Gafford’s Gaffe Cost Chiefs

From Paul Brown Stadium, Cincinnati

Long snappers should not ever be noticed on the football field. Their job is to bend over, take a football, fire it between their legs a holder who is eight yards away and a punter who is 15 yards away.

When the long snapper has the media seeking him out, it can never be good.

Such was the case with Thomas Gafford, the Chiefs long snapper. His snaps have been pretty solid for the first 14 games of the 2009 season.

Game No. 15, not so much. Gafford’s gaffe came in the second quarter of Sunday’s game against the Bengals. The ball was on the Chiefs 45-yard line. The game at that point was scoreless and it had turned into a battle of field position. Punters Dustin Colquitt and Kevin Huber of the Bengals were very busy.

Gafford did the same thing he’s done every time this year. Only this time he sent the ball flying over Colquitt’s head. It wasn’t even close. Colquitt chased after the ball and rather than fall on it, and take the chance it would squirt away. On the run, he kicked the ball towards the end zone, but it rolled out of bounds at the seven-yard line. That’s where the Bengals took over.

The Chiefs defense held Cincinnati to a field goal, but in a game as close as this one proved to be, any points were big in the outcome.

“It was a bad play,” said Gafford. “First of all I credit the defense for standing up and stopping them. I put them in a terrible situation. They were awesome, holding them to a field goal. And then the offense went down in the two-minute (offense) and got a field goal. That was a good job by our team and a bad play by me.”

A bad play that Todd Haley notes does not come very often from Gafford.

“I don’t’ know that he had a problem; he’s been pretty reliable this year,” said Haley. “There was quite a bit of wind blowing across there. He made a poor snap.”

Conditions on the field at Paul Brown Stadium were very windy, with gusts up to 20 miles per hour. Gafford’s snap was into the wind that was blowing into the stadium from the open south end that faces the Ohio River.

“It was a windy day, but I’ve played on windy days before,” Gafford said. “I’m not going to start making excuses. It was a bad play, it’s on me and I’ve got to be better. I will be better.”

“I feel like I didn’t do my part to help us win today,” Gafford added. “Now, I’ve got to put it behind me and move on to the next snap and move on to the next game.”

Now, he needs to go back to being the faceless-nameless guy, bending over and firing the ball between his legs.