A Letter to the New General Manager of the Kansas City Chiefs
Dear Chiefs General Manager,
I would like to humbly welcome you to your new job. Thank you for taking on the challenge of rebuilding a storied franchise. I know you will give your full devotion to this noble cause. As long as you wear the Chiefs emblem proudly you will have our 100% support.
I’d like to begin by asking you to understand that there are many genuine and thoughtful Chiefs fans who’ve been extraordinarily disheartened by the way things have been going with our team. While the devastating losses are difficult, we can endure them as long as there is a commitment to excellence throughout the organization.
We’ve had reason to be proud of what our team has accomplished, particularly in those years when Chiefs football was synonymous with excellence, notably the decades of the 1960’s and 1990’s. What is quite encouraging is that this team does show great promise in spite of its horrendous won-loss record over the past two years.
I trust that you will make terrific decisions as our new general manager, I’d like to take a moment and simply share with you thoughts from a fan about what may help this Chiefs team. I am sure you are aware of these things, indeed you certainly know much more than any of us do. I’d still like to share what I think are our top priorities, ranked from least important to most important. Of course all are critically important.
8. A receiving core to compliment Dwayne Bowe. The Chiefs have never really had a dynamite set of wideouts, and while it was nice to have had people like Eddie Kennison, wouldn’t it be great if we can get someone to compliment Bowe on the other side? We can’t expect Tony Gonzalez to last forever, I mean, does he even have another year left in him?—If he does, great! This may not be such a big deal if Mark Bradley and/or Devard Darling can be solid next year.
7. A solid kicker. Huh? A kicker? What’s with that? It is no secret that the Chiefs have an oppressive kicking curse hovering over them. I think it started right after Jan Stenarud ruined the Vikings with his leg in Super Bowl IV, it has carried through our very best—Jan himself (in ’71, the infamous Christmas Day loss to the Dolphins), Nick Lowery (in ’91) and Pete Stoyanovich (in ’98), all of them missed critical FG’s that lost us playoff games—and it continues to this day, to wit: Two years ago we wasted a critical fifth round pick on Justin Medlock, and last year we signed John Carney as a fill-in and who made the Pro Bowl this year—with a different team. Oh that we’d have a reliable long-term kicker who’d just once—just once!—bang in a clutch field goal in a playoff win. Oh what joy!
6. A head coach who calls full, confident games and finishes. What’s this, way down here sixth in the order of priorities? Really, head coach should be higher, but I personally like Herm Edwards. He’s a gamer, he wants to win, he wants to surround himself with good people, he relates well with the players. I’d like to think he’s willing to learn more about what it takes to consistently win. But really, this is your call.
5. A mean middle linebacker. Not just any mean guy but a steaming fuming raging guy with a killer instinct that cannot be quenched. Last year I asked Santa Claus for a maniacal Ray Lewis-type guy, but I must’ve been bad that year or something. He sure didn’t get him for us this season. Really, we could use a whole bunch of these kinds of guys who know how to shut down a team’s running game. And for Derrick Johnson, the guy has tons of talent, we’ve all seen it, somebody needs to go down there and light a fire under his rear end. That’d be great.
4. Tamba Hali, Tank Tyler, Glenn Dorsey, and Turk McBride to sit in front of hours and hours of game film featuring Bruce Smith and Reggie White mixed with stirring, rousing music. I’d like to think our guys there are going to be pretty good-- all top prospects, solid picks, young guns, but guys who just didn’t do a whole lot out there this year to stop opposing offenses.
3. An offensive line that stands people up. This is axiomatic, I know, games are won in the trenches. But as all of us Chiefs fans know so well since we had such a kickin’-aye line for so many years, we have really got to have that Jonathan Ogden guy anchoring the line for gobs and gobs of years. I’d spend the third pick in the whole draft on that guy, but only if he ends up doing real Jonathan Ogden-type work for us.
2. A world-class quarterback. Please please please please please please please get us a word-class quarterback. Please draft and develop him for the duration of our team’s imminent success. Please do not pick up a guy from the scrap heap who may have a couple quality years left. And please don’t hang our hopes on the gonzo play of Tyler Thigpen—while fun to watch, it won’t get us rings.
