<table> </table> After 11 games of mistakes, foul-ups, embarrassments and second-guesses, Chiefs coach Herm Edwards said Tuesday he&#8217;s confident that at least one of the organization&#8217;s controversial decisions was the right one.</p><p>Sure, Edwards said, defensive end Jared Allen could have helped this team. The Chiefs are on pace to have the weakest pass rush in NFL history. Allen led the league last year in sacks, before the Chiefs traded him in April to Minnesota in exchange for three draft picks.</p><p>Time has given Edwards a chance to reflect on that trade. The Chiefs have six sacks this season. Allen has eight in 11 games with the Vikings. But Edwards said Tuesday, still in the cold shadow of Sunday&#8217;s historic loss to Buffalo, that he doesn&#8217;t regret the Allen trade &#8212; even considering what it has appeared to cost the Chiefs.</p><p>&#8220;It was the right thing to do for the football team,&#8221; Edwards said before a long pause. &#8220;You&#8217;re trying to build a football team. Well, how do you do that? You have to get players.&#8221;</p><p>But what if it hadn&#8217;t gone through? Allen might not have duplicated last year&#8217;s 15 1/2 sacks, but with this season&#8217;s defensive futility playing out as it has, even half that number would have been welcome at Arrowhead Stadium.</p><p>Perhaps third-year defensive end Tamba Hali would have continued to benefit from having Allen on his opposite side, instead of being the line&#8217;s point man this year. Hali had 15 1/2 sacks his first two seasons. He has one sack in 10 starts this year.</p><p>Maybe Allen would have made big plays in several of the Chiefs&#8217; close losses, maybe turning a handful of them into wins. And maybe the Chiefs wouldn&#8217;t have allowed a franchise-record 54 points Sunday to Buffalo, a loss that underscored how few experienced playmakers the Chiefs&#8217; defense now possesses.</p><p>&#8220;When you&#8217;re in a rut,&#8221; Edwards said, &#8220;you&#8217;re in a rut.&#8221;</p><p>But it was the what-ifs that had a hand in driving Allen out of Kansas City. He had a longstanding contract dispute with Chiefs president Carl Peterson, and the team had concerns about Allen&#8217;s character after he was arrested twice for drunken driving within a year. What if he repeated his mistakes, despite a 2007 season in which he was clean, sober and selected to his first Pro Bowl? Another DUI in either Missouri or Kansas would have meant a mandatory 18-month jail sentence, in addition to a possible NFL suspension. He also lent his name to a now-defunct sports bar, an association that didn&#8217;t sit well with the team.</p><p>What if, as Allen told <em>The Star </em>in July, he had continued to be reluctant to sign a long-term deal with the Chiefs? Would Kansas City really have been better off keeping him, especially if that was by tagging him the team&#8217;s franchise player for one more season?</p><p>The Chiefs couldn&#8217;t risk all those questions. They cashed in their most valuable chip, sending the popular star to Minnesota and beginning a team-wide overhaul four days later, when the draft began.</p><p>&#8220;When you do something like that,&#8221; Edwards said Tuesday, &#8220;you know it&#8217;s going to affect you one way. But it&#8217;s going to help you other ways.&#8221;</p><p>Edwards pointed toward the Chiefs&#8217; rookie starters as proof that, yes, Kansas City got its share out of the deal. The trade directly allowed the team to select tackle Branden Albert, running back Jamaal Charles and safety DaJuan Morgan. It indirectly allowed the Chiefs to grab defensive tackle Glenn Dorsey, the top player on Kansas City&#8217;s draft board, with the confidence they could use their other first-round pick, the one that had belonged to Minnesota, on an offensive tackle.