okoye	Louisville	Houston Texans	$17.6 million	$12.785 million
2006	1	12	Haloti Ngata	Oregon	Baltimore Ravens	$14 million	$9.3 million
2005	1	16	Travis Johnson	Florida State	Houston Texans	$10.2 million	$7.77 million
2004	1	14	Tommie Harris	Oklahoma	Chicago Bears	$9.8 million	$6.9 million
2003	1	4	Dewayne Robertson	Kentucky	New York Jets	$54 million	$13 million
***	***	***	***	***	***	***	***
2007	1	5	OT Levi Brown	Penn State	Arizona Cardinals	$62 million	$18 million
2006	1	5	OLB AJ Hawk	Ohio State	Green Bay Packers	$37.5 million	$16 milion
2005	1	5	RB Cadillac Williams	Auburn	Tampa Bay Buccaneers	$31 million	$15.1 million
2004	1	5	S Sean Taylor	Miami	Washington Redskins	$40 million	$13 million
2003	1	5	CB Terence Newman	K-State	Dallas Cowboys	$33.4 million	$13 million

As a baseline, we know Glenn Dorsey will get at least $13 million in guarantees because that's how much 2006's first-taken defensive tackle Amobi Okoye, who was the #10 overall pick no less.

Dorsey's guaranteed money probably lies somewhere around $18 million or so, which is about in line with last year's #5 pick OT Levi Brown. Offensive tackles are going to garner more than a defensive tackle, so, while adjusting for the inevitable increase, I think $18 million guaranteed is a good guess.

Dorsey's agent, Joel Segal (who also represents Kansas City safety Bernard Pollard) of the agency Worldwide Football Inc., is a major NFL agent with a large client list of mid to upper level players. Segal's other clients include Reggie Bush, Michael Vick (I guess he still counts), Alex Brown, Jerry Porter, Will Smith and TJ Duckett as a few examples.

Reggie Bush did sign at the eleventh hour (literally even I think) in late July 2006, so Segal's last major client cut it close to a training camp holdout.

What do you think Glenn Dorsey's contract details will be and do you think he'll be in camp on time?

Poll

Will Glenn Dorsey make it to training camp on time?

62%

Yes

340 votes

37%

No

206 votes

546 votes | Poll has closed

After exhausting all trade possibilities for Greg Wesley, the Kansas City Chiefs will release him.

"They told me after the draft that if they couldn’t trade me before the minicamp, they would release me then," Wesley said, referring to the June 6-8 minicamp. "Since then, they told me they would release me sooner than that.

"This would be great. I feel like I’ll be in good shape as far as getting a job even if they don’t do it until June 1. Some teams have shown a lot of interest in me. There’s not a big supply of safeties. I guess you could say the demand is bigger than the supply, so I’m not worried about getting a job. They’re just waiting for me to be released."

Wesley lost out to the younger crew of Bernard Pollard and Jarrad Page, despite, in my opinion, playing just as well last season as that pair if not better.

Greg Wesley spent his entire nine-year career with the Chiefs, leaving Kansas City with 29 interceptions and 497 tackles.

There was no reason to keep Wesley on with the current conditions of the team, making him less a casualty of his play and more of his age. Arrowhead Addict has a post on Wesley too.

That should be it for me today. Packing and organizing my life before I head out tomorrow is top priority. I'm sure you'll be satisfied with the help I've brought on.

In the meantime, FanPosts, FanPosts, FanPosts. I'll be checking in over the next few days but I'll definitely be around less.