Finally, the most important item of them all…
1. Respect through the league and the professional football world. Really, it’s about time we got what so many other teams have been privileged to enjoy, a rank of status from which people see us as the class of the profession. While it is definitely our turn in our division—the Broncos, Chargers, and Raiders have all had much more overall success through the past several years than we have—the only way we can get that is not because “it is our turn” but because our commitment to hard work and smart football is felt and shared from water boy to owner. Yes, it’s a cliché, but it sure would be nice to have it.
I just urge you to continue to take pride in your efforts and in achieving that highly respected status for professional football in Kansas City, even if the owner is not where you think he should be in all of this. Clark Hunt is still new to it all, and it'd certainly be great if he becomes a truly class owner in the mold of an Art Rooney or Wellington Mara. No matter what happens, we are hoping you will take the baton and do what you know you do best.
Chiefs fans will be looking forward to 2009 with eager anticipation. Thank you for joining our team!
With greatest respect,
A Chiefs fan
_
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Chiefs at Bengals - Week 17 - Record: 2-14
I want to begin by emphasizing that this blog is about looking at each Chiefs game in depth. I simply want to ruminate on paper (or in “cyperspace” if you will) on how the Chiefs are doing game-wise, and the novel feature of this blog is that I pay no attention to anything else outside of the game.
I say this because I am fully committed to this purpose, though I haven’t been addressing much in-game stuff lately. Last week I barely said a word about the game itself and my feelings about it. Oh there were many such feelings, but my focus recently has been on that one single item that determines what precisely it is about any given game that makes up what we actually do out there.
That item is, of course, how strong the leadership of the front office is.
With that in mind I do want to continue that thread, even at the expense of an more thorough rendering of the actual game today with the Bengals. I must, however, share some important thoughts about the nature of my approach to the Chiefs and blogging on them.
Giving attention to the game itself and nothing else is a tactic that has its benefits but it also has its liabilities. One is a confession I have to make here, to be fair to Carl Peterson. Last week I made a very brief comment about Sylvester Morris being a wasted pick. It turned out to be, but not necessarily because of the GM. It was because Morris had been seriously injured during his first season.
The benefit is that I don’t have to endure hearing about the inane things people like Carl Peterson do to wreck my team. Last Sunday I’d stretched the bounds of my sports celibacy to look at the story about how Peterson treated tackle John Tait a few years ago. In some respect I was not wholly accurate about Peterson’s inability to draft a solid lineman. Well, it seems he did draft a few decent linemen, one of whom was John Tait. Peterson then proceeded to treat Tait like crap, inspiring him to take a hike and later help the Bears get to the Super Bowl.
As I read this story—thinking about how fortunate I am not to have known about it only because it would’ve aggravated me so much—I had to wonder: How much of this filth has been going on in the Chiefs front office? How much exactly are the Chiefs reviled by other teams and their top people? Furthermore—and most disheartening:
Exactly how many Chiefs players are grudgingly fulfilling their duties as Chiefs only because the league keeps them in Chiefs uniforms and punishes them severely for speaking out against a team they too revile?
This is the most harrowing question of all. I would otherwise shrug it off as a fleeting thought except for two critical considerations that do not make me feel good at all.
One is our record. At 2-14, we’ve demonstrated without a doubt that we are indeed one of the very worst teams in the league. This latest loss was a pathetic showing against another sad sack team, hardly worthy of a mention even though, as I did say, this blog is all about the game. (31 total rushing yards on the day? What’s new? Finally breaking the record for fewest sacks by a team in a 16-game season? You want to talk about that?) As it is we’ve got the second worst record in the entire NFL—thank goodness for the Lions! But just like the 0-16 Lions we lost to every single team we played on the schedule. (We did defeat Denver and Oakland but lost to them also.)
The most telling index of how good or bad something is: the scoreboard. We can talk all we want about how neat this is or how spiffy that is, but if we’re not flat-out winning ball games then there is something really really wrong.
