When Jamaal Charles cut back left to try and hit a fast closing hole in the red zone against the Chicago Bears last season, he crumpled into a heap grabbing his right knee in obvious agony. Collectively the fans in Arrowhead Stadium and watching at home held their breaths in hopes that it would just be a tweak. But as Charles was helped off the field everyone could see that his injury was serious.
Where would the Kansas City Chiefs turn? They were sitting at 1-3 and a looming loss to the Bears that day would send them to Minnesota with an offense that was visibly disabled. Without Charles the Chiefs would be relying on Alex Smith as the sole facilitator, or so we thought.
Enter Charcandrick West and Spencer Ware. Everyone around the team knew that these two would be the ones to step up but the decision left fans wondering about Knile Davis. Was he hurt? Was he in the dog house? Davis is bigger than West and faster than Ware but a reliable starting running back he is not. To go along with his fumbling issues, Davis had to deal with the fact that he could not catch the ball well out of the backfield, which is a staple of the west coast offense of Andy Reid.
This put the Chiefs in strange territory as they had not been without Charles since Reid took over in 2013. It was obvious that they didn’t quite know what to do in Minnesota. West could not get anything going until the second half and even then the ball he was carrying was punched loose by a teammate and any chance of a comeback faded into oblivion. The team may have still been reeling from such a devastating injury and a potentially lost season.
Next: Stepping up