Five Bad Stats From The First-Place Kansas City Chiefs Victory

We went over five good stats from the Kansas City Chiefs 16-14 victory over the Cleveland Browns so here are a few of the bad ones.

A few of these are criticisms of the team that we've been discussing in-depth so it won't be much of a surprise. And, of course, the usual caveat applies that these mistakes can't be that bad since the Chiefs are 2-0 (even though that's not really accurate).

Here are five bad stats from the Browns game.

Two Interceptions

Whether it was Matt Cassel's fault, the receivers fault, or just bad luck, there were two interceptions on Sunday against the Browns. Winning a game with two interceptions is impressive but not a good recipe to win consistently. The Chiefs offense isn't good enough to overcome a deficit and the defense has been playing very well so avoiding turnovers, and managing field position is critical.

11 Carries for Charles

He had just 11 carries against the Browns. Personally, I think Jamaal Charles needs more carries....

....wait, you're saying we've talked about this particular topic?

We all know the argument about Charles not touching the ball enough. No need to rehash it all again.

One big play is still a big play

Chiefs head coach Todd Haley always talks about avoiding big plays. The last two weeks, the Chiefs have pretty much done that with the exception of a couple of plays. Last week it was a blown coverage that resulted in a Chargers touchdown and this week it was some sort of communication problem that led to a 65-yard Josh Cribbs touchdown reception. This is a hard stat because just one mistake can be so costly.

10-plus play drives ending in field goals

In the second half, the Chiefs had two ten-plus play drives that resulted in field goals and not touchdowns. Now that the Chiefs are showing something by winning two games, they'll need to be able to sustain their success and a good way to do that is scoring touchdowns instead of field goals kicked from the seven. Seems simple, right? The offense hasn't been scoring many touchdowns after long drives and at some point they'll need to do that. It's been good enough for now but I imagine in the future they won't always be able to afford going 60-plus yards a few times and only getting field goals out of it.

Punt and kick returns disappear

OK, I think we were a little spoiled by the performance of Javier Arenas and Dexter McCluster in the preseason and the first week against the Chargers. We expect a big return which simply isn't possible, especially against a solid coverage team like the Browns. This isn't necessarily a bad stat but it's average, and the Chiefs return team is not average.