Chiefs finally can exhale

With first victory in bag, K.C. ready to look ahead

? At 1-3, the Kansas City Chiefs aren’t where they would like to be.

But a 27-24 win Monday night at Baltimore has sent the Chiefs into their bye week feeling better about themselves, their program and their chances of salvaging the season.

“All this means is that we will not be 0-16,” coach Dick Vermeil said Tuesday. “There still is a lot of work, a lot of hard work to do.

“But I think last night just demonstrated that we’re better than our 0-3 record that we took in there. And that we can play good football, that we did last night. And when we do, we can win.”

Vermeil said speculation about the imminent collapse of his team was not what motivated the players to make the best effort of Kansas City’s season.

“The staff’s ability to handle adversity properly over the last three weeks led to a positive contribution to our players’ handling it properly,” Vermeil said. “We played a pretty good football game against a pretty good football team in a real tough environment. I salute those guys.”

Priest Holmes, in the town where he started his NFL career, carried 33 times for 125 yards and two touchdowns. That pushed his season total to 476 yards rushing, tops in the league.

Holmes has run more than 100 yards in three of four games this year and became just the fourth running back since 1970 to reach the 5,000-yard plateau in 50 games or fewer.

On Tuesday, Holmes was named the AFC offensive player of the week.

“What’s great is having the league’s No. 1 rusher back in Kansas City, leading the league in rushing,” Vermeil said.

The players scattered for their week off and will be back Saturday to prepare for their next game, Oct. 17 at Jacksonville. When they get back to work, they should have wide receiver Eddie Kennison back after a two-week absence. The only regular who might still be out is defensive tackle Ryan Sims, who pulled a hamstring Monday night diving for a ball.

For the second straight week, Kansas City dominated in first downs, total yards and time of possession. The outcome in those games, however, has been one three-point loss and one three-point win.

In losing by three points to Houston, the Chiefs outgained the Texans 366 yards to 296, hogged the time of possession 35 minutes, 7 seconds to 24 minutes, 53 seconds, and had 25 first downs to 18 for the Texans.

At Baltimore, while eking out a three-point win, Kansas City had 398 yards to 207 for the Ravens, rolled up 25 first downs to Baltimore’s 13 and converted 8 of 16 third downs to Baltimore’s 1-of-8.

In the two games combined, the Chiefs have run 147 plays; the opposition has put the ball in play only 95 times.

From looking at those statistics, it seems Kansas City should have routed both opponents.

“Sometimes when you’ve been a very big-play team offensively, the number-one thing people do in the offseason is study you and work on ways to make sure they take away some of those big plays,” Vermeil said. “We came very, very close to having some big plays last night.”

Meanwhile, the Chiefs released punter Jason Baker for the second time in less than a month. Baker was released right before the season opener and replaced by Steve Cheek. Baker was re-signed when Cheek hurt his leg, but Cheek is expected back for Kansas City’s next game.