Kansas City, Mo. ? As good as the Kansas City Chiefs’ offense has been during the first half of the season, coach Dick Vermeil still isn’t satisfied.

Specifically, Vermeil said Monday, the Chiefs need more production from their wide receivers.

“The one way we can grow offensively is to get the ball in the wide receivers’ hands more efficiently,” Vermeil said.

The Chiefs have the NFL’s most prolific scoring offense (32.4 points per game) and the league’s top rusher and touchdown scorer in Priest Holmes (857 yards, 15 TDs). What they don’t have is a wide receiver anywhere near the top of the list in either yardage or catches.

“Regardless of what the reasons are for that, we know as coaches that we have to do a better job of getting them the ball,” said Vermeil, who gave his team the day off on Monday.

Holmes leads the Chiefs with 51 catches for 440 yards, and All-Pro tight end Tony Gonzalez despite drawing double coverage all year has 429 yards on 33 catches.

Holmes, in fact, has 13 more catches than starting wide receivers Eddie Kennison and Johnnie Morton put together. Kennison has 22 catches for 383 yards and Morton has 202 yards on 16 receptions.

“A lot of Priest Holmes’ catches are not passes called to Priest Holmes,” Vermeil said. “They’re passes called to wide receivers, and he gets the checkdowns.”

In Sunday’s 20-10 victory against the Oakland Raiders, running backs or tight ends caught 14 of Trent Green’s 18 completions. Morton had no catches at all, dropping one ball and seeing another swatted away in the end zone.

Kansas City (4-4) has an extra week to deal with the issue; the Chiefs are in their bye week and next travel to San Francisco on Oct. 17.

The Chiefs, whose 20-point output against Oakland was their lowest this year, could easily have surpassed the 30-point mark for the fifth time in eight games this season.

A crackback block penalty called against wide receiver Marc Boerigter wiped out a touchdown run by Holmes and forced Kansas City to settle for a field goal, and Green threw two interceptions inside the Raiders’ 20-yard line.

“That’s very frustrating,” Green said. “Even if we had settled for field goals in the situations where we had interceptions, there were a lot more opportunities to score.”

Vermeil didn’t fault Boerigter for the crackback penalty, saying the block was legal and the official “just saw it wrong.”

Also on Monday, the Chiefs cut kickoff specialist Michael Husted and signed free-agent linebacker Quinton Caver to a one-year contract. Caver, a second-round pick by Philadelphia in 2001, played in 19 games for the Eagles before being cut last week.

“We liked him in the draft,” Vermeil said. “I had him rated as a third-round pick, and I think our coaches had him rated as a third-round pick.”