Chiefs trounce Bengals as Vermeil announces retirement

By Joe Warren

Nevada Daily Mail

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- With a teary farewell Dick Vermeil's coaching career came to a close. Moments after Kansas City had defeated the playoff bound Cincinnati Bengals 37-3, finishing the season 10-6 and one game out of the final playoff spot, Vermeil addressed the media for the final time as a head coach of an NFL team.

"Needless to say, I'm very, very proud of how well they played. They played hard and it's been a challenging six weeks and we were fortunate to win four of them, one short of what we needed to be a playoff football team. But I think they've demonstrated that they are a playoff-caliber football team. We just didn't get some things done that we had to get done at the time they needed to be done," Vermeil said in his opening statement.

"I thank Lamar and Norma (Hunt)," Vermeil managed to continue, fighting through a breaking voice and a stream running down his cheeks. "You people are so special to me for allowing me this opportunity to represent your family, your organization, with Carl (Peterson) and (wife) Lori. You're second to none. We didn't win the Super Bowl for you but, in some ways, I think we got some things done within our organization and our players and our family that they've never experienced before. I appreciate so much our relationship and the opportunity that you and Carl provided for Carol and my family. I'll always cherish it. I am a Chief. Sooner or later Carl's going to take you to a Super Bowl and I'll go with you."

His career spanned 15 seasons, the past five with the Kansas City Chiefs. He's won a Super Bowl with one team, been to a Super Bowl with another, but was unable to accomplish either feat in his final stop with the red and gold.

Even so, Vermeil couldn't be convinced to give it one more try. With a good core of young players including running back Larry Johnson and a defense that improved as the season progressed, the Chiefs will forge on with someone else leading the team.

"It's the right time for me to go," Vermeil said. "It's the right time for me to leave the Chiefs. They don't need a guy every year saying if he's going to be here. It's just not fair. This organization needs more stability. I just wish I was 10 years younger. But, it's not an age factor anyway. It's just time."

The Chiefs had just missed the playoffs, thanks to Pittsburgh beating Detroit 35-21. Kansas City needed the Steelers to lose, combined with their victory over the Bengals, to get into the postseason.

"It's going to be sad to say that there's a chance that we played 10 winning teams this year and we're not going to make the playoffs with a 10-6 record," Chiefs guard Brian Waters said. "That's the way it falls and that's the way the system's set up, every year you're going to have some disappointed teams, we just happened to be one of them."

The truth of the matter is Kansas City played six games against playoff-bound teams this season, and won four of them. However, the Chiefs did lose games at Buffalo and Dallas, as well as their only home loss of the season against the Philadelphia Eagles on Oct. 2, after leading by 18 points in the third quarter.

"We didn't take care of business like we should," Waters said. "I think we're all going to look back at a couple of games that we wish we would have performed a little bit better. That's what the NFL is, it's you know, inches."

Sunday's game was dominated by Kansas City once Cincinnati pulled starting quarterback Carson Palmer in the second period. The kickers set the tone early and the Chiefs held a 6-3 lead with less than two minutes to go in the first half. That's when Kansas City used a flurry before the break to take control.

Larry Johnson broke free for a 49-yard touchdown run with 1:54 remaining in the second to give the Chiefs a 13-3 lead. The run put Johnson over the 100-yard barrier for the ninth consecutive game, and also gave him a 10th 100-yard rushing game this season, a new Chiefs record.

The play before his first touchdown of the game (he would add two more), Johnson had surpassed Priest Holmes for the highest rushing total in a single season by a Chief. Johnson finished the game with 1,750 yards rushing, third most in the NFL and tops in the AFC despite not starting until the eighth game of the season.

The Bengals' first play from scrimmage after Johnson's long run was an interception by Sammy Knight, giving the Chiefs the ball with 1:37 left in the half at the Cincinnati 41. The Chiefs needed exactly two plays to score again, as Trent Green found Tony Gonzalez for 27 yards to the Bengals 14.

The following play was another in a growing list of highlight-reel Johnson runs as he started left on a running play, stopped and reversed field to the right, sprinting almost the width of the field and taking advantage of a key Green block to score his second touchdown of the game.

Early in the third quarter Johnson scored from 20 yards out on a pitch play, putting the game out of reach and giving the Chiefs a 27-3 lead.

Johnson finished the game with 201 yards on 26 carries, his second 200-yard rushing game of the season and the fifth-highest total in the NFL this season.

The lone other Chiefs' score came when Dee Brown caught an 8-yard scoring pass from Green in the fourth period to provide the final margin of victory.

The game turned emotional as the final minutes of the fourth quarter ticked away. A tribute to Vermeil's tenure with the Chiefs was shown on the scoreboard late in the game and Vermeil worked his way up and down the sideline, hugging coaches, players and friends.

"From a personal standpoint, I've shared a number of great memories with (Vermeil)," Green said in a post-game press conference. "I've said this on numerous occasions: he's been in charge of three organizations as a professional coach in his career and on two of those occasions he chose me to be his starting quarterback. So, I feel a great deal towards him, a great deal of responsibility in St. Louis when I was brought into that situation and he told me what was needed. Even though I wasn't able to carry that over onto the field, I felt good about the direction going into that season. Coming here and having it explained what was expected of me and I tried to do all those things. That's what I told him when he got me to Kansas City."

Notes: Vermeil finished his coaching career with a 120-109 regular season record. His record with the Chiefs was 44-36. Including the postseason, his overall mark is 126-114 ... Green, who went over 4,000 yards for the season with his touchdown pass to Brown late in the game, topped the 4,000-yard mark for the third consecutive season ... Gonzalez caught a pass in his 84th consecutive game, a new team record ... Johnson finished with 20 rushing touchdowns, 21 total, both third all-time in Chiefs history ... his nine consecutive 100-yard games is third in NFL history behind Marcus Allen (11) and Barry Sanders (14) ... Wide receiver Eddie Kennison went over 1,000 yards receiving for the second consecutive season, thanks to his 151-yard effort Sunday.