2005 Kansas City Chiefs NFL Handicapping Review Part 1

 

By Tom Wilkinson

 

The Kansas City Chiefs had shown improvement in each of head coach Dick Vermeil’s first three seasons at the helm going from 6-10, to 8-8, to 13-3 successively. The Chiefs defensive woes of 2003 were well documented and they hired their former head coach and, before that, defensive coordinator Gunther Cunningham to coordinate the defense again, which while being a highly heralded move amongst the media and many in the sports handicapping community, did not cover up the fact that Cunningham would be coaching the exact same defensive lineup that was so embarrassing and horrible in 2003. The wiser and less impressed professionals in sports handicapping pointed this out to the few online sports betting players that would listen at blog boards, but many others posted messages stating the Cunningham was the missing piece to the Chiefs’ super bowl puzzle. Kansas City sported a phenomenally explosive offense, which was part of the sports handicapping rationale regarding Cunningham’s potential impact on the team. In the end, about all that Cunningham did was kill what value the Chiefs may have had against the sports betting odds.

In 2003 the Chiefs exploded to a 9-0 start straight up, beating the sports betting odds in eight of those games. The hot start and well publicized scoring machine that was their offense began to erode KC’s value for sports betting players as the sports betting odds makers began to jack up the sports betting line on Chiefs games in order to attract action to the other side. Beyond that the weak Kansas City defense was beginning to catch up with the Chiefs.

Kansas City limped to a 2-6 mark in their final eight games, (including their playoff defeat), of 2003, which demonstrated their shot value. Problem is, sports betting players making football picks on the Chiefs would suffer even bigger problems in 2004.

The Chiefs, touted as a probably super bowl team at the start of 2004, had the always tough task at starting their season at Denver, where they have traditionally struggled. Denver bombed the Chiefs 34-24 in a game that was worse than the final score indicated. But the bigger shocks were yet to come.

Sports betting players were to quickly find out that a good coordinator is not enough to beat the sports betting odds with, players are needed too.