The Three Things - 2012 Chiefs Preseason Look

Tonight the Chiefs kick off their exhibition season. I don't really pay much attention to it, I don't even know who they're playing. I only know they have a game tonight. I may try to catch some of it somewhere, but if I don't then it's probably best.

On the one hand I would love to see all of our very best out there, getting tuned up, looking good, and all that. But I also have this deep embedded fear that while I'm watching, some catastrophic thing is going to happen to one of our key players and I'll just be crushed. Remember Tony Moeaki last year? Ick.

But the preseason is just the preseason. Beyond all of that there will be a regular season starting in September with our opener against Tony G and the Falcons. So let's presume that we can't possibly have the phenomenally abysmal luck we had at the beginning of last year when we lost three of our very best players to ACL injuries, and that we'll have a reasonably full complement of our best through the year.

I want to begin by sharing with you the three things I like about our Chiefs, and the three things I don't like.

The Three Things I Really Like

Clark Hunt, Scott Pioli, Romeo Crennel.

Yep, those are the three. I know I know I know, at any time when anything rotten happens to our team there are thousands of Chiefs fans of one stripe or another are calling for any of these guys' heads. Or all of them. But you know? From everything I've seen, they've actually been doing a lot right.

It all starts with the very top, and that's Clark. I've heard so much about how he won't spend money on the team, only on his stadium, all that. But really, he's fully involved in making Arrowhead the place to be (which, let's face it, is the one thing any owner really has the most control over), he's on the front lines of making the NFL vibrant, he's the guy who's put his trust in Scott Pioli (more on him in a moment) and he writes the checks. It seems that he is quite affable and as such has engendered some measure of respect from the players, the fans, and the other higher-up powers as they may be.

Now, I may be totally off-base with all of this; there may be a lot of people who would tell me that they really know him and that he's the devil incarnate and I'm just a clueless blogger -- and believe me, there is a lot I don't know. But again, I don't see it. From what I do see, I see an owner who is committed to Chiefs success like -- um, like...

You'd think I was going to say Lamar Hunt there, didn't you? But you know? Taking nothing away from what Lamar did do, I really think there was a lot he did that hurt the Chiefs. I just don't think anyone wants to say anything about it because they guy was such a great guy -- he really was indeed a great guy and did do amazing things for the Chiefs and for pro football, everyone knows that.

But I am convinced a lot of why the Chiefs were so barren for so long was because Hunt was such an negligent owner.

I understand, scandalous remarks for anyone to make. But after reading David Sweet's relatively short print biography, I am convinced that all the attention Lamar gave to starting pro tennis leagues and pro soccer leagues, even to owning the Chicago Bulls for that matter -- yes, when Michael Jordan was winning titles for them! -- all that just took needed attention away from the Chiefs. It wasn't that he did it in any kind of malicious way, but he still did it nonetheless.

Just a quick note, I'm looking forward to finding out more about Lamar Hunt and his legacy, and there is a terrific source coming down the pike that'll help with that. Keep an eye out for Michael MacCambridge's bio, apparently due out this October. It's got to be a much more thorough and comprehensive biography of Lamar. If you haven't read MacCambridge's America's Game, you simply must.

With Clark, I just don't see any of that distraction. Sure the dude is richer than anything and has his hands in a lot of other things, and I don't think his devotion to the Chiefs is any greater than his dad's, but I just see more attention to the team. Not that he meddles, but he's not negligent either. Yes, we'll have to see how his ownership skills play out for the team over the next several years, but I do like what I see.

Scott Pioli is obviously trying to build the Chiefs the Patriots way, and if you ask me, all the power to him. Who wouldn't want an organization built the way the Patriots were built? I think we have to give Pioli a number of years to prove he could do it, and so far I like what I see here too. He's had some pretty decent drafts (the Tyson Jackson pick notwithstanding) and he's working his tail off to plug holes, get the right fits, and just flat-out assemble a competitive team. You can tell he is further driven by that all-consuming and most important goal of assembling a championship team.

Romeo Crennel is the true wild-card among the three, but still, I like him a lot. He looks like a guy who the players like, and that is very critical. The question is, can he coach? If you look at the way he puts a defense together, the answer is a hearty yes. If you look at the way he managed the Green Bay game last year just taking over on the sidelines after Todd Haley was fired, the answer is another robust yes.

But if you look at the way he coached the Raiders game last year? Ouch. Or if you look at his tenure with the Browns? Ghastly. Thing is, the Browns are the Browns. The really funny thing here relates to the Patriots connection again. Check this out.

Bill Belichick was defensive coordinator for the Giants when they won a Super Bowl in 1990. Crennel was the D-coordinator when the Patriots won Super Bowls. Belichick then went on to coach the Browns and didn't do so well. Crennel did the same. Belichick then went on to coach the Patriots to those Super Bowl wins. With the Chiefs, Crennel... -- Can we write the same thing we did about Belichick here for Crennel in a few years?

Hey, look, as I've said before, it's time for an old-AFL team to win some Super Bowls, and we're as good a candidate as any to do so right now.

Except for...

The Three Things I Really Don't Like

Matt Cassel, Brady Quinn, Ricky Stanzi.

Yep, those three things. I have nothing against them personally, in fact personally I may actually like them.

