KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- For the third straight time in a four-week-old season, Elvis Grbac watched in horror as Ray Crockett returned yet another of his interceptions for a touchdown.

	Elvis Grbac has thrown 14 touchdown passes in six games.

As the fans at Denver's Mile High Stadium punctuated Grbac's misery ("El-vis, El-vis!"), it occurred to Chiefs center Tim Grunhard that things could have been worse.

"If this was at home," Grunhard reflected, "he'd have really been hearing it."

Indeed, just a week earlier, Grbac was booed by his harshest critics -- a vocal number of fans at Arrowhead Stadium -- after Chargers free safety Michael Dumas returned a pick 56 yards for a quick 7-0 Chargers lead. There were even some derisive cheers as Grbac walked gingerly off the field after being hit on the play.

Perhaps that was to be expected. Kansas City fans still remembered how in the season opener, Grbac threw a pick from deep in his own end that the Colts' Jeff Burris returned for the touchdown, breaking open a three-point game in the fourth quarter.

There were times in the first seven years of his career when the three touchdown-producing picks might have devastated Grbac.

"Early on in my career, there was a lot of emotional stuff to deal with, and maybe I didn't deal with it right," reflected Grbac, who as a 49er once was called an embarrassment to mankind by San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown after a Monday-night loss to Dallas.

"But now I've gotten to the point where I'm not thinking, 'Oh God, here come the boos,' or that I can't get out of this funk. I'm thinking instead about what I can do to keep drives going and score points."

The turnaround point in Grbac's season -- and maybe his career -- may have come in that San Diego game when he shook off an early 10-0 deficit, as well as a sore leg and psyche, and threw a career-high five touchdown passes in what became a 42-10 Chiefs romp.

A week later, after Crockett's interception gave Denver a 12-7 lead, Grbac threw two second-half touchdown passes, the second of which capped an 80-yard crunch-time drive for the game-winning score.

Grbac continued his come-from-behind mastery a week later vs. Seattle, throwing touchdown passes through tight coverage to tight end Tony Gonzalez and wide receiver Derrick Alexander in rallying the Chiefs.

For Grbac, the three-week run represented something he had been waiting for in his three previous seasons in Kansas City. For in completing 57 of 93 passes for 741 yards, nine touchdowns and three interceptions during the winning streak, Grbac saw three different receivers (Gonzalez, Alexander and rookie Sylvester Morris) emerge with 100-yard games. "This is what I envisioned when I came here in 1997, that I'd have this kind of talent around me," Grbac said. "Now we have the sense as an offense that whatever the situation is -- down 17-7 at home, 19-7 on the road -- it doesn't matter; we can score and win."

To be sure, watching his receivers making leaping and diving catches is a tremendous confidence boost to any quarterback, and Grbac is quick to credit his trio.

"You look at D.A. (Alexander) with his size (6-foot-2, 200), and Tony Gonzalez (6-4, 250) and Sylvester Morris (6-3, 206), these guys really get strong up in the air," Grbac said. "Now they're on the sideline telling me, 'I don't care if there's one guy there or two guys there. You just put the ball up, and I'll get it.' "

But there's more at work here than just improvement in the receiving corps. Grbac, whose 95.3 passer rating (based on 57 percent accuracy and a 12-to-4 TD-interception ratio) was the AFC's second-best after Week 6, is now attempting and completing throws he might not have tried a month ago. Better yet, he's willing to live with the occasional pick if he can throw three times as many touchdown passes.

"He threw a touchdown pass to Tony that I wouldn't have tried," said an appreciative Warren Moon, Grbac's backup. "But he made it basically because of his confidence in his own ability and that the guy on the other end will make the play.

"When you start making plays like that, you tend to think you can make more of them."

Grbac has shown such flashes in the past, mind you.

	“	Obviously, you don't want to throw interceptions every game. But when (Grbac) does, he never blinks, he never gives up, he keeps fighting back. I'm proud to have his hands between my legs. ”
		— Tim Grunhard, Chiefs center

In '97, his first season with the Chiefs, Grbac threw a last-minute touchdown pass to Andre Rison to spark a Week 2 Monday-night win at Oakland. That jump-started a 13-3 season in which an injured Grbac split time with Rich Gannon.

That early-season promise faded, however, when Grbac fell 25 yards short of rallying the Chiefs past Denver in a second-round playoff loss at Kansas City.

After a disappointing and injury-plagued second season ended in a 7-9 record, Grbac appeared on the upswing again in '99, when he drove the Chiefs to a game-winning field goal in the final 1:38 against Minnesota. That victory put Kansas City atop the AFC West, but losses in the final two games kept the Chiefs out of the playoffs.

Losses to Indianapolis and Tennessee at the start of the 2000 campaign strapped Grbac in the hot seat again. But his performance in his next three games allowed his teammates to rally around him, something that wasn't always the case.

"When I was there, a lot of the players wanted Rich (Gannon) to be the starting quarterback," admitted former Chiefs safety Reggie Tongue, now with Seattle, prior to the Seahawks game. "We really didn't believe in Elvis too much when I was there.

"But it seems now like he's gotten people to rally around him. They're going to him and giving him a lot more freedom than they used to."

Added Moon: "Elvis has done a great job of blotting out all the negative forces that have been around him since he's been here. He's learned how to deal with it, he doesn't let it bother him as much anymore. He's now got such confidence about himself and the people around him that he doesn't care about the criticism."

He has become, in short, the quarterback his center has been championing for more than three years.

"Obviously, you don't want to throw interceptions every game," Grunhard said. "But when he does, he never blinks, he never gives up, he keeps fighting back.

"I'm proud to have his hands between my legs."

Grunhard's one-liner notwithstanding, Grbac is just about where he'd hoped to be at this point in his career.

"I'm totally relaxed," he explained. "I'm right where I had hoped to be ... eight years in the league, turning 30 and very comfortable with the system and people we have here.

"Maybe my clock is ticking, and I realize that. Maybe I know I've got only another five years or so. But I know my opportunity is sitting right here, right now, and I've got to grasp it."

Rick Dean covers the Chiefs for the Topeka (Kan.) Capital-Journal.

Material from Pro Football Weekly.
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