The Chiefs ended the worst season in their 49-year history in the only fitting way -- with one of their worst performances of a 2-14 season, a 16-6 loss at Cincinnati in which they averted a shutout in the final minutes.
To be sure, there were bigger blowout losses in the final season of the 20-year reign of Carl Peterson as the club's top executive. But losses of 34-0 to Carolina and 34-10 to Tennessee came against elite playoff teams. There was nothing elite about Cincinnati, 3-11-1 coming in and playing without several of its top defenders and both of its top receivers, Chad Ocho Cinco and T.J. Houshmandzadeh.
Facing the NFL's worst offense, Kansas City's woeful defense saw the Bengals hold the ball for 21 1/2 minutes in the first half, and 37 1/2 minutes for the game. The Bengals scored on three of four significant first-half possessions and had 239 yards total offense at the break to the Chiefs' 50.
Offensively, Kansas City crossed midfield briefly (to the Bengals 47) on its first possession, then didn't get into Cincinnati territory again until the last play of the third quarter. And that required a personal-foul penalty.
In a final fitting end to the season, the Chiefs got within scoring distance on a 32-yard, Tyler Thigpen-to-Dwayne Bowe pass to the 1 with four minutes left in a 16-0 game. It then took seven snaps before Kansas City could score on a 5-yard pass to Tony Gonzalez. In that span, the Chiefs lost a touchdown on a fourth-and-goal, offensive-pass-interference call against Bowe, then got new life when Gonzalez was held in the end zone.
After the game, disgruntled running back Larry Johnson talked about wanting out of Kansas City, and you had to believe he wasn't the only one needing a moving van.
After his team lost 23 of the last 25 games since the midpoint of 2007, coach Herm Edwards has a bleak-looking future with a new, as-yet-unhired general manager coming in from outside the organization to replace Peterson. Even Gonzalez, a 10-time Pro Bowl player frustrated earlier this season when Peterson couldn't accommodate his request to be traded, wondered if he'd played his last game with the Chiefs.
"I feel like we always play to the level of our competition, and that's no disrespect to the Bengals," Gonzalez said. "We've gone out there against teams that are going to the playoffs and played them really well, put up points. For some reason we couldn't put up points against a (32nd-ranked) defense that didn't have a lot of their starters out there.
"It doesn't make sense to me."
