Indianapolis – The thing about being presented with a gift, sorry Herman Edwards, valiantly fighting your way into the NFL playoffs, is that, once there, the idea is to try to take advantage of the opportunity.
However, after a record-setting, mind-numbing offensive stupor, the Kansas City Chiefs didn’t have time to look a gift-horse in the mouth. Instead, there was only flinching, recoiling and cowering in the corner from a 23-8, not-as-close-as-it- looked beatdown Saturday from the Indianapolis Colts.
“They really handed it to us,” Chiefs guard Will Shields calmly said afterward, his placid demeanor perfectly in keeping with a performance that made the Colts’ defense, heretofore regarded as one of the worst in NFL history, look like the 1985 Bears.
Indianapolis entered the game allowing 173 yards rushing per game. In Week 14, Jacksonville ran for 375. Two weeks later, former Bronco Ron Dayne had a career-high 153. After that, the thinking went, the damage done by the Chiefs’ Larry Johnson, the league’s second-leading rusher, might have to be measured in miles instead of yards.
Who could have envisioned this Larry Johnson playing like Grandmama, or at least a man who picked a strange time to realize that he’d already carried the ball 416 times this season? Or for the Chiefs to finish the first half with 16 yards total offense? Or for the visitors to become the first playoff team since 1960 to not gain a first down in a half? Or to wait until 3:30 remained in the third quarter before moving the chains for the first time?
“Everybody likes to judge by stats,” Indianapolis defensive end Dwight Freeney said. “It’s a shame. ‘Dwight Freeney had a bad year, the Colts can’t stop the run.’ None of that matters. You can’t let that kind of talk sink in. It’s playoff time.”
Actually, there may have been one person in the stands at the RCA Dome who could appreciate Saturday’s Bizzaro World proceedings – Chicago Bears coach Lovie Smith, who showed up to lend support to both competing coaches, the Colts’ Tony Dungy and the Chiefs’ Edwards.
Dungy said he had dinner with Smith on Friday night and there was a lot of talk about defense. What’s unknown is when Smith cornered Peyton Manning and convinced him of the merits of becoming the second coming of Rex Grossman.
Manning threw three interceptions in finishing the game with a very pedestrian 71.9 passer rating. Even more perplexing was the fact that two of his picks came when he and wide receiver Marvin Harrison, the duo who supposedly have more meaningful games of catch than Ray and John Kinsella ever did in “Field of Dreams,” actually got their signals crossed on pass patterns.
“Kind of rare,” Manning said. “In nine years I can’t think of how many times that’s happened.”
The early stages of the game had a very Broncos-49ers feel to it. Indianapolis marched down the field in its first two possessions – reaching the Chiefs’ 1-yard line on the second – but had to settle for field goals. And just as Denver’s futility ultimately ended its season, it seemed the Colts may have been on their way to an unexpected, premature finish when Ty Law returned Manning’s first interception to the Indy 9.
However, on first down, Johnson ran for 6 yards. On second he picked up one more. On third down, quarterback Trent Green tripped on an offensive lineman’s foot coming out from under center and lost 5 yards.
Then place-kicker Lawrence Tynes bonked his 23-yard field-goal attempt off the left upright.
“That changed the entire game right there,” Shields said.
Even when the Chiefs managed to make it a one-possession game, drawing to within 16-8 at the end of the third quarter, there was only the illusion of an actual contest.
Indianapolis responded with a touchdown march of its own, sending the Chiefs scurrying to finalize the vacation plans they had expected to be making a week ago.
When K.C. got the ball back, Green was intercepted. The Chiefs had two more possessions in the period and turned it over both times.
Edwards brayed early in the week that, despite the unlikely scenario of Denver, Tennessee and Cincinnati all losing at home to pave the way, his team had earned its spot in the playoffs. However, there was another comment by the coach that proved to be more prescient – that it took the Chiefs at least a couple of days to believe that they truly belonged in the postseason.
That may partially explain why the team handled everything so poorly. At one point in the pre-game lead-up, Edwards also said he’d have no problem benching Green, who missed much of the season with a concussion, for backup Damon Huard. That certainly couldn’t have helped Green’s confidence and may have led to the starter looking over his shoulder as the evening went on.
But even Edwards couldn’t lay the Chiefs’ egg off on Green.
“Trent had 18 plays in the first half. That’s hard for anybody,” Edwards said. “We couldn’t pass, we couldn’t run, we couldn’t do anything.”
Anthony Cotton can be reached at 303-954-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com.
