1980s: Bill Kenney’s 1983 Season
Things would only get worse for the Chiefs before they got better. The 1980s were another decade of mediocrity for the team, with only a season here or there worth noting. In total, the Chiefs won 66 games and lost 84. They averaged a fourth place finish out of five teams in their division and only made the playoffs once in 1986 as a wild card team.
The quarterback battles were largely between the franchise’s 1979 first-round draft pick Steve Fuller, the 1983 first round-draft pick Todd Blackledge, and free agent signing Bill Kenney. Both first round quarterbacks, the last until 2017, left a lot to be desired in their Chiefs’ careers. As is the case for most of the franchise’s history, the Chiefs failed to adequately develop their own quarterbacks and the journeymen tended to win the starting spot.
Bill Kenney joined the team in 1980 as a backup but became the team’s primary passer for most of the decade. While the team was not highly successful in 1983, winning only 6 games out of 16, Kenney was quite effective. During that season he started all 16 games and threw for a team record 4,348 yards. He would add to this 24 touchdown passes and 18 interceptions. In his best game of the season, against the San Diego Chargers, Kenney completed nearly 76 percent of his throws for 411 yards, 4 touchdowns and 1 interception.
He would finish the year first in passes attempted and completed, third in yards per game with 272 per game, and seventh in touchdown passes. He would be rewarded with the only Pro Bowl selection of his career, but the Chiefs would ultimately miss the playoffs for the 11th straight season. To his credit, while Kenney was not a spectacular quarterback, he was serviceable and maintained his duties as the team’s primary passer until the Chiefs’ traded for Steve DeBerg in 1988.