Chiefs and Rams Stregthen Their Case for #32
What a treat for NFL fans in St. Louis on Sunday. Prior to the 3:00 start of the Rams-Seahawks game, CBS chose to air the Kansas City Chiefs taking on the Falcons in Altanta. It was our opportunity to gauge where the Rams stood in the battle to be the worst team in football.
Through two weeks, the Chiefs had an equally impressive resume in pursuit of the consensus 32nd spot in the league power rankings. In Week 2, they got smoked by the seemingly hapless Oakland Raiders and lame duck coach Lane Kiffin at Arrowhead to fall to 0-2.
Meanwhile 250 miles to the east, the Rams were winless and the architects of both the league’s last ranked offense and defense.
The race to be the worst was on.
The Chiefs opened the day in impressive fashion versus the Falcons. Rookie QB Tyler Thigpen captained the offense to zero first downs in the first quarter with four punts and fell behind 24-0 before finally pumping in a touchdown with :03 remaining in the first half.
Despite a mini-rally with the first half TD and another one on the first drive of the third quarter, Herm Edwards’ bunch never quite got going. They fell 38-14 to slip to 0-3.
No doubt sensing the challenge, the Rams came out fired up to make a statement about who was worse. They gave up a field goal on the opening drive and then fumbled the ball back to Seattle on their first offensive possession. Minutes later a guy named Michael Bumpus caught a touchdown pass to make it 10-0 Seahawks.
The Rams offense closed out the first quarter having gained a whopping 14 total yards. With 4 minutes left in the first half, on their 26th drive of the season, they finally made an appearance inside the red zone of their opponent.
They could muster only a field goal.
The defense was summed up perfectly by a Julius Jones 30-yard run in which Clifton Ryan, Pisa Tinoisomoa and Quintin Culberson literally had no idea where the running back was on the field (hint: he’s 5 yards in front of you running towards the endzone):
In the end they gave up 245 rushing yards to a backfield that consisted of Julius Jones and TJ Duckett and lost 37-13, pushing their season scoring tally to 116-29.
Not a lot of questions were answered on Sunday as both teams went on the road against mediocre opponents and got creamed by over three touchdowns. So who is worse?
Something tells me that this battle will rage on all year.