Kansas City Chiefs Rewatch: 2009 week 12 vs Chargers
The Kansas City Chiefs were starting to build momentum after winning back-to-back games for the first time in over two years. Would they make it three straight wins?
Continuing on with my Kansas City Chiefs rewatch series, the week 11 game against the Steelers wasn’t available, making it three games from the 2009 season that I was unable to watch. Two of those three games just so happened to be Chiefs victories too, so it’s a bummer that I wasn’t able to watch two of the Chiefs’ three victories to this point of the season.
Anyway – In my last rewatch, the Chiefs defeated Oakland in the Black Hole and the following week they hosted the Steelers and won in overtime. It was a win that showed the fans that while this team might not be ready to make the playoffs anytime soon, they were slowly turning the corner.
So, let’s see if the momentum carried over into week 12.
Must Read. Chiefs Rewatch: Week 10 vs Raiders. light
WEEK 12 VS SAN DIEGO CHARGERS: NOVEMBER 29TH, 2009
After a slow start by the Bolts, it looked like the Chiefs might be on the right path after their overtime win a week earlier. While the Chiefs might not have scored in the first quarter, they held a high-scoring Chargers team to just seven points.
Chris Chambers was able to extract his revenge on the team that released him with a touchdown reception that capped off a 91-yard drive and tied things up at 7-7. That was about the only good thing that happened in this game sadly, as things went downhill fast after that game-tying score.
This game could have been a competitive one had Kansas City been able to take care of the football. They had four turnovers with all four of those leading to San Diego touchdowns, which is 28 points in case math isn’t your specialty.
The final score ended up being 43-14, so if you subtract the 28 points gifted to the Chargers, it’d have been 15-14 in favor of San Diego. Oh and if you deduct the safety that gave San Diego another two points, the Chiefs would have had a 14-13 win assuming everything else played out the same way.
Sadly, that’s not how this game went down though, as the Chargers capitalized on all of the Chiefs’ mistakes. The positive to take out of this game, however, is that it took four Chiefs turnovers and a safety for San Diego to win this game.
The offensive line played better in this one allowing just one sack on Matt Cassel. They also were finally able to open running lanes and that showed with the run game’s production. They did have their fair share of problems however (see more in the “Remember That Guy” section below).
Also – Jamaal Charles started to show glimpses of the player he’d become for the franchise with 93 yards and a touchdown on 14 carries. He did have a costly fumble, but that was the theme of the day for the Chiefs offense in week 12 of the 2009 season.
When the final whistle blew, the Kansas City Chiefs would fall to 3-8 while San Diego was 8-3 and swept the season series.
REMEMBER THAT GUY?
- The first Chiefs turnover was an interception by Quentin Jammers.
- Charles’ fumble was the second turnover, which was recovered by Brandon Siler, who spent 2012 with the Chiefs.
- Paul Oliver picked up the third turnover, which was a fumble by Cassel. The ball slipped through his hands and Oliver had an easy trot to the end zone.
- The final turnover was because Rudy Niswanger (who had a rough day), snapped the ball way too long and Larry English came up with the pigskin that time.
- Brodie Croyle came into the game and went just one of two for three yards.
- Chris Chambers led the team in receiving with 70 yards off of seven catches. He also had a touchdown.
- Antonio Gates had seven catches for 118 yards and two touchdowns. His dominance against the Chiefs went on for nearly another decade.
I didn’t go into as much detail with this game because there wasn’t much to discuss other than the four turnovers by Kansas City. Turning the ball over four times is bad enough, but the opposition scoring touchdowns on all four turnovers was what killed the Chiefs in this game.
Holding onto the football had been something the Chiefs had been decent at coming into this game (no that’s not a joke), but San Diego just knew how to frustrate KC’s offense I guess. Cassel only threw seven interceptions at this point in the season and he threw four of those picks against the Chargers.
All-Decade Team for 2010s. light. Must Read
At 3-8, the 2009 season was definitely over for the Kansas City Chiefs, but at least there were a few strides for this team.