I don’t think Herm Edwards is the problem. Getting rid of Carl Peterson was a big plus and I do know a new GM could blow Herm out in a nanosecond. But I actually think Herm is good for us. Bear with me now. What I’m more frightened of this that second thing that gets me.
It is a thought that I never thought I’d think before but perhaps, just perhaps others have. It may even be sacrilege for me to speak of it, and that may be why anyone else who dares to think it does not share it so widely.
To set this up, think about it. We had one of the strongest teams in all of professional football in the 1960’s, when Lamar Hunt was bold and brash and led the cutting-edge AFL. Along came the 70’s and 80’s when we were lucky to have years of mediocrity because Hunt simply dropped the team in the lap of know-nothing-about-football Jack Steadman for years upon years upon years.
Carl Peterson came in, bold and brash and fresh from building a quality USFL team in Philadelphia and used his touch to resurrect the team into arguably (with apologies to the Buffalo Bills) the best team in the AFC through that decade (ahem, at least in the regular season). But then we discovered just how awful Peterson was long-term, partly because Hunt continued his avowed “hands-off” policy regarding football and player matters.
Can you see the common thread here? No, it is not Herm Edwards, upon whom everyone seems to unleash their fury. But why look down at the paintings and furniture in the house to see where the termite damage is? No you’ve got to look up, in the rafters, where the wood is wettest and lightest.
Up, past the general manager position.
You see where I’m going with this.
Heaven forbid I should say anything against the Hunt family, because while Carl Peterson was not lionized, Lamar Hunt was. And rightly so. Nothing will take away any earnest Chiefs fan’s respect for him. And Clark Hunt is right now just feeling his oats for this kind of thing. That’s cool.
But this supposedly noble “hands-off” position the Hunts have prided themselves on has got to end. It is not so much that the considered positive here is that an owner is hands-off, but that he should be hands-off in areas he should leave to the right people who best do those things. Proclaiming with a smile that you are “hands-off” may actually be an implicit confession that you just don’t know what in blazes you are doing up there.
I pray this is not the case.
I really hope Clark knows what he is doing and does the most important thing he could do: Be very hands-on and get the best damn general manager there is, and then do one vitally crucial thing to be even more hands-on, and that is to simply
Make damn well sure he does his damn job.
Some will say that this should not be about money, that the Hunts were always making sure the Chiefs made the family a buck. But making money is actually a testament to how good a job you are doing and the number one thing that gets the Chiefs money— for whoever gets it even if it all goes to the Hunts— is
Winning football games.
The Hunts may have told whoever the GM was, “Make us money.” I don’t think the GM’s of the past ever volitionally sabotaged the Chiefs just to put a dollar in Lamar Hunt’s pocket, I just think they were sadly deficient at doing what it took to win football games. Oh Steadman and Peterson were pretty good with marketing and promoting and selling the team but what was the thing that was missing? (Do I have to write it again?...)
Fielding not just a winning team but one respected as one of the finest organizations in the NFL.
Sure someone can say “What about the 90’s and what about 2003 and what about the miracle end of 2006?” The NFL is designed in such a way that anyone can have special things happen at any time. But a 2-14 record is proof that we are woefully deficient at even remotely being in any position to capitalize on that parity. What is amazing is that this year the AFC West was prime for the taking even if we had a mediocre team! Everyone in it sucked. How sad it is that we sucked the most.
Why belabor the point.
The good things we can look at now include the fact that we’re getting a new GM. This is the most wonderful Christmas gift of all. Whether the gift is gold stardust or lumps of coal will remain to be seen, and that will be mostly a response to—(whimper)—how much Clark Hunt can convince the best guy available that this is a terrific opportunity. Watch and see. I won’t be doing that, as you know, because I just can’t stand the repercussions of such things; it’s bad enough to think of the implications now as it is. But here it is, here’s the million dollar question:
Is the Chiefs’ reputation so soiled that the first 15 guys we want refuse to take the position and the 16th one who we hire is just a reincarnation of Jack Steadman?
If that’s the case, please, go ahead, you can kill me now.
