Chiefs players embrace the bye week to rest, refocus

The Kansas City Chiefs need all hands on deck. The boat on the 2012 NFL season is quickly sinking for the 1-5 team that many have in last place in NFL Power Rakings columns, and each week only brings more bad news. Hopefully the bye during Week 7 will provide the team a chance to rest, heal and refocus.

That's what Chiefs players and coaches are hoping for. If any team in football needs a chance to reflect and examine what has went wrong, it's the Chiefs. The team that was picked by many as a dark horse contender has instead found the dark side of every potential scenario that could go wrong.

"Right now we're not playing good football, so hopefully we can sit back and check out a variety of things, check out ourselves, scout ourselves, look at ourselves in the mirror and see what's gone wrong," said linebacker Derrick Johnson.

"This train is not going to stop. We can't feel sorry for ourselves. We can't say could have, should have done this or that. At the end of the day, we have to make more plays than the other team, and we haven't been doing that."

Despite the horrible record, the AFC West is not completely out of reach. The schedule gets much easier from here and a young team will continue to develop. Given the middling status of other teams in the division and the company of the Raiders among the worst teams in the NFL, and the Chiefs cannot afford to completely give up hope.

"It's a good time for a bye week," added quarterback Matt Cassel. "We need to get a lot of things corrected. Everybody is out there with the intention of making the corrections that we need to get ourselves back in this race."

The Chiefs face the Raiders in Week 8.