HOUSTON _ The best thing about these Chiefs is also the most worrying, and perhaps this is the most effective way to make the point:
Week 1, blow out the Patriots, lose safety Eric Berry for the season with a ruptured Achilles tendon.
Week 2, grind out the second half against the Eagles, lose center Mitch Morse to a foot injury.
Week 3, lead wire to wire against the Chargers, lose outside linebacker Dee Ford and kicker Cairo Santos.
Week 4, beat Washington, lose guard Laurent Duvernay-Tardif to a knee injury.
And now, Week 5, win a wild one 42-34 here against the Texans on Sunday night, and lose receiver Chris Conley for the season with a ruptured Achilles and two other players to concussions.
The best thing about the Chiefs is they are balanced and varied enough to absorb injuries all over the depth chart. The most worrying is that they keep taking these injuries to key players all over the depth chart.
"That's what this game comes with," said linebacker Derrick Johnson. "And it sucks. Man, it really sucks."
First, let's take a detour to address one of those concussions. Late in the first half, Travis Kelce took an awful crash to the head. A Texans defender hit his head from the side, Kelce's helmet slinging toward his shoulder and then slamming back into the turf. It looked terrible.
Kelce was evaluated for a concussion, passed the initial sideline test, and returned within just a few minutes in real time. At halftime, according to coach Andy Reid, Kelce "complained about memory." He did not return, though was seen outside the locker room after the game telling friends he was OK. He was smiling, and laughing.
This was reminiscent of the mismanagement around Alex Smith's non-concussive concussions in Indianapolis last year, when his head bounced off the concrete turf there twice. The first instance was so brutal his ear was bleeding. Both hits left him wobbly. After that game, Reid initially said Smith passed the concussion test twice before being corrected by a team official on the second test.
Now, less than a year later, another star player was passed quickly through concussion protocol when he so obviously should not have been.
The NFL needs to address this. A waiting limit after passing protocol, if nothing else. Because as it stands right now, the league has an admittedly flawed policy that is putting wobbly players back into the chaos of football a few minutes after that chaos made them wobbly.
And the worst part is it's all protocol, so players and coaches so trained to follow protocol aren't always seeing the problems here.
"I'm glad they found it," Reid said. "Maybe in past years he plays, who knows."
But the protocol didn't find it. And on Sunday night, Kelce did go back in and play.
"Everybody is erring on the side of caution," Smith said. "In the end, a lot of this comes down to the player."
This was particularly jarring to hear. Because "everybody" is clearly not erring on the side of caution, or else wobbly players wouldn't be going back into games so quickly. And Smith knows as well as anyone that in those moments a player is going to want to play, and even if he's not sure, the culture means he'll feel like he should get back.
The NFL has a choice here. It can continue with a protocol that is clearly putting players who aren't ready back into games, or it can be serious about player safety.
It cannot do both.
OK, back to the Chiefs.
This is the best team in football right now, which is an objective fact, not an opinion. Even with the disclaimer about how irrelevant that title is in early October, one of the greatest strengths of this team is the different paths it has to win.
Kareem Hunt can wear down a fourth quarter. Tyreek Hill can flash another peace sign. Kelce can be an impossible cover for any one human. Justin Houston can blow up anything you try to do to his side. Chris Jones is an emerging force in the middle. Marcus Peters is mercurial, but has a well-earned reputation of tilting games.
The Chiefs have had some good teams over the years, but at least since the turn of the century their fatal flaw has always been their imbalance. They had Dick Vermeil's offense, but also Dick Vermeil's defense. They had Justin Houston and a top defense, but the Sonic version of Dwayne Bowe as their best receiver on offense.
This group is different. At this moment, depending on what you think of the still injured Parker Ehinger, right tackle Mitchell Schwartz is the only healthy starter on the offensive line, but Hunt went over 100 yards for the fourth time in five games and Smith was hit just three times and sacked once.
In past years, the Chiefs could be good as long as everything went their way. Push them off track, and they became easy to beat. This group is different.
The defense is behind the offense right now. If the Super Bowl is the standard, the defense, well, in Johnson's words, "didn't have that good of a game." They could not stop the run and gave up far too many big plays. For all of Peters' cover skills, his tackling deficiencies were exposed a few times.
But, yet, they did enough. The Chiefs led from their opening drive on. The defense confused and pressured Texans rookie quarterback Deshaun Watson enough. More than a quarter of Houston's yards came in the last 3 minutes, with the outcome all but secure.
NFL rules dictate that all teams have flaws, and by the league's standards, the Chiefs' flaws are manageable. And the point is that in past years, it was so much easier to nudge them off their strengths.
The Chiefs have had good teams _ playoff teams _ that could not have won through the injuries suffered already. Remaining undefeated is a testament to this group's diverse ways of winning, as well as its resolve.
But, yes. At some point, it would be nice if the injuries slowed a bit, too.