As for the team itself goes, it does look like there is great promise. There are the Dwayne Bowe’s and Jerrod Page’s and, yes, thank goodness for Dustin Colquitt. Oh, and I just saw that Brian Waters made the pro bowl again. So we’ve got one pretty dang good O-lineman, yay!
And again, I may be completely totally pig-headedly wrong about this, but I still think Herm Edwards is the best thing about this Chiefs team right now. He has done everything he can to hold this dilapidated shack together through the season. He hasn’t done the best game calling, I know, and he hasn’t closed out games the team should have won, but, hey, looking at this team it could have just as easily been the case they shouldn’t have been in any of these games to begin with.
I plan to have a final post-mortem closing post soon—a letter to the new GM regarding the things I see the team needs. Should Clark Hunt truly become a strong respected owner, we’ll get it done. I’m going to hope for the best and write with that in mind.
_
I want to begin by emphasizing that this blog is about looking at each Chiefs game in depth. I simply want to ruminate on paper (or in “cyperspace” if you will) on how the Chiefs are doing game-wise, and the novel feature of this blog is that I pay no attention to anything else outside of the game.
I say this because I am fully committed to this purpose, though I haven’t been addressing much in-game stuff lately. Last week I barely said a word about the game itself and my feelings about it. Oh there were many such feelings, but my focus recently has been on that one single item that determines what precisely it is about any given game that makes up what we actually do out there.
That item is, of course, how strong the leadership of the front office is.
With that in mind I do want to continue that thread, even at the expense of an more thorough rendering of the actual game today with the Bengals. I must, however, share some important thoughts about the nature of my approach to the Chiefs and blogging on them.
Giving attention to the game itself and nothing else is a tactic that has its benefits but it also has its liabilities. One is a confession I have to make here, to be fair to Carl Peterson. Last week I made a very brief comment about Sylvester Morris being a wasted pick. It turned out to be, but not necessarily because of the GM. It was because Morris had been seriously injured during his first season.
The benefit is that I don’t have to endure hearing about the inane things people like Carl Peterson do to wreck my team. Last Sunday I’d stretched the bounds of my sports celibacy to look at the story about how Peterson treated tackle John Tait a few years ago. In some respect I was not wholly accurate about Peterson’s inability to draft a solid lineman. Well, it seems he did draft a few decent linemen, one of whom was John Tait. Peterson then proceeded to treat Tait like crap, inspiring him to take a hike and later help the Bears get to the Super Bowl.
As I read this story—thinking about how fortunate I am not to have known about it only because it would’ve aggravated me so much—I had to wonder: How much of this filth has been going on in the Chiefs front office? How much exactly are the Chiefs reviled by other teams and their top people? Furthermore—and most disheartening:
Exactly how many Chiefs players are grudgingly fulfilling their duties as Chiefs only because the league keeps them in Chiefs uniforms and punishes them severely for speaking out against a team they too revile?
This is the most harrowing question of all. I would otherwise shrug it off as a fleeting thought except for two critical considerations that do not make me feel good at all.
One is our record. At 2-14, we’ve demonstrated without a doubt that we are indeed one of the very worst teams in the league. This latest loss was a pathetic showing against another sad sack team, hardly worthy of a mention even though, as I did say, this blog is all about the game. (31 total rushing yards on the day? What’s new? Finally breaking the record for fewest sacks by a team in a 16-game season? You want to talk about that?) As it is we’ve got the second worst record in the entire NFL—thank goodness for the Lions! But just like the 0-16 Lions we lost to every single team we played on the schedule. (We did defeat Denver and Oakland but lost to them also.)
The most telling index of how good or bad something is: the scoreboard. We can talk all we want about how neat this is or how spiffy that is, but if we’re not flat-out winning ball games then there is something really really wrong.
I don’t think Herm Edwards is the problem. Getting rid of Carl Peterson was a big plus and I do know a new GM could blow Herm out in a nanosecond. But I actually think Herm is good for us. Bear with me now. What I’m more frightened of this that second thing that gets me.
