Chargers’ Loss Is in the Errors : Football: Chiefs get quick start en route to a 27-10 victory.

It was over before it began. The big game, a big letdown.

The Chiefs had a 10-point lead and NBC-TV hadn’t gone to its first 10-minute update of scores around the league.

This was going to be the Chargers’ coming out party, but it was no time to be fashionably late. But tardy they were, and unable to overcome a slow start, the Chargers went down to defeat, 27-10 in front of 63,717 in Arrowhead Stadium.

“They (the Chiefs) made the big play to start the game off,” Chargers Coach Dan Henning said. “That set the tone.”

The Chiefs (6-4) had played 10 quarters of football without posting a touchdown, but they went 92 yards in three plays to go ahead 7-0 on the Chargers (5-6).

How do you figure? The hometown fans had booed a run by Christian Okoye on first down for no gain, and they had expressed their displeasure with Okoye on a second-down stumble for two yards.

The Chargers’ defense had the Chiefs and quarterback Steve DeBerg right where they wanted them: Third and eight at the Kansas City 10-yard line.

The Chargers had intercepted seven of DeBerg’s passes in two games last season. They led the AFC in interceptions this season, and were third in sacks.

“We expected we’d have some pressure on DeBerg,” defensive coordinator Ron Lynn said. “At that point we wanted to come after him and let him know it was going to be a long afternoon. We went after him, but we didn’t get there.”

They weren’t even close. And in the meantime, free agent wide receiver J.J. Birden had split a pair of Charger defenders. DeBerg spotted him, hit him with a dart, and Birden didn’t stop running until he had run himself into the Chiefs’ record books with the fourth longest pass play for a touchdown in team history.

“Everything worked for them on that play to that one guy,” Lynn said. “Had he tried to throw it anywhere else, he had nowhere else to go.”

No consolation. After the ensuing kickoff, the Chargers took the ball on offense for the first time and Billy Joe Tolliver promptly fumbled the snap from center to give the Chiefs the ball at the San Diego 14-yard line.

Leslie O’Neal sacked DeBerg on third down, and forced Kansas City to settle for a 36-yard field goal by Nick Lowery. But it was 10-0 with 10:53 remaining in the first quarter, and for this young and inexperienced team, it was a mountain they are not yet prepared to climb.

“We got knocked out of our game plan early,” guard David Richards said, “and that’s the same problem that’s happened in the past to us. We have to go out and make them play our game.”

The Chargers fought back on their second possession with a 42-yard field goal by John Carney to make it 10-3, but they were out of sync. Instead of running Marion Butts, as they had done to win four of their previous five games, they were trying to advance on the strength of Tolliver’s arm.

Tolliver went six for six to position Carney for his field goal, but he missed his next five passes and threw a momentum-chilling interception in the third quarter.

The Chiefs, meanwhile, were playing football as they had planned it. They were running Okoye, getting good work from running back Barry Word, and all the time setting up DeBerg’s play-action passing game.

In the second quarter, after Word had gained 34 yards on four carries, DeBerg faked a handoff to him and then delivered a two-yard touchdown pass to a wide open Bill Jones for a 17-3 lead.

“They made plays on the play-action in areas that we had prepared for,” Henning said, “but we didn’t do a very good job of stopping it.”

The Chargers went 80 yards in 12 plays with Tolliver throwing a two-yard touchdown pass to tight end Derrick Walker on the opening series of the second half. And down 17-10, they stopped the Chiefs and had the ball.

Tolliver, who had not thrown an interception in 141 pass attempts, tried to go deep to a well-covered Quinn Early, but the ball was intecepted by Kevin Ross. Ross returned the interception 33 yards to the Chargers’ 42-yard line. The interception led to a 37-yard field goal by Lowery.

“That was a critical play,” Henning said, “and the fumbled snap was a critical play, the 90-yard touchdown pass was a critical play, and the penalties on four out of the five kickoffs were critical plays.”

Tolliver’s misguided pass for Early, however, put the Chiefs back in command--to stay.

“Just dumb,” Tolliver said. “Other than all the turnovers, all the penalties and all the stupid things we did, if you had to single out one play, that was a momentum shifter. It was bad mistake on my part.”

Tolliver had left the game in the second quarter with a groin pull and strained knee, and had been replaced by Mark Vlasic, who threw an interception.

But Tolliver earned medical clearance at halftime, and convinced Henning he was able to play.

“I’m fine,” said Tolliver, who completed 21 of 38 passes for 203 yards with two interceptions. “The thing is, we just kept shooting ourselves in the foot.”

Tolliver’s receivers played the game like they were wearing boxing gloves. But dropped passes weren’t the Chargers’ only problem. Butts, who came into the game as the NFL’s leading rusher, was held to 40 yards on 14 carries--his lowest output of the season. He dropped into second place, behind Buffalo’s Thurman Thomas, among the NFL rushing leaders.

And the Chargers’ reliable special teams became a liability. The Chargers received six kickoffs, and in part because of penalties, gave their offense field position beginning on the average at their 18-yard line.

“This was a big football game for us,” Tolliver said. “We had two teams trying to make that next step forward to the Raiders. They are our division leaders, and it’s frustrating. We needed it, had to have it and all that, and we got outplayed.”

The Chargers turned the ball over five times, while the Chiefs played without error. The Chargers were also penalized a season-high 11 times.

“They played the game the way we would like to play,” Henning said. “Where we’ve been able to play our games with field position and make some plays in the special teams and defense to get the ball, we got none of that.

“Then we got forced in the end there into a game where we’re not playing real well with players that are banged up. And it snowballs on you.”

The Chiefs didn’t need it, but they added a fourth-quarter touchdown on another DeBerg play-fake to Word, which set up a six-yard pass to a wide open Jones.

“For this week, we lost, but I don’t think that makes us doubt ourselves,” linebacker Billy Ray Smith said. “We threw away our last game, and now we cannot afford to lose another game. As much of a hole as we dug ourselves in early, to be one game below .500, we have to win the rest of them. That’s pretty much it.”