Kansas City, Mo. ? If the woeful Detroit Lions can hang 17 points on Kansas City’s defense, how good will Trent Green, Priest Holmes and Tony Gonzalez have to be against playoff teams?

Chiefs coach Dick Vermeil sidesteps the question as deftly as Holmes eludes ankle tackles.

“I think our defense is our defense,” Vermeil said Monday. “We’re not going to revolutionize it. We’re not going to have different people playing it.”

Their offense was so brilliant in a 45-17 victory Sunday over the Lions, it was easy to gloss over the disturbing trends plaguing the 12-2 Chiefs.

For one, the AFC West champions allowed Detroit’s first 100-yard rusher in more than a year. For another, the NFL’s poorest rushing team rolled up 137 yards on the ground and converted eight of 14 third downs.

The Lions scored just their fifth rushing TD of the season and also dropped one sure touchdown pass from Joey Harrington.

While they lost their NFL record-tying 23rd straight road game, they also tied their season-high for points on the road.

Was this really much improvement over the debacle the week before at Denver when Clinton Portis ripped the Chiefs for 218 yards rushing and five touchdowns?

“I think the overall execution of the scheme was good, other than the one (39-yard) run,” said Vermeil, who became one of the few NFL coaches to take three different teams to division championships.

“They had a 12-yard run that should have been stopped on the line of scrimmage. But overall, I thought we did a pretty good job.”

On the bright side, it was the fewest points and total yards by an opponent since a 41-20 clubbing Nov. 10 of Buffalo.

But how deep into the postseason can the Chiefs go against sharp offensive attacks if their defense remains this leaky and soft?

“It depends on the game you play,” Vermeil said. “Once you get into a high-level game, if your defense plays extremely well, it only counts how they play that day. The big thing is to first get there. It’s got to play well enough for us to get there.

“We’ve won some games with 17 points. Nobody was asking me about the defense. Played pretty well. We need those kind of games when you get in great big games.”

Big plays have plagued the defense all year.

“It seems like we give up one or two big plays every week,” defensive end Vonnie Holliday said. “We know what we have to do. It’s just a matter of stepping up and doing it.”

Unlike other games this year, there were no complaints about the punting. Jason Baker only punted once, and the ball was downed on the 1.

But it was a different story on his kickoffs. Consistently, the Lions started drives with good field position after poor kicks and poor coverage by the Chiefs.

“The kickoffs haven’t been deep enough or hang in the air long enough,” Vermeil said. “They’ve got to hang in the air. A kickoff you’d love to have hang about four seconds. Ours aren’t doing that. Some of them have been low line drives that get to them quick.

“Plus, Monty Beisel’s not there, and he’s a key factor in disrupting kickoff returns.”

A backup linebacker who’s on every special-teams unit, Beisel is expected to be out again this week because of a groin injury.

“Hopefully, we’ll get him back maybe a week from this coming week,” said Vermeil.

As with the defense, the Chiefs won’t make meaningful personnel changes this late in the season.

“Guys are just not getting the job done, different guys in different positions,” Vermeil said.