It is a thought that I never thought I’d think before but perhaps, just perhaps others have. It may even be sacrilege for me to speak of it, and that may be why anyone else who dares to think it does not share it so widely.
To set this up, think about it. We had one of the strongest teams in all of professional football in the 1960’s, when Lamar Hunt was bold and brash and led the cutting-edge AFL. Along came the 70’s and 80’s when we were lucky to have years of mediocrity because Hunt simply dropped the team in the lap of know-nothing-about-football Jack Steadman for years upon years upon years.
Carl Peterson came in, bold and brash and fresh from building a quality USFL team in Philadelphia and used his touch to resurrect the team into arguably (with apologies to the Buffalo Bills) the best team in the AFC through that decade (ahem, at least in the regular season). But then we discovered just how awful Peterson was long-term, partly because Hunt continued his avowed “hands-off” policy regarding football and player matters.
Can you see the common thread here? No, it is not Herm Edwards, upon whom everyone seems to unleash their fury. But why look down at the paintings and furniture in the house to see where the termite damage is? No you’ve got to look up, in the rafters, where the wood is wettest and lightest.
Up, past the general manager position.
You see where I’m going with this.
Heaven forbid I should say anything against the Hunt family, because while Carl Peterson was not lionized, Lamar Hunt was. And rightly so. Nothing will take away any earnest Chiefs fan’s respect for him. And Clark Hunt is right now just feeling his oats for this kind of thing. That’s cool.
But this supposedly noble “hands-off” position the Hunts have prided themselves on has got to end. It is not so much that the considered positive here is that an owner is hands-off, but that he should be hands-off in areas he should leave to the right people who best do those things. Proclaiming with a smile that you are “hands-off” may actually be an implicit confession that you just don’t know what in blazes you are doing up there.
I pray this is not the case.
I really hope Clark knows what he is doing and does the most important thing he could do: Be very hands-on and get the best damn general manager there is, and then do one vitally crucial thing to be even more hands-on, and that is to simply
Make damn well sure he does his damn job.
Some will say that this should not be about money, that the Hunts were always making sure the Chiefs made the family a buck. But making money is actually a testament to how good a job you are doing and the number one thing that gets the Chiefs money— for whoever gets it even if it all goes to the Hunts— is
Winning football games.
The Hunts may have told whoever the GM was, “Make us money.” I don’t think the GM’s of the past ever volitionally sabotaged the Chiefs just to put a dollar in Lamar Hunt’s pocket, I just think they were sadly deficient at doing what it took to win football games. Oh Steadman and Peterson were pretty good with marketing and promoting and selling the team but what was the thing that was missing? (Do I have to write it again?...)
Fielding not just a winning team but one respected as one of the finest organizations in the NFL.
Sure someone can say “What about the 90’s and what about 2003 and what about the miracle end of 2006?” The NFL is designed in such a way that anyone can have special things happen at any time. But a 2-14 record is proof that we are woefully deficient at even remotely being in any position to capitalize on that parity. What is amazing is that this year the AFC West was prime for the taking even if we had a mediocre team! Everyone in it sucked. How sad it is that we sucked the most.
Why belabor the point.
The good things we can look at now include the fact that we’re getting a new GM. This is the most wonderful Christmas gift of all. Whether the gift is gold stardust or lumps of coal will remain to be seen, and that will be mostly a response to—(whimper)—how much Clark Hunt can convince the best guy available that this is a terrific opportunity. Watch and see. I won’t be doing that, as you know, because I just can’t stand the repercussions of such things; it’s bad enough to think of the implications now as it is. But here it is, here’s the million dollar question:
Is the Chiefs’ reputation so soiled that the first 15 guys we want refuse to take the position and the 16th one who we hire is just a reincarnation of Jack Steadman?
If that’s the case, please, go ahead, you can kill me now.
As for the team itself goes, it does look like there is great promise. There are the Dwayne Bowe’s and Jerrod Page’s and, yes, thank goodness for Dustin Colquitt. Oh, and I just saw that Brian Waters made the pro bowl again. So we’ve got one pretty dang good O-lineman, yay!
