Warren Moon and a couple of former KC Chiefs quarterbacks, Rich Gannon and Trent Green, were on a CBS Sports TV show on Monday. I saw some quotes from the show and Moon brought up something I wanted to mention: the Chiefs are missing Eric Berry.
“I think there’s enough blame to go all the way around because that explosive offense that started off the season like gangbusters just came to a halt like five weeks ago…This is a team that is not playing together. They lack leadership. We saw what happened with Marcus Peters and his eruption. They really need some leadership back there. They really miss Eric Berry being a part of this football team, both on and off the field.”
I agree completely. Not just about the Peters part but especially the Eric Berry part. The Chiefs miss Eric Berry. There’s no way around it.
I don’t like bringing up the topic of leadership because it can happen in so many different ways and mean so many different things that we just end up guessing who is a leader and who isn’t but the one bit of leadership we can actually see is who is leading them in the middle of the pregame huddle and that was usually Eric Berry. He oozes leadership.
Look at what happened in 2014, the only other season the Chiefs didn’t make the playoffs under Andy Reid. They were 7-3 before Berry went out for the season in that Oakland game — an 0-10 Raiders team — and then the Chiefs lost four of six and missed the playoffs.
This year, the Chiefs did have a great start despite the Berry injury in Week 1 so we may have forgotten about how big of a loss he was. Things are starting to fall apart again without him.
I think the loss of Berry has probably been understated, especially after the Chiefs had the hot start without him. I don’t know that it’s an excuse for what has happened to the Chiefs this season but it’s certainly part of it.