Chiefs have success thanks to the new guys
By now, I am sure that you have had the opportunity to go through an analysis of what went wrong for the Kansas City Chiefs last Saturday. You have probably begun to form an opinion or two of your own on exactly why Kansas City looked a little less like they did for those 11 straight victories.
Was it the constant overthrows from Alex Smith? The inability of the defense to put pressure on Tom Brady? The Knile Davis fumble? The should-have-been interceptions? Jeremy Maclin not really participating in the game? Julian Edelman coming back for New England? The time wasted on the final drive of the fourth quarter? The penalties that seemed to skew in the home team’s favor?
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Whichever hypothesis (or combination therefore) you accept, you can probably make a non-laughable argument for leaning that direction. So instead of throwing my two cents into that debate, I want to take this time to quickly highlight several of the new players that helped the Chiefs make a record breaking run to the divisional round of the NFL playoffs.
Charcandrick West & Spencer Ware
Before Week 1 of the season the statement “The Kansas City Chiefs offense runs through Jamaal Charles” would been almost a no-brainer. So when Charles went down with a season ending injury in Week 5 against the Bears, it seemed like the offense was in deep trouble.
Within two weeks, the running game had been reestablished by Charcandrick West who ran for 110 yards against the Steelers – starting the streak that carried the Chiefs into playoffs and through the Wild Card round. And during that streak, when West was not toting the ball, Spencer Ware was.
Neither of these players had stats to speak of before this season. West came into the year with zeroes across the board from his rookie year in 2014. Ware came into the league in 2013, but had a total of two carries for 10 yards in that season with the Seahawks. He was absent from the league in 2014, and never touched the ball for K.C. until Week 7. Yet both of these players in their second season of play ended up rushing for over 100 yards in a game, and combined for a total of 1,037 yards and 10 touchdowns in the regular season.
That is outstanding for two young players who were an undrafted (West) and a late round pick (Ware, sixth round) whose first real action in their careers came after a quarter of the season was already gone.
Next: The Kansas City Thief