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KANSAS CITY, Mo. —Chiefs fullback Le'Ron McClain likes to think of himself as an optimist. He is usually smiling, even when things are going poorly, and he nearly made good on a seemingly impossible prediction two months ago, tweeting that his 0-3 team would rally to win five consecutive games.
"That's how I am," McClain said this week. "I've got to, man."
So there's a question that some of his teammates have been unable to answer. Some are discouraged by their team's last two losses; maybe beaten down by the idea that at least five more might be ahead. Good teams have a solid identity, one thing that, in a pinch, they can lean on when all else fails.
This year, even within the locker room, the Chiefs' identity is unknown. Ask players to define it, and they scratch their heads.
"Oh, boy," center Casey Wiegmann said. "I don't know what to tell you there."
"I don't know, man," defensive end Glenn Dorsey said. "I don't know."
"Right now," linebacker Derrick Johnson said, "it's hard to say what our strengths are."
Last year, the Chiefs were a running team. If quarterback Matt Cassel's passes were inaccurate and the defense was lax, at least Jamaal Charles and Thomas Jones could move the ball on the ground. They led the league in rushing in 2010, and that was the thing that opponents feared most.
Now, it's the optimist's turn to answer the question. As it turns out, McClain is more of a realist than he lets on.
"Just to be honest with you, man: We're still trying to find that right now, the identity point," he said. "Because if we had it, we would've shown it. You wouldn't be asking me that. It's something that we've got to get going."
It's not that the Chiefs haven't tried. They again wanted to be a running team. Coach Todd Haley has said that he believes good NFL teams can run the ball. But that plan hit a roadblock when Charles tore a knee ligament, Jones hit the career wall, and no other rusher showed himself capable of carrying his team. Before injuring his hand Sunday against Denver, Cassel appeared to have regressed in his third season as the Chiefs' starting quarterback, made worse by poor pass protection.
On defense, the pass rush has fewer sacks than any other team, the secondary is banged up and uneven, and the defensive line hasn't done much to stop the run for a unit that has allowed an average of 24.2 points per game.
"Sometimes it takes you the whole year to figure that out," Johnson said of finding a calling card, admitting that those seasons aren't often successful.
Maybe, then, it's something off the field. Only, again, there's little agreement about that one thing the Chiefs can be proud of. Dorsey said it's the team's work ethic. Johnson said it is players' reaction to adverse conditions. None, though, has been powerful enough to define this team.
"One that we won't hang our hat on, but we have to right now," Haley said, "is we've been inconsistent, and that's all areas. There's not one area that I can say that's been void of inconsistency and hasn't been real good at times and hasn't been poor at times. Because each and every area has had its share of liability."
So, if anything, the Chiefs' identity is that they have been undependable — outstanding one week and dreadful the next. In some cases — less than a week after shocking San Diego on Monday night, the Chiefs were thrashed at home by the winless Miami Dolphins — the team has shown both sides in less than seven days.
McClain, for his part, would rather think about the good things the Chiefs have been doing. He said quarterback Tyler Palko has looked poised and prepared this week in practice. McClain said there has been energy and determination at the team facility. He said that, as sloppy as the Chiefs have been the last two weeks, it isn't all bad.
"It's funny not knowing our identity," he said with a smile, "and being one game out of first. That's the good part."
Always the optimist.
"We know we've got to bring our best foot forward," McClain said. "If we don't, the L's are going to keep going up on the board. We've got to have no doubt, man, and go into this thing willing to win and willing to make that sacrifice and do whatever we've got to do.... Whatever it is, we've got to find it."
