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It began with a smashing rout of former coach Marty Schottenheimer and the San Diego Chargers, a win that offered the slightest hint that maybe, just maybe, this would be the year.
It ended not on the floor of Houston's Reliant Stadium but at home, with a crushing
loss to Peyton Manning and the Colts in a second-round playoff game.
In between, Priest Holmes proved that all was hip with his hip while establishing an NFL record with 27 touchdowns. Trent Green received his first Pro Bowl invitation, Dante Hall turned himself into a national figure, and the defense, well, let's just say it might as well have stayed in River Falls, Wis. Tickets
Here are a few of the highlights, lowlights and other notable events from the
2003 season.
• Hot start. For the first time in franchise history, a Chiefs squad opened
a season 9-0. The Chiefs were the NFL's last unbeaten team, and thanks to the
league's highest-scoring offense, Hall's knack for coming up big in the clutch
and a defense that excelled at playing takeaway, members of the NFL's only undefeated
champion, 1972 Dolphins, had reason to be nervous.
The quote: "Can we do it? I don't know. But I'm not going to say we can't
do it." —Wide receiver Johnnie Morton when asked about the possibility
of going 16-0.
• Houston, we might have a problem. The Chiefs pulled out their first
road victory of the season and improved to 3-0 with a 42-14 pounding of the
Texans, but the game did reveal a few potential problems. Houston's David Carr
and Andre Johnson hooked up for an easy 43-yard touchdown pass, which capped
a trouble-free 96-yard drive when the game was still a game. Also, Houston punched
out 107 yards rushing.
At the time, those trouble spots were passed off as minor glitches in an otherwise
smooth-running machine.
The quote: "Everyone's acting like they are unbeatable or something. They
have weaknesses just like a lot of teams. I'm going to have to see more before
I just put them in the Super Bowl." — Texans cornerback Marcus Coleman.
• What a game. Without question, the game of the year was week six in
Green Bay where the Chiefs erased a 17-point second-half Packers lead and pulled
out a thrilling 40-34 overtime victory. This one had everything: Packers quarterback
Brett Favre and the Chiefs' Trent Green trading pinpoint passes, Green Bay's
Ahman Green and Holmes trading big runs and Jerome Woods changing the game with
a 79-yard interception return for a touchdown.
But the game's biggest play came in overtime when Green hit Eddie Kennison for
a 51-yard touchdown.
The quote: "I couldn't talk to tell people to get off me. I was trying
not to choke on my mouth guard." — Kennison, who had to be dug out
from under a pile of joyous teammates after his game-winning score.
• Clip? What clip? OK, so perhaps there was a bit of illegal contact on
the play, but that shouldn't take away from the remarkable effort turned in
by Hall on his 93-yard punt return for a touchdown, which made the difference
in the Chiefs' 24-23 week-five win over Denver.
It was the fourth straight game with a touchdown return by Hall, and years from
now, it will be remembered as the most sensational. Hall seemingly made the
entire Denver punt-coverage unit miss, and when he broke into the open, a full-capacity
Arrowhead Stadium crowd went into delirium.
The quote: "Where are you going to kick it, the stands?" — Denver
coach Mike Shanahan when asked why he elected to punt to Hall.
• Who dey? The Chiefs arrived in Cincinnati with a 9-0 record and a determination
to shut the mouth of Bengals wide receiver Chad Johnson.
They left with a revealing 24-19 loss in which the offense had a bad day and
the defense was ripped apart by Rudi Johnson and Jon Kitna.
Rudi Johnson finished with 165 yards and couldn't be stopped even when the Chiefs
knew he was coming during the game's final drive.
The quote: "We just felt that they couldn't stop us." — Rudi
Johnson, in a statement that would be repeated time and again during the season's
final seven weeks.
• The floodgates open. Sandwiched between predictable home wins over the
Lions and Bears, the Chiefs traveled to Minnesota for a nationally televised
playoff primer that both teams badly needed.
By the time Daunte Culpepper, Randy Moss and Onterrio Smith were finished poking
holes in the Chiefs' defense during a 45-20 rout, plans for a February trip
to Houston were placed permanently on hold.
Afterward, defensive linemen Eric Hicks and Ryan Sims had to be separated, and
Chiefs coach Dick Vermeil looked as if he'd seen a ghost.
The quote: "I don't know. I don't know if there is an answer." Vermeil,
when asked how he planned on fixing his team's defensive problems.