And again, I may be completely totally pig-headedly wrong about this, but I still think Herm Edwards is the best thing about this Chiefs team right now. He has done everything he can to hold this dilapidated shack together through the season. He hasn’t done the best game calling, I know, and he hasn’t closed out games the team should have won, but, hey, looking at this team it could have just as easily been the case they shouldn’t have been in any of these games to begin with.
I plan to have a final post-mortem closing post soon—a letter to the new GM regarding the things I see the team needs. Should Clark Hunt truly become a strong respected owner, we’ll get it done. I’m going to hope for the best and write with that in mind.
_
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Dolphins at Chiefs - Week 16 - Record: 2-13
A while ago I laid out the three parts that need to be in place for a team to truly contend in the NFL. These three are the most important, far above all the others. I must now qualify that and put something far above even these three parts. That one part of any pro football team that must be exceptional is nothing other than the team's
General manager.
My revised importance-of-parts priority list, then:
1. General manager.
2. Offensive line.
3. Defensive line.
4. Quarterback.
I've always thought any team is only as good as its front office. And sure enough what we see now on the football field is a direct result of the complete ineptitude of the Chiefs front office, led for the past twenty years by Carl Peterson.
Peterson resigned last week to the raucous cheers of all of us who knew that he'd just utterly lost it when it came to building a football team. Today's typically depressing result is a microcosm of that failure: once again another brave performance for three quarters followed by a wretched meltdown at the end of the game. This was, and in every game it always is, only the product of the people who put the team out on the field.
To be fair, Peterson was a godsend for us after the nightmare Jack Steadman years. He had a miracle touch guiding the team to great success in the 90's only to have Marty Schottenheimer's playoff curse unravel it all. And to give Peterson credit he was gifted at pulling guys from hats like Trent Green and Priest Holmes. And I must tell you one of the sweetest memories I have of any Chiefs thing ever was when he yanked all-pro cornerback James Hasty out of the grasp of the Raiders' Al Davis.
But, sadly, take a look at Peterson's real record of drafting and developing. Everyone seems to think that because he practically stole Will Shields and Donnie Edwards he should be lionized, but really, his talent-evaluating skills were just not that great. For twenty years we had at best a mediocre record for evaluating of talent when that is the most important job for a GM.
He was especially weak at getting players for those three key parts of a team. Let's look at each one:
Offensive line and defensive line. I put both of these together because Peterson could not draft a lineman if his life depended on it, on either side of the ball. Our disposal bin is filled with first, second, and third round picks that have been worthless. Yes, yes, I know all teams have their draft duds, but sorry, but you can't have anywhere near a contending team with the great number we have had.
On the O-line there was (wince) Trezelle Jenkins, Victor Riley, and Joe Valerio. On the D-line there was (gasp) Eric Downing, Ryan Sims, and Junior Siavii--all of them super high picks that really needed to be there doing the highest quality bone crunching for long periods of service. This is not even to point out (which I'm going to do anyway, of course) that we wasted super-high picks on people like Sylvestor Morris when they could've been used to get those linemen who'd perform.
Interestingly, his two draft picks in this year's first round were DT Glenn Dorsey and OG Brandon Albert, still feeling their oats out there. How ironic that would be if these two should actually develop into anchors for our team on both sides of the ball. I'm still high on them, I'm still hoping, Carl, there is some measure of redemption, I really am.
Quarterback. This has been an unmitigated disaster for the Chiefs in the Peterson era. Did you remember that Mike Elkins and Matt Blundin were second round picks? Second round! In fact Elkins was Peterson's second Chiefs pick of them all in his first draft. Thank goodness his very first was Derrick Thomas.
I imagine he felt he could continue to bring out old 49ers QB's, but even when they played great (and each one did for a time, they really did) you could not build a solid lasting team around that. Even Trent Green went way past his time and played well, but even he was going to burn out sometime too soon for us to get a rhythm for genuinely sustained contention.
Now we're pinning our hopes on Tyler Thigpen who looks to me like he gleefully loves playing jungle ball out there making us all jump out of our seats watching his gonzo play, but is hopelessly lost when it comes to incisively leading the critical drive when we need it.
