KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Cornerback Ricardo Colclough sat at his locker after Sunday’s game, another Chiefs loss, and reflected on what he could have done differently.

One thing was still bothering him: the long touchdown he could have prevented if he hadn’t been paralyzed by a flashback. The play was a 47-yard catch-and-run by New Orleans wide receiver Lance Moore. Instead of staying back, as Kansas City coaches had taught Colclough the last two weeks, he took a step forward. That’s what he’d learned in Pittsburgh, where he spent four years. The mistake gave Moore an opening, and Drew Brees didn’t miss it. The Saints didn’t miss a chance to pick on the Chiefs’ battered defense for a 30-20 win.

"In my mind," Colclough said, "I’m thinking I play it the way I was coached before I came here. I’ve got to get that out of my mind.

"I’m still trying to cleanse it away."

Colclough entered Sunday having been in Kansas City for 11 days. As much as he’s tried to forget the old ways, it’s just not that easy to change old habits in less than two weeks. And the Chiefs’ defense is filled with players like Colclough, defenders who have taken a crash course in Kansas City’s defense. There are injuries, and someone has to play defense, right? The Chiefs played five defenders Sunday who weren’t on the team two weeks ago.

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The Saints were looking to trade up in the first round of the April Draft to select Dorsey, the former LSU defensive tackle who won virtually every major defensive award despite being injured for much of last season.

But when New Orleans couldn’t find a trade offer to its liking to get Dorsey, the Chiefs picked him at No. 5 and the Saints eventually swung a deal to get to No. 7 and select the other top defensive tackle, USC’s Sedrick Ellis.

“(The Saints) were talking with my agent about it,” Dorsey recalled this week. “That would have been cool too. I’m a Chief. I’m happy here. I’ll be happy wherever I go.”

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Quick. Name the hottest young quarterback in the league.

Matt Ryan? No. Joe Flacco? Nope. Brett Favre? Funny.

The answer very well might be Tyler Thigpen. Who? The unheralded, second-year quarterback from Coastal Carolina has been on fire since taking over the starting job in Kansas City, and league observers have been effusive in their praise of the Chiefs' budding star.

"He has been playing really well," said an AFC scout. "They have to be impressed with the way he has stepped up his game."

Thigpen, the Vikings' seventh-round pick in 2007, has completed 66 of 102 passes (64.7 percent) for 710 yards with six touchdowns and no interceptions in his last three starts. His passer rating of 104.6 during that span ranks as the league's third-best, and only Peyton Manning has tossed more touchdowns (7) in the past three games. Additionally, Thigpen has thrown 124 consecutive passes without an interception and hasn't turned the ball over in his last three starts.

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Tyler Thigpen has no earth-shattering explanation. He wishes he had something more revealing.

But he just doesn't have a deep, well thought out explanation why he has been so efficient, productive and forceful in his past three starts compared to his first NFL start.

"I don't know," said Thigpen in a South Carolina accent as cool and relaxed as his play. "I guess I just decided to be myself. I just decided to be the quarterback who I am ... That first start, against Atlanta, I admit, I was timid and shy. I'm not anymore."

In the past three games, Thigpen has been one of the more intriguing players in the league. He outplayed Brett Favre in his second start and caught a touchdown pass in his third. He engineered a near game-winning drive in the final minute in his fourth start. The 1-8 Chiefs lost all three games, but they may have gained a future quarterback.

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That story speaks to the essence of Johnson -- his determination and work ethic -- and it's one Peterson wished he could savor as he sat in his office last week. Instead, Peterson sank into a cushy leather chair behind a massive oak desk and carefully tried to find the right words to express his disappointment with Johnson, a player whose myriad off-the-field problems now have put his Chiefs career in jeopardy. Peterson talked about all the conversations he's had with Johnson, all the times he'd stood by Johnson when the public scrutinized him and the bond Peterson had forged with the running back in the process.

What Peterson didn't have to say was obvious: He was taking Johnson's current plight personally.

"I can honestly say that there is nobody in this city who has supported Larry as much as I have," Peterson said. "And right now it feels like one of your children has failed you. But my responsibility isn't just to Larry Johnson. It's to this entire team and the Hunt family [the Chiefs owners]. Hopefully, this has all been a wake-up call for him."

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Herm Edwards is only 14-26 in his two-plus seasons in Kansas City, including 1-7 this year. But Clark Hunt, the Chiefs’ chairman of the board, has patience.

"We went into the year knowing that we were going into a rebuilding mode," Hunt told the Star-Telegram’s Tobias Lopez. "The great thing about coach Edwards is he’s not afraid to play young players. We have the youngest roster in the league. If you look at starters, they’re the youngest by I think a full year, which is a very big gap. I would say he’s done a good job in terms of achieving the goals that we set out.

"Do I wish we’d won a few more games to this point? Absolutely. But I think we all knew it was going to be difficult."

The Chiefs began the season with 17 rookies and first-year players, an average age of 25.57 years and an average of 3.45 years of experience. They are the youngest, most inexperienced team in the league.

One of those youngsters appears to be Kansas City’s quarterback of the future. His name is not Brodie Croyle, as the Chiefs figured before the season, but Tyler Thigpen, a former running quarterback at Division II Coastal Carolina. In his past two games, Thigpen has completed 64 percent of his passes for 444 yards, 7.3 yards per attempt, three touchdown passes and no interceptions for a passer rating of 102.

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