Kansas City, Mo. ? The usual bumps, bruises, tweaks and strains of life in the NFL are one thing.

But for the Kansas City Chiefs, 4-4 at their bye week Sunday, the first half of their season has been a mental and emotional grind, as well.

Of the Chiefs’ eight games, only the outcome of their 48-30 win over Miami on Sept. 29 was secure before the final three minutes. In five of the other seven, including a three-game streak broken by last week’s 20-10 victory over Oakland, the winning scores came inside the final 30 seconds of regulation or in overtime.

Some of the more nerve-racking results:

l In the opener at Cleveland, it took a combination of quarterback Trent Green’s alertness in flipping a lateral to tackle John Tait and a helmet-throwing penalty on the Browns’ Dwayne Rudd for Kansas City to salvage a 40-39 win on Morten Andersen’s field goal after time had expired.

l Priest Holmes scored on a 19-yard pass from Green with just 27 seconds left to give Kansas City a 29-25 win over the New York Jets in the fourth week.

l Kansas City lost overtime games to New England in Week 3 and Denver in Week 6, mounting a late comeback against the Patriots and blowing a 14-point fourth-quarter lead against the Broncos.

l Kansas City also blew a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter against San Diego three weeks ago, losing 35-34 on Drew Brees’ touchdown pass to Reche Caldwell with 14 seconds remaining.

“It’s been mentally tough, especially when we lose those games,” offensive tackle Willie Roaf said. “But we’ve come through. We got the ‘W’ this week, and the guys have a great attitude right now.”

With the way they’ve been racking up points in the first half of the season, the Chiefs hoped to be better than a .500 team heading into their bye.

“I think we could be at least 6-2 right now,” coach Dick Vermeil said. “I honestly expected us to have a better record than this.”

Kansas City couldn’t ask for better timing, though eight games before the break, eight games after.

“We don’t have any control over that, but we like where our bye week is,” said Vermeil, whose team next plays on Nov. 10 at San Francisco. “When we come back, it’s not a long season. It’s an eight-game season.”

The Chiefs could use the rest, too.

Their high-scoring first half has seen the offense average more than 30 points a game and kicker Andersen become the NFL’s leading field goal scorer even as Kansas City’s defense has struggled through a series of late collapses.

“I think it’s really good when you have a chance to rest midway through,” said Holmes, the NFL’s top rusher and total touchdowns leader.

“The most important thing is healing up the body, because you take such a pounding over eight games. Now, going into the next eight … some teams are down because they haven’t reached their bye week or they had an early bye week, and it gives you a chance to catch up with them a little bit.”

Few players have taken as much of a pounding as Holmes, who also leads the Chiefs with 51 catches.

“Anything you would like to achieve that’s going to be great, there’s always a price to pay,” Holmes said. “I grew up watching Tony Dorsett, and I never saw him complain about the number of touches he had. It’s just a matter of going in there and doing your job.”

Although Holmes has touched the ball on nearly half of Kansas City’s rushing attempts and pass completions this season, Vermeil said he’s not concerned about the star’s durability.

“You always worry about it a little bit, but he works so hard he hasn’t lost one pound,” Vermeil said. “He isn’t dwindling down. He takes care of himself, he rests, he’s not a street guy or a nightclub guy. He goes home and rests and gets ready to come back and go to work.”