Eli Injured, Chiefs Defense & Other Notes-Quotes

From Arrowhead Stadium

Eli Manning wasn’t even touched on the play.

But when it was over and he walked to the Giants sideline, he was in pain.

At the end of a passing play early in the fourth quarter, Manning came down oddly and injured the back of his right foot. He did not return when the Giants got the ball back, as David Carr stepped in to finish out the game.

His absence wasn’t because the Giants had a big lead. According to head coach Tom Coughlin, his starting quarterback couldn’t go back in.

“His foot is just hurt,” said Coughlin. “I saw it when he stepped forward to throw … I don’t really think there was any contact, he was just driving into the throw and all of a sudden he kind of showed that he had a little issue.”

When your last name is Manning and you play quarterback, there are no little issues when it comes to injuries.

“I think it’s just a bruised heel,” said Manning. “I can walk around and move around, but there is some discomfort. I don’t think it’s awful. I’ve been injured worse before. We’ll see how it feels throughout the week.”

The bum heel stopped a top-notch performance by Manning, who hit on 20 of 34 throws for 292 yards and three touchdowns, a 104 passer rating.

SOME GOOD, SOME BAD FOR KC DEFENSE

The Chiefs forced two turnovers. They had two quarterback sacks. They limited the big plays for the Giants offense.

But it wasn’t nearly enough to help the Chiefs win their first game of the year.

“Hey, it wasn’t good enough,” said OLB Mike Vrabel. “We did some things, but we weren’t nearly as consistent as we need to be if we are going to help this team win.”

The Chiefs really had no answer for New York WR Steve Smith, who caught 11 passes for 134 yards and a pair of TD passes. On both scores he got behind SS Mike Brown. Whether Smith was Brown’s man or not, he should not have gotten behind the safety in the end zone on two different plays.

“Steve was doing a great job running his routes against certain coverages,” said Manning. “Even on the fumble he ran a great route. I had a chance to hit a big play to him and a guy got a piece of the ball and knocked it out.”

“A guy” was Chiefs OLB Tamba Hali who got the sack of Manning and the strip. The fumble was recovered by DE Glenn Dorsey. The Chiefs other sack went to Brown, who came on a blitz. CB Brandon Flowers had a first half interception. Brown and ILB Demorrio Williams led Chiefs tacklers with nine total tackles each.

The Chiefs basically used two defenses: their base scheme and a nickel defense that had Dorsey and Ron Edwards on the line, Vrabel, Hali and rookie Jovan Belcher at LB, S Jon McGraw playing a LB role and then five DBs, with nickel back Maurice Leggett on the field.

SPECIAL TEAMS A MIXED BAG

It’s hard to give good grades to the Chiefs special teams when kick returner Jamaal Charles fumbled the opening kickoff and set up the Giants first TD. But other than that blunder, the KC kicking game wasn’t bad.

Charles came back later in the game and ripped off a 53-yard kick return, the longest by the Chiefs in almost a year. Last season on October 19 against Tennessee, Dantrell Savage had a 59-yard return.

Punter Dustin Colquitt had an interesting day. His numbers ended up looking very good, as his gross average was 48.4 yards and his net average was 45.7 yards. But Colquitt shanked a couple of punts and lived to tell about it because they took good bounces and rolled for extra yardage. After one of those punts, he got an earful from Todd Haley as he came to the sideline and it looked like he was giving it back to the head coach before several assistant coaches stepped between them.

Colquitt did not want to talk about the incident after the game. “Stuff happens,” he said.

Only three of Colquitt seven punts were returned, those going for a total of 19 yards.

The Chiefs tried to onside kicks, and did not get either one. One was a surprise at the start of the second half, and K Ryan Succop pushed it 10 yards, but the Giants recovered.

“We gave up a possession right out of the gate with the fumble and you’re trying to steal one back,” said Haley of the decision to go onside. “We didn’t get the onside kick and we’ve got to execute better.”

BARELY VISIBLE PRODUCTION FROM ‘09 DRAFT CLASS

It was another loss and another afternoon where the Chiefs draft class of ‘09 struggled to provide a contribution. DE Tyson Jackson was given credit for one quarterback hurry, DE Alex Magee got one tackle and CB Donald Washington played, but did not turn up on the post-game stat sheet.

The only other draft choice who played was Succop.

Belcher got a lot of playing time in the nickel and had some snaps in the regular defense when ILB Corey Mays went down with an unspecified leg injury. Belcher was credited with two tackles.

OFFICIATING CREW GETS INVOLVED

Jerome Boger’s crew that handled the game got themselves involved in the game, rather than sitting back and allowing the game to be played with little interference from the guys in striped shirts.

Overall, the officials walked off 15 penalties for 109 yards. The worst call of the day was an unnecessary roughness call against FS Jarrad Page. On the play, Page hit Giants WR Steve Smith while he was in the air trying to catch a pass.

Apparently back judge Tony Steratore felt he saw Page hit Smith with his head. That’s what he told Page. In reality, Page hit him with his shoulder.

“It was a bad call,” said Page. “He saw something that didn’t happen. What can you do?”

Todd Haley threw the challenge flag in the fourth quarter on the placement of a completion from QB Matt Cassel to WR Bobby Engram. It was a 4th-and-11 play and the officials on the field placed the ball short of the first down stick. In looking at the replay, they reset the spot and the Chiefs had a first down.

Overall the Chiefs got hit with seven penalties: Page’s unnecessary roughness, a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct flag against ILB Demorrio Williams, a pair of false starts by TE Sean Ryan and false starts by Cassel, LT Branden Albert and LG Brian Waters.

PERSONNEL MATTERS

Inactive for the Chiefs were rookies WR Quinten Lawrence, TE Jake O’Connell and LB Pierre Walters, along with CB Mike Richardson, RB Dantrell Savage, OT Ikechuku Ndukwe and TE Brad Cottam. Matt Gutierrez was the inactive third quarterback. Ndukwe started the first three games of the season at right tackle.

Moving into the starting lineup at RT was Ryan O’Callaghan. It’s his first start with the Chiefs since being claimed on waivers from the Patriots back in early September. O’Callaghan had played the previous two games as part of the FG and PAT protection.

Both TE Leonard Pope and LB David Herron played, just four days after their first practice with the team. Herron was on all four major special teams units for this game.

Inactive players for the Giants were WR Ramses Barden, RB Danny Ware, CB Aaron Ross, OT Adam Koets, OT Guy Whimper, WR Domenik Hixon, LB Clint Sintim and DL Chris Chanty.

HORSING AROUND AND OTHER NOTES

Warpaint returned to Arrowhead Stadium on Sunday. The horse made a brief appearance at half-time for the Raiders game two weeks earlier. The horse was introduced in pre-game festivities and left his calling card at the 12-yard line in the northeast corner of the playing field … the announced attendance was 69,238, with plenty of them wearing blue and white shirts of the Giants … Hali now has 13 forced fumbles in his career, which ranks him tied for third in Chiefs history with Kevin Ross and Jared Allen. Hall of Fame LB Derrick Thomas is first with 45 and DE Neil Smith is second with 29 … Giants coach Tom Coughlin on the Chiefs: “You can see how they are developing and getting better. I knew that this would be a difficult game from looking at their opener here a couple weeks ago. They did a nice job and had a lot of statistics against Oakland but didn’t win the game.”