The best Kansas City Chiefs to ever wear the uniform: No. 5
By Matt Conner
In this special offseason series, we analyze the best players in Kansas City Chiefs history to wear every single uniform number. Here’s No. 5.
I love IKEA.
I love the fun cafeteria, complete with Swedish meatballs and smoked salmon sandwiches and a nice array of desserts. I also love the fun, inexpensive furniture that often looks so much cooler than whatever some Midwestern furniture showcase has on display. I love the huge carts that turn on a dime. I love the return policy. I love the displays that make you think you can make your home look the same.
One other thing about IKEA that I love so much is the weird spellings of things. Oh, those Scandinavians. They put a ‘j’ in randomly here and there. They blend vowels together or give them unlauts to make you remember your favorite Queensrÿche CD (Operation: Mindcrime). It’s just a funky alphabet and I’m totally in.
All of this is important because I had higher hopes for Case deBruijn than most. The Chiefs 8th round selection in 1982 could have been a nice Scandinavian counterpart to Jan Stenerud, giving the Chiefs a legendary duo of specialists. Instead, deBruijn, a punter by trade, only lasted a single pro game before his NFL tenure was over.
It was a long shot, I know. But those “j”s look so nice.
deBruijn wore No. 5 for the Chiefs in his single game. Let’s take a look at the other contenders for the best Chiefs player to ever wear the number.
The Others
The San Diego-turned-Los Angeles Chargers kicking woes are hard to understand in K.C.
Connor Barth was a nice rookie kicker who gave way to another nice rookie in Ryan Succop, who gave way to another nice rookie in Cairo Santos, who gave way to another nice rookie in Harrison Butker. That’s one full decade of randomly bringing in rookie kickers without a miss.
For the Chargers alone, in 2017, Younghoe Koo gave way to Nick Novak who gave way to Travis Coons who gave way to Nick Rose. Four kickers up the family tree in one team goes 12 months. Four kickers up another team’s tree and you reach 2007.
We bring all of this up because today’s list of No. 5 candidates can largely be found in this kicking lineage. Barth wore it. John Carney, a former Charger, wore it for the Chiefs in 2007. It’s a reminder that you can spin a wheel, land on a number and remember the Chiefs never really have an issue with kickers.
Unlike some teams.
The Runner-up: John Carney
Speaking of Chargers kickers, Carney was a great one. In fact, he’s the all-time leading scorer in Chargers franchise history with 1,076 points. But what you might not realize is that for a brief five-game stretch in 2007, Carney was a perfect kicker for the Chiefs. He went 7 for 7 on extra points and 3 for 3 on field goals. If you extend that out over 16 games, we believe he would have remained perfect for forever.
Carney helped to shore up K.C.’s own kicking woes (what?) after a Chargers-esque stretch of a year that included Lawrence Tynes, Justin Medlock (who is now a Canadian kicking sensation) and Dave Rayner. Carney went on to sign with the New York Giants and made his second Pro Bowl in 2008, but Carney helped still the kicking waters for K.C., a veteran who stopped the bleeding. The Chiefs would never bleed again.
There were other options here, like punter Louie Aguilar (who had a longer tenure with the team), but Carney stopped a cycle and his perfect kickerishness is immortalized forever. For that five game stretch, we give him Runner-up honors.
The Winner: Cairo Santos
Cairo Santos deserves a bit of sympathy from Chiefs Kingdom.
In a display that shows how quickly someone can take your job in the NFL, the Chiefs moved on from Santos as if he wasn’t the most accurate kicker in franchise history heading into last season. After a tremendous rookie season in 2014 in which he made 25 of 30 field goals, Santos followed it up with consecutive seasons of 81% and 88.6% over the next two years.
Entering the 2017 season, the only question surrounding the position was about when Brett Veach might begin to talk extension with his Brazilian sensation. Then came the groin injury.
At first, Santos sat the bulk of training camp and Chiefs fans got to know a Sam Ficken. Ficken was fine, but Santos was the man and, when the kicker said he was ready, Santos took back over before the fourth and final preseason game. Santos looked good again in the late preseason and first few games, going 3 for 3 on field goals early in the year.
Then came the re-injury, an aggravation of the same groin injury. This time, he would hit injured reserve only to be waived a bit later. Santos went from entrenched starter and all-time most accurate to the transaction wire. Harrison Butker emerged as his replacement and the Chiefs never looked back.
For his part, the Chicago Bears picked up Santos once he was healthy again (for a stretch) until another groin injury capped his year in December. Santos is now with the New York Jets on a one-year deal, and we hope the offseason has been kind enough to allow him to heal. Despite being replaced like a worn rug in a renovation, let’s not forget that Santos is the best to ever wear the number.
Congratulations to Cairo Santos for being the greatest Chiefs player to ever wear the No. 5 on his uniform!