But with the Chiefs, for the Chiefs, about the Chiefs, I just don't like them. Now again, I pay no attention at all to any of what's been happening in the off season. It's just too depressing to hear about this bad thing, or that bad thing, knowing that those things will inevitably eviscerate our chances to contend. I've already heard of one really rotten thing that happened, and that was that we didn't draft a top-tier quarterback, yet again.

Let me ask you a question. What do all of the following numbers have in common?

1 - 1 - 4 - 230.

Yes, just to clarify, that's a one, and a one, and a four, and a two-hundred-and-thirty.

Take a second and see if you can figure it out. (Yes, I'm just stalling before you can scroll down the webpage too quickly down to see the answer, mercilessly forcing you to try to figure it out.) And yes, the numbers do reveal a tremendously stupid thing having to do with the Chiefs. All right all right, I'll give you a hint. This'll give it to you right away if you think for a minute.

Here are the projected starting quarterbacks for all the teams in the AFC West:

Peyton Manning (Denver), Carson Palmer (Oakland), Philip Rivers (San Diego), and (gulp) Matt Cassel (Kansas City).

Have you figured out why I gulped there for just a second? Did you get it?

Manning and Palmer were the number one overall picks in their respective drafts. Manning is a legend and Palmer has shown flashes of brilliance. Rivers was (and has been) a stud who, interestingly after being drafted fourth overall, was traded for the number one selected guy overall in his draft (that was Eli Manning). So you could almost say all three of them were number one picks overall in the entire NFL draft.

Ahem, er, um...

Where was Matt Cassel drafted?

There it is. You finally figured it out! Yay you!

I can't see how Cassel is not our first string quarterback. That is scary. He was awful in the last games of 2010. He was too awful too many times last year, especially just before he broke his hand. Unless he went through the most intensive Bill-Walshesque quarterback training regiment high in the Himalayas through the entire spring under the rigorous tutelage of the cloned-ninja Sid Gillman masters of the quarterback realm...

Then I don't like him.

Now we signed Brady Quinn to give Cassel some competition at that spot, but what has he done? Sure he was drafted very high by the Browns, but you simply can't blame the Browns for everything. In fact, this Onion piece is just about all I know about Brady Quinn. Yes, the gratuitous :: whimper :: does follow.

If Quinn steps up, takes over, and is the stud everyone thought he would be coming out of Notre Dame, I'm great with that. But on what basis does anyone think that'll actually happen? As it is (as far as I know) there is Matt Cassel, still there.

Then there's Ricky Stanzi. I'm telling you, this has got to be the one thing that parallels the Patriots universe, and that is that Stanzi comes in like a young Tom Brady and... well, you know the rest of the story. Alas, as it is, the chances of those kinds of Tom Brady things happening are, well, I won't depress you any further.

See, the thing is that this Chiefs team is actually pretty damn good. Briefly, here is where they are everywhere else, and you'll see that -- again, assuming the injury thing isn't a factor -- there is a lot to be excited about. Going from what have been our strengths to our not-so-strengths:

Defensive backfield - Getting Eric Berry back means the world. We lost Branden Carr, but we still have Brandon Flowers, Kendrick Lewis, Javier Arenas, and a host of young hungry D-backs.

Running backs - What a coup to get Peyton Hillis. I don't know a whole lot about him, but I'd heard he's pretty good and hey, he was even on the cover of "Madden '12"! With Jamaal Charles healthy and Dexter McCluster fully in the mix we should be good here.

Wide receivers - All that needs to be said is Dwayne Bowe. But he may finally have a true complementary set of wide-outs with Steve Breaston and Jon Baldwin. Terrance Copper shows promise too.

Offensive line- Albert and Asamoah have a few more years under their belts, and my son said we'd picked up a very good lineman from the Texans, just don't know his name. Still very encouraging.

Linebacking - The key question here is whether or not Derrick Johnson and Tamba Hali can still play. They're both getting up there in years but have gotten better as they've become veterans. Last year they were each terrific, and with youngster Justin Houston showing his stuff, we can be solid here.

Defensive line - I've spent years ragging all over these guys, especially super-high picks Glenn Dorsey and Tyson Jackson, but you know? Our defense really played well last year, especially late in the season. And no defense plays well without some critically major contribution from the D-line. You've got to give those two guys credit, and who knows? They may actually finally be coming into their own this year. It still isn't too late for either of them.

I should add: Special teams - Colquitt and Succop are both good, so we should be okay there.

I may have left off any of half-a-dozen guys who're really pretty good, guys we drafted, picked up, getting better, but again just guys I don't know anything about.

But that's it, there it is, that's the team. All the position areas accounted for...

Except quarterback.

And what is so crazy is not just that we don't have a top-tier guy there now, but that we don't even have a top-tier guy there getting ready to be there later. I'm fine with seeing what happens. I'm great with hoping the very best from our quarterback whoever it is.

It's just The Quarterback Project does not provide much encouragement for us now.

Let's hope that Romeo has such a beast of a defense that we don't have to worry about getting more than the ten or so points per game we're going to have. I'm looking for our new guy, super-high-drafted and super-humongous Dontari Poe to take up the space of three guys on the line. We're going to need it.

Yes, defense wins championships.

But quarterbacks are pretty good too.
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