The Chiefs still were feeling pretty good about themselves. Then reality hit. It wasn’t their winning streak coming to an end as much as how it happened.

On Sunday in their 37-7 loss to the Chargers at Arrowhead they reverted to their form from early in the season. That type of loss, one week after the great win in Washington, blindsided all who were wearing the Dallas Texans throwback uniforms.

Larry Johnson, running back, said at that time I don’t really know what went through our heads. Maybe it was some kind of false happiness or maybe thinking San Diego would just lie down after playing a Monday night game. Not sure what it was.

Kansas City wanted desperately to believe their win over Washington represented true progress, a sign the team was coming around to the vision of head coach Todd Haley. However versus San Diego, Kansas City gave up over 50 yards on three different pass plays and over 20 yards on two running plays.

Once again they weren’t able to protect Matt Cassel, their quarterback, who got sacked four times. Cassel also wasn’t able to handle the constant pressure. On three second half possessions in a row he threw interceptions. It ended his streak of throwing 150 passes without being intercepted.

Kansas City didn’t see it coming.

Haley said, we didn’t expect it. All of us were excited about the game. It probably made things worse. Last week we were able to win a tough road game. We had a great week of practice. We had a day of practice in the rain. It started out ugly but I thought our team came together. It was probably our best practice all year on Friday. I was very excited about the game.

I was thinking we really had the chance to compete. The Chiefs do have experience having to deal with lopsided losses. In consecutive games the Eagles and Giants really handled them.

However those games didn’t come after a rare Chiefs win. Those games didn’t snatch their vision away that things were improving.

Their latest loss indicates that the Chiefs gave back all the ground they had gained in the game against Washington and more.

Glenn Dorsey, defensive lineman, said a loss is always a loss, whether you lose by three or thirty points. After every loss I feel exactly the same way. It’s not acceptable, not how we want things.

Previously Cassel had been the Chiefs’ rock, staying strong even while very little else around was really working. Kansas City wasn’t able to protect him and wasn’t able to get a consistent running game going to help him out or get big plays from their receivers.

This was the first loss where Cassel appeared to crack under all the pressure. To start the second half he led the Chiefs on a scoring drive, capped off by a fourth down touchdown pass of seven yards to Dwayne Bowe.

Other than that, the game seemed to be a step backwards for Cassel as well. His first intercepted pass was deflected by Sean Ryan, tight end, to a Charger defender, the second one occurred when he and Bobby Wade crossed wires.

Regardless of who as at fault, the interceptions from Cassel killed any chances of a comeback for the Chiefs.

Cassel said, you don’t ever want to lose this way. We definitely didn’t want to play this way. We will have to deal with this as a team. We need to fix lots of things.

It’s a week off for the Chiefs, so players in the locker room were all promising that they would find solutions to the problems. Everything seemed very clear following this loss.

Johnson said, we come back to our locker room. We just have to deal, in or lose. I think maybe we wanted a win to keeping building from what we were able to do last week.

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