Adding . . .
Kansas City(Pk) over Tennessee (1*)
- - I like this play better than my initial takes on most of the lines on next week's games, which for me is generally a significant criteria in weighing a play on Monday night.
GL
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Kansas City Star
(12/13/04):
NFL Season is a Sore Subject
NASHVILLE, Tenn. ? There's more than one way to settle tonight's game between two of the NFL's disappointing teams: the 4-8 Chiefs and the 4-8 Tennessee Titans.
They could, and plan to, settle it the old fashioned way with a football game that begins at 8 p.m. at the Coliseum in Nashville.
But perhaps it would be more appropriate for each team to merely tell the sob story of its season. The winner is the side that evokes the most tears.
It might be difficult not to get choked up over what's happened with the Titans. They, much like the Chiefs, fancied themselves as Super Bowl contenders four months ago.
?We felt very good about the team heading into training camp,? Tennessee coach Jeff Fisher said. ?Things started to unravel from that point.?
Fisher specifically referred to Titan bodies. The NFL doesn't keep records for such things, but Tennessee must at least be close to setting one for injuries.
The Titans have three starters plus their kicker and No. 3 wide receiver on the injured-reserve list and out for the season.
This week, they have four other starters and the nickel back who won't play because of injuries.
Seven other starters, including last year's NFL MVP in quarterback Steve McNair, plus the punter, were uncertain to play tonight. A staggering 13 of the 53 players on the active roster missed at least one day of practice in preparation for tonight's game.
The Titans won't exactly trot out the junior varsity tonight, but it might be close.
?We're going to have 11 (players),? Fisher said. ?We know that.
?No one would anticipate having to put that number of players on injured reserve, let alone having to deactivate so many players on a week-to-week basis.?
Linebacker Keith Bulluck said: ?I think we have 43 people we can put on the field. We're putting snappers on the field at linebacker.?
The results are predictable. The Titans are annoyingly inconsistent, having failed to win back to back games this season.
They won't get much sympathy from the Chiefs, who have problems of their own. The Chiefs also have four starters on injured reserve, the latest addition being halfback Priest Holmes.
The Chiefs miscalculated their off-season personnel decisions on defense, so they've got nothing else to blame for those problems. Still, they've found a way to lead or be tied in the fourth quarter of all but one game.
They won only four, in part because of an offense with a penchant for untimely turnovers.
The Chiefs finally snapped a four-game losing streak by winning one of those games 34-27 last week in Oakland.
?I'm optimistic in regards to how we'll play this week,? coach Dick Vermeil said. ?If you can go to Oakland on Sunday and compete against another team ? and play like we did, especially on into the second half and fourth quarter, why should we not go to Tennessee and feel like we can play equally as hard and maybe even better?
?We are what we are right now. We have created our own situations and our own win-loss records. We make no excuses for it. We'd like to finish real strong like anybody else would going into the fourth quarter of the season. We've always valued the fourth quarter of the season and have played pretty well over the fourth quarter of the season the last three years. We would like to believe we can do that again.?
