Print edition: 
KANSAS CITY, Mo. —Some thought he was crazy the first time, and maybe that much hasn't changed.
Not for the first time this season, Chiefs fullback Le'Ron McClain has made a bold prediction on Twitter. His first one — that his team, which had started 0-3, would win five games in a row — looked to be coming true before a loss to the Miami Dolphins. Still, four weeks after McClain's prediction, the Chiefs had a winning record.
Then last week, as the Chiefs were again mired in a losing streak, McClain made another prediction.
"Headed to the Chi," McClain tweeted Dec. 3, referring to his team's next game, in Chicago."... 1 of 5 in a row."
McClain said this week that he has no psychic power or a hidden gift for picking NFL winners. A professional football player doesn't struggle financially, but there'd be even bigger money in being the Nostradamus of the NFL. Instead, McClain said he's just confident in his team.
His timing isn't bad, either. Sure enough, the Chiefs went to Chicago and won, their first victory in a month, and McClain was smiling in the locker room afterward.
"One down," he said.
McClain said his predictions are not to make a point or even, really, to fire up his team. Rather, he said, they're a way to let his teammates know that a veteran player still believes in them and that the cause, even as the losses mount and the season — also not for the first time in 2011 — begins to look lost.
"If you don't speak on it, you can't believe it," he said. "... If we play good football, man, we're hard to beat. Our defense is playing great football right now.
"As an offense, if we just get some points, man, just get everything going, just get some points, I think we have a good chance against these last teams that we have. All the teams we have left are beatable. If we go out there and play our best ball, I think we can get them."
McClain has more than 29,600 followers on Twitter, and he spends much of his time discussing music or defending his beloved Alabama Crimson Tide's chances of winning the BCS championship.
When the talk turns to the Chiefs, though, there's nothing but optimism in his words. "Believe" is a frequent hash tag in his tweets.
"We got it done today!" he posted after the victory against the Bears at Soldier Field.
McClain, signed during training camp after four seasons with Baltimore, seems to fit well with the Chiefs' message — which, after seven losses this season, has commonly been about thinking positively.
"I believe you have to be a glass half full person in this league; you really do," coach Todd Haley said. "You can't ever give up hope, because you never know when you're going to start playing real good defense, or real good offense or get a couple of kick returns or blocks or whatever, or Hail Marys, for that matter.
"I believe in optimism."
After McClain's first prediction, that the Chiefs would be 5-3 after beginning the season with a three-game losing streak, he received about 150 responses. Most doubted the team's chances. And, perhaps, McClain's sanity.
Then the wins started coming, and McClain's confidence was rewarded. He walked onto the field at O.co Coliseum in Oakland, his team having completed a 28-0 walloping of the Raiders, and held three fingers in the air. It was the Chiefs' third consecutive win. His team was more than halfway toward fulfilling McClain's prediction.
"He's not crazy. And he's always been like that," Chiefs wide receiver Steve Breaston said. "... I don't think he's wrong."
This time, McClain said, there were fewer doubters. Still some, though, after four consecutive Chiefs losses deflated the team's playoff hopes. But McClain said he believes his team can win its remaining four games and make the playoffs, regardless of what anyone else believes.
"You've still got your naysayers saying, 'I don't think y'all can do it,' " McClain said. "I know the guys in here believed it."
