The Chiefs braced themselves for this season and are moving forward with what they have. But they don&#8217;t yet know how it will measure up against regular-season competition.</p><p>Thursday night? That was no test. It was an opportunity.</p><p>The Chiefs&#8217; starters played against St. Louis&#8217; reserves. But Kansas City scored on its first three possessions, and that 21-17 win in the Chiefs&#8217; preseason finale sure felt good to a team aching for some optimism &#8212; especially after last week&#8217;s blowout loss at Miami.</p><p>&#8220;We needed that,&#8221; quarterback Brodie Croyle said. &#8220;We did what we needed to do. We knew we weren&#8217;t as bad as we played last week.</p><p>&#8220;We came out here and gave ourselves a little bit of confidence.&#8221;</p><p>Maybe this is how the Chiefs should play every week &#8212; as if the result doesn&#8217;t matter and they have nothing to lose. They know each game will include growing pains, tough questions, young mistakes and dark clouds that might follow the Chiefs the way a storm settled over Arrowhead Stadium on Thursday and delayed kickoff by more than an hour.</p><p>Herm Edwards keeps saying those days won&#8217;t matter. They can&#8217;t. The Chiefs are rebuilding, and only five of 22 starters have reached their 30th birthday. When these young players don&#8217;t measure up, the Chiefs will have to remember games like Thursday&#8217;s. They&#8217;ll remember that Croyle was confident and on point, the defense was enthusiastic and hungry, and the offense ripped through a team like it&#8217;s not full of 23-year-olds.</p><p>&#8220;We gained our step back after losing it last week,&#8221; Edwards said.</p><p>For now, the Chiefs aren&#8217;t thinking about St. Louis&#8217; half-effort. That the Rams&#8217; defense included zero starters while Kansas City was rolling up points. No, the Chiefs are thinking about their own big night, their last game before heading to New England for the regular-season opener Sept. 7 and the match between one of the NFL&#8217;s best teams and one of its youngest.</p><p>With that on the horizon, the Chiefs needed this. They needed Bernard Pollard to strip the ball from Rams running back Travis Minor and dance all the way to the Chiefs&#8217; sideline. They needed backup rushers Kolby Smith and Jamaal Charles to make good on their potential and give Larry Johnson a night off. And they needed the offense &#8212; the unit that scored one touchdown in its previous eight quarters &#8212; to score three of them Thursday.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s going to be like that all year,&#8221; left guard Brian Waters said. &#8220;When you have a young football team &#8212; any football team; it doesn&#8217;t have to be young &#8212; the little, bitty things that you learn from, all the things that you know somehow, some way, they&#8217;re going to come back around. I think tonight we learned how to bounce back from some early obstacles.&#8221;</p><p>Croyle might have needed that lesson more than anyone. He&#8217;s the quarterback who&#8217;s spent his offseason lifting his chin, throwing back his shoulders and saying that, heck yeah, he&#8217;s the starter and that&#8217;s not going to change.</p><p>He completed three of four passes for 42 yards, a short appearance but an effective one. He led two of those touchdown drives and looked comfortable doing it. No sacks. No interceptions. Nothing but smart reads and safe throws.</p><p>That&#8217;s all the Chiefs want out of Croyle this year: Good will do, even if great isn&#8217;t realistic.</p><p>&#8220;We wanted to come out here and put together a couple big drives. We did what we needed to do,&#8221; Croyle said. &#8220;We&#8217;re not a bad offense.&#8221;