Kansas City Made Butts Stop There : Chiefs: Charger running back held to season-low 40 yards on 14 carries. Chiefs quarterback Steve DeBerg made the most of support from defense and offensive line.

Marion Butts’ words came back to haunt him Sunday.

Butts, the Charger running back, told HBO’s “Inside the NFL” last week that the team the Chargers were most concerned with in the AFC was the Los Angeles Raiders.

Apparently, the Kansas City Chiefs were watching. Their inspired defense held Butts, who came into the game as the NFL’s leading rusher, to a season-low 40 yards on 14 carries in Kansas City’s 27-10 victory over the Chargers.

“I watched the show,” Chiefs linebacker Dino Hackett said, “and when you make statements like that, he was acting like he was overlooking us.”

Butts had reason to be confident against the Chiefs, a team the Chargers had beaten five consecutive times. Last season, he carried 54 times for 248 yards against Kansas City, including a 176-yard performance in a 20-13 victory at Arrowhead Stadium in December.

But he never got untracked Sunday. Butts, who was averaging 4.7 yards a carry going into the game, managed only 2.9 yards per attempt against the Chiefs, and his longest run was a 13-yard sweep.

“He’s an outstanding back,” Chiefs Coach Marty Schottenheimer said, “but if he only gets 14 rushes, it’s going to be hard for him to get his 100 yards. You have to run the ball a significant number of times to make rushing yards.”

The Chiefs were so consumed with stopping him that backup safety Danny Copeland scrawled on the notebook containing the game plan, “BUTTS.”

“The guy is young, and he doesn’t understand, you don’t take anybody for granted in this league,” Chiefs outside linebacker Chris Martin said. “Everybody has the same amount of talent. It’s a matter of performing on Sunday. You try to not to give any added fuel to an opposing team.”

Butts, a two-year veteran, insisted he was saying the Raiders are the team to beat in division, “and I still believe so, regardless of the (Chiefs’) victory.”

Though the Chargers ranked sixth in the NFL in rushing going into the game and Kansas City was 13th in stopping the run, the Chiefs have been improving in that area since their open date three weeks ago.

In the past two games, they held the Raiders’ tandem of Bo Jackson and Marcus Allen to 64 yards, and Seattle’s Derrick Fenner and John L. Williams to 56 yards.

“They thought they could come in and run the ball and do whatever they wanted,” linebacker Derrick Thomas said. “We were determined that wouldn’t happen because for the last three or four weeks, we’ve been playing great run defense.

“Our attitude today was different than against them last year. All the marbles are on the line right now. Given the Dolphins take care of business (tonight against the Raiders) we’re in first place in the AFC West. That’s on all our minds, so every game from here on in is like a playoff game.”

Also, the Chiefs simplified their defense against the Chargers’ power running game.

“Last year against them, we were out of position a lot,” strong safety Kevin Porter said. “We weren’t coordinated in our run support. Today, we only had three defenses coming into the game.”

By the time Butts touched the ball, San Diego was trailing 10-0 and had to play catch-up the rest of the game.

The Chiefs struck early on Steve DeBerg’s 90-yard pass-run play to J.J. Birden on Kansas City’s third play of the game. It was Kansas City’s first offensive touchdown in 10 quarters, or since DeBerg hooked up with Birden on a 33-yarder Oct. 21 at Seattle.

“It was just a well-designed play,” DeBerg said. “It was a new wrinkle we did this week, and it worked perfectly. They got confused by the snap of the ball because we did a little motion and we got them.”

The victory was DeBerg’s first against the Chargers in five starts with the Chiefs and only his second in eight career starts against the Chargers. In fact, in two starts against the Chargers last year, he threw seven interceptions.

“The great thing as far as I’m concerned was the outstanding pass protection,” said DeBerg, who was sacked only once. “What a difference a year makes. Both times we played them last year, I was very beat up. The offensive line played outstanding.”

Not only did the line give DeBerg time and enable him to extend his streak of passes without an interception to 135, it paved the way for Barry Word’s 90 yards in 17 attempts.

Word, a free agent who sat out nearly two years after leaving the New Orleans Saints, took over as the Chiefs feature back, replacing Christian Okoye, who managed only 43 yards in 15 carries.

“We’ll find out who’s got the hot hand and, whoever (does), we’ll let him run,” Schottenheimer said. “It is our intention to play both.”

Word had seven runs of four yards or more, including a long run of 23 as he darted quickly to the outside on sweeps and made effective cutbacks on inside runs. He also caught a pass for nine yards.

“They had all sorts of people all around the line of scrimmage,” Word said, “and we didn’t expect to get really long runs. But I did want to get a few situations where I was in the secondary. When you can do that, you’re winning. When the defensive backs are making tackles, you’re beating them pretty well.

“The offensive line leaned on those guys, they blocked them, they opened up some cracks for me, and I was able to exploit that.”