<table> </table> The celebrations may truly begin this week if the Chiefs, huge underdogs again, find a way to beat the Carolina Panthers today. The Chiefs have an open date next week and would have some time to savor what could be their longest winning streak, two games, since October 2006.</p><p>They certainly had cause to indulge in merriment after last Sunday&#8217;s game against Denver at Arrowhead Stadium. The Chiefs snapped a franchise-record 12-game losing streak with a startling 33-19 win.</p><p>But it&#8217;s almost as if the Chiefs didn&#8217;t trust the result; the victory wasn&#8217;t the Kodak moment it might seem.</p><p>Quarterback Damon Huard was so worn out that he went home and could do little but accept a few congratulatory phone calls and watch NFL games on TV.</p><p>Coach Herm Edwards had to search his memory for a postgame victory speech in the locker room.</p><p>Linebacker Derrick Johnson followed his usual routine: a dinner with his mother at the Peachtree, except this time they were able to enjoy it.</p><p>But below the surface, the victory touched some lives in a lot of ways.</p><p><strong><span class="subhead">Damon Huard</span></strong></p><p>If any of the Chiefs had reason to gloat, it was Huard. It had looked like he was on his way to the scrap heap when the Chiefs first gave his starting job to Brodie Croyle, then his top backup job to Tyler Thigpen.</p><p>But when Croyle went out of the lineup with a separated shoulder and Thigpen was erratic, the Chiefs had nowhere else to turn. Huard, as he so often has done, bailed them out.</p><p>He might have reason to feel he&#8217;s solidifying his place with the Chiefs. Typically, though, he&#8217;s been more about today&#8217;s game than the last one.</p><p>Instead of going out to dinner Sunday night with his wife, Julie, and their three kids, as they sometimes do, he just chilled.</p><p>&#8220;It was such a long game,&#8221; Huard said. &#8220;It just seems like we left it all on the field. It was just so tiring, so draining. We played with a passion.</p><p>&#8220;I went home and lay on the couch. I really didn&#8217;t do anything. I just kind of lay around and talked on the phone and watched some of the other games. I was drained emotionally, physically, mentally.</p><p>&#8220;But don&#8217;t get me wrong. It was a great feeling.&#8221;</p><p>That feeling, though, didn&#8217;t sink in until the work week started anew on Monday.</p><p>&#8220;Winning always gives everybody a lift,&#8221; Huard said. &#8220;The nicks and bruises we all get every week don&#8217;t feel so bad right now.&#8221;</p><p><strong><span class="subhead">Herm Edwards</span></strong></p><p>Say this for Edwards: He did a great job of keeping his emotions on an even keel throughout the losing streak. He never revealed publicly the depths of his despair over his inability to stop the slide.</p><p>That was a fa&#231;ade that last week he acknowledged was getting more difficult to maintain as the losses piled up.</p><p>&#8220;It was eating at me and bothering me, but I&#8217;m the face of the team and I&#8217;ve got to walk the certain walk and keep everybody else in the right frame of mind so they don&#8217;t go down that road,&#8221; Edwards said. &#8220;You&#8217;ve got only so many of those speeches after a loss. I&#8217;ve had to use a lot of them.</p><p>&#8220;We hadn&#8217;t won in such a long time. You almost didn&#8217;t know how to act.&#8221;</p><p>While he entered the season with the backing of chairman Clark Hunt, some of his support had to erode after the Chiefs started 0-3. While one win won&#8217;t in and of itself guarantee him time to see through his youth movement, it certainly is evidence that the Chiefs are making progress.</p><p>So Edwards had a tremendous sense of relief, perhaps more than anyone else.