ChiefsPlanet - Chiefs Babb:Chiefs plan to keep development of young players as high priority

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Chiefs plan to keep development of young players as high priority
By KENT BABB
The Kansas City Star

With the bitterness of Sunday’s home loss to the Raiders still lingering, the Chiefs might have every reason to change course, tie down the sails and do whatever it takes to make certain that doesn’t happen again.

But they’re not.

The NFL’s youngest team is going younger still, and coach Herm Edwards said Tuesday that development of the Chiefs’ youngsters is this season’s objective — and that’s not changing.

“This is definitely the right way,” Edwards said, more matter-of-fact than defiant. “The plan is to develop young players, give them the ability to play, and win with them. That’s the plan.

“But we’ve got to play better. We’ve got to do a lot of things better.”

Edwards ticked down the list of some of those things during his weekly news conference Tuesday — completing passes, stopping the run, scoring off turnovers — and said the Chiefs have committed to building the team through young players, and there’s no going back now.

The Chiefs will add an additional rookie to their starting lineup Sunday at Atlanta when Brandon Carr will start at cornerback in place of veteran Patrick Surtain, who’s out with a shoulder injury. Although it can — and occasionally does, mysteriously — change at a moment’s notice (see: quarterback), Kansas City will have at least eight players in Sunday’s starting lineup in their first or second NFL seasons.

There will be more if second-year quarterback Tyler Thigpen starts over Damon Huard. Edwards said Huard (he has a head or neck injury, depending on the source) had improved. But the coach wouldn’t say whether Sunday’s starter would be the 35-year-old veteran or the second-year passer without a start to his name. Edwards will announce that today, and the plan for this week, anyway, is to stick with that quarterback for all four quarters.

“We’re really thinking to be more decisive with the quarterback; let the guy who plays quarterback play quarterback,” he said. “If something should happen, then maybe you put the other guy in. But we’re thinking about, right now, just letting one guy play.

“Every week is a new journey.”

It certainly was the first two weeks. The Chiefs played four men at quarterback the first two games, three of them against Oakland.

Edwards said Tuesday he is frustrated but not surprised by some of the young Chiefs’ early-season hiccups. He said the team needs more discipline, such as defensive linemen staying with their assignments instead of breaking out of them, as they did at times Sunday, while trying to make a big play.

That prevented Kansas City’s linebackers from making tackles, kept rushing lanes from closing, and allowed the Raiders to rush for 300 yards despite having a young quarterback with his own problems.

Then the Chiefs have to score with some consistency. That hasn’t happened yet.

“We’re scoring about nine points a game,” Edwards said, “and that ain’t good enough in any league.”

Edwards said throughout the preseason that there would be good games and bad ones, highs and lows while the Chiefs rebuild and develop a young team. While they wait on some of those highs, the Chiefs are mired in their franchise-worst losing streak, 11 consecutive regular-season games, and hoping some of those youngsters progress quickly.

The coach said Tuesday that he compared this past Sunday’s loss to the one Kansas City suffered at Miami during the preseason. The Dolphins romped, 24-0, against the Chiefs. Edwards sat in the visitors’ locker room at Dolphin Stadium that night and shook his head.

He said that week that, sure, there were times he questioned whether rebuilding was the right move — whether the reality of losing was more painful than the anticipation of a few bumps and the idea that, hey, it won’t be that bad, will it?

Edwards reminded reporters Tuesday that the Chiefs won that next week, and the coach stopped thinking about whether the staff made the right decision. He said he hopes the Chiefs respond in similar fashion this week.

But whether this past Sunday was rock bottom or a sign of things to come, Edwards said the plan will not change.

“We’re going to have to let it go. There’s nothing you can do,” Edwards said of the Oakland loss. “It’s disappointing that it happened. Now you’ve got to clean it up.”