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The offensive drought spans across the Chiefs four-game losing streak in its entirety.

Kansas City’s only trip to the end zone during its current four-game skid was a one-yard pass from Cassel to FB Le’Ron McClain in the Chiefs 17-10 loss vs. Denver on November 13th.

“We failed to execute once again and I don’t know what the problem is, but we have to get it corrected,” McClain said. “We’re not holding things up on our end.”

It’s easy to second-guess the decision to keep Orton inactive following a night where Palko threw three interceptions and botched an exchange with center Casey Wiegmann, but even Orton indicated his past few days have been a whirlwind.

“It’s difficult not only trying to learn the offense, but trying to get the timing down with everybody,” Orton said.

Though there are similarities between the Chiefs offensive approach and the system Orton played under in Denver, there is still a learning curve for Orton to conquer before he’s ready to be a starter or contributor.

“I’m learning the offense as fast as I can,” said Orton. “It’s different (than Denver). All offenses are different. It’s just a matter for getting to know my teammates and getting to know the system as well as I can.”

“It was a disappointing game for our team. Our guys worked extremely hard all week; we knew that it was going to be a great challenge any time you play against the Steelers. Whether it’s at your place or their place, you know they’re going to travel well, including their great fans. You know they’re going to fight it out and it’s going to be a physical game and it did not disappoint. They are a well-coached team and have a lot of great competitors on both sides of the ball. I thought our guys gave it everything they had out there from start to finish. They stuck together and didn’t get down in some situations that they very easily could have got down. We kept playing hard and sticking to the game plan with how we wanted to play. In the end we had a chance to move the football across the 50 and into their territory, and potentially win the game. I thought we did a lot of good things in the game, but obviously the things we didn’t do well…we turned the ball over offensively, and when you turn the ball over four times, you generally don’t have a chance in the end. The last one ultimately got us.

“I’ve seen it before, so it’s not anything new, but it’s definitely not as much fun,” Turner said. “Winning solves a lot of that, because people aren’t as inclined to sell their tickets to other fans if the team is winning.”

That hasn’t happened enough lately. The Chiefs’ loss was their fourth in a row, giving the franchise six skids of at least four games during the last five seasons.

“For 18 years, I came to every game,” Turner said. “It is disheartening, but there is a different level of enthusiasm about pro football than there used to be. It used to be fans supported the team win, lose or draw, but it seems to be more of a fair-weather fan now. Maybe it’s a generational thing.”