Sep 6th 2008 10:56PM by JJ Cooper (author feed)
Filed under: Chiefs, Patriots, NFL InjuriesIf the Chiefs have a chance to pull off one of the upsets of the year in Week 1, they need to take advantage of the Patriots’ secondary–which is clearly the weak point of the club that went 18-1 last year.

The best way to do that would be to spread the Patriots out, force the undersized group to figure out a way to defend Dwayne Bowe and try to take advantage of nickel back Deltha O’Neal, who was just signed by the team in the past week.

But there’s one problem with that plan (well two if you aren’t sold on Brodie Croyle)–to do it, you have to have enough wideouts to spread out the Patriots. With the news that Will Franklin and Maurice Price are out for Sunday’s game, the Chiefs will dress only three wide receivers.

While Bowe will be able to get some mismatches, it’s hard to imagine Devard Darling (20 catches in four pro seasons) or Jeff Webb (31 catches in two seasons) giving the Patriots nightmares. So even though the Patriots weakness is their pass defense, it’s likely to be the Larry Johnson show on Sunday.