2007 KansasCity Chiefs

The Chiefs looked like a completely different team in 2006 with out Dick Vermeil or Al Saunders on the sidelines. With them left their high octane offensive system which dominated secondaries for years. There was no more Priest Holmes scoring touchdowns left and right and no more Willie Roaf leading the charge up front. And now Trent Green, the beloved Chiefs signal caller who Vermeil and Saunders depended on to deliver down the field bombs nearly every series is gone with the rest of them.

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Herman Edwards, like a girl friend moving in to your apartment, came in a rearranged the furniture overnight giving the Chiefs a much more conservative offense focused on eliminating turnovers by keeping the ball on the ground and controlling the clock. He also infused more toughness into a defense who’s forte was formerly to come up with turnovers as opposed to being a hard hitting consistent unit. Edwards’ old school approach got the new-look Chiefs into the postseason, but an embarrassing first round loss to the Indianapolis Colts showed this team that they have a long ways to go.

The Chiefs’ old attack under Vermeil allowed them to pull off more upset wins because their offenses allowed chances for big plays. You rarely see the Chiefs taking shots down the field now as Edwards doesn’t want to turn the ball over. Depending on the Chiefs’ position on the field, Vermeil would throw it up with the thinking that an interception would be like a punt. Herman Edwards has resisted a gamblers mentality from day one turning running back Larry Johnson into a workhorse and installing a scheme which preaches to avoid turnovers at all costs. This scheme can be very successful if you have the right personnel, especially on the defensive side of the ball as we saw in Baltimore last season, but these teams haven’t had the most success in the postseason in recent years.

Herman Edwards will once again infuse his unchanging philosophy on defense into the Chiefs with extreme confidence in 2007. For a guy that is so conservative offensively, he is very aggressive with his defenses, blitzing nearly every down. Adding linebackers Donnie Edwards and Napoleon Harris and defensive tackle Alfonso Boone help the Chiefs take another step in the direction of Edwards’ dream of having a top notch defensive unit.

You can tell that Edwards believes in his system by the way he went after players this offseason on the defensive side of the ball. He has a blend of youth and experience to build off one another and to emerge into one of the game’s better defenses and some of the perennial top notch units are starting to succumb to age and injury.

The books have set the Chiefs win total number at 8 wins for the upcoming season and you’ll be laying heavy juice to take the under. So we’ll gladly play the value taking the over here as we had the Chiefs chalked up for a 9-7 season from day one.

By Jeff Alexander – 7/12/2007

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