So, a fond farewell to King Carl. We cannot deny that you gave us great fun in the 90's, but now as we look back that may have actually been a curse of sorts because it lulled us all into a false sense that you really could manage a contending franchise.
As it is, you leave on the week in which this Chiefs team made it official: securing the worst season record-wise in its history.
_
A while ago I laid out the three parts that need to be in place for a team to truly contend in the NFL. These three are the most important, far above all the others. I must now qualify that and put something far above even these three parts. That one part of any pro football team that must be exceptional is nothing other than the team's
General manager.
My revised importance-of-parts priority list, then:
1. General manager.
2. Offensive line.
3. Defensive line.
4. Quarterback.
I've always thought any team is only as good as its front office. And sure enough what we see now on the football field is a direct result of the complete ineptitude of the Chiefs front office, led for the past twenty years by Carl Peterson.
Peterson resigned last week to the raucous cheers of all of us who knew that he'd just utterly lost it when it came to building a football team. Today's typically depressing result is a microcosm of that failure: once again another brave performance for three quarters followed by a wretched meltdown at the end of the game. This was, and in every game it always is, only the product of the people who put the team out on the field.
To be fair, Peterson was a godsend for us after the nightmare Jack Steadman years. He had a miracle touch guiding the team to great success in the 90's only to have Marty Schottenheimer's playoff curse unravel it all. And to give Peterson credit he was gifted at pulling guys from hats like Trent Green and Priest Holmes. And I must tell you one of the sweetest memories I have of any Chiefs thing ever was when he yanked all-pro cornerback James Hasty out of the grasp of the Raiders' Al Davis.
But, sadly, take a look at Peterson's real record of drafting and developing. Everyone seems to think that because he practically stole Will Shields and Donnie Edwards he should be lionized, but really, his talent-evaluating skills were just not that great. For twenty years we had at best a mediocre record for evaluating of talent when that is the most important job for a GM.
He was especially weak at getting players for those three key parts of a team. Let's look at each one:
Offensive line and defensive line. I put both of these together because Peterson could not draft a lineman if his life depended on it, on either side of the ball. Our disposal bin is filled with first, second, and third round picks that have been worthless. Yes, yes, I know all teams have their draft duds, but sorry, but you can't have anywhere near a contending team with the great number we have had.
On the O-line there was (wince) Trezelle Jenkins, Victor Riley, and Joe Valerio. On the D-line there was (gasp) Eric Downing, Ryan Sims, and Junior Siavii--all of them super high picks that really needed to be there doing the highest quality bone crunching for long periods of service. This is not even to point out (which I'm going to do anyway, of course) that we wasted super-high picks on people like Sylvestor Morris when they could've been used to get those linemen who'd perform.
Interestingly, his two draft picks in this year's first round were DT Glenn Dorsey and OG Brandon Albert, still feeling their oats out there. How ironic that would be if these two should actually develop into anchors for our team on both sides of the ball. I'm still high on them, I'm still hoping, Carl, there is some measure of redemption, I really am.
Quarterback. This has been an unmitigated disaster for the Chiefs in the Peterson era. Did you remember that Mike Elkins and Matt Blundin were second round picks? Second round! In fact Elkins was Peterson's second Chiefs pick of them all in his first draft. Thank goodness his very first was Derrick Thomas.
I imagine he felt he could continue to bring out old 49ers QB's, but even when they played great (and each one did for a time, they really did) you could not build a solid lasting team around that. Even Trent Green went way past his time and played well, but even he was going to burn out sometime too soon for us to get a rhythm for genuinely sustained contention.
Now we're pinning our hopes on Tyler Thigpen who looks to me like he gleefully loves playing jungle ball out there making us all jump out of our seats watching his gonzo play, but is hopelessly lost when it comes to incisively leading the critical drive when we need it.
So, a fond farewell to King Carl. We cannot deny that you gave us great fun in the 90's, but now as we look back that may have actually been a curse of sorts because it lulled us all into a false sense that you really could manage a contending franchise.
As it is, you leave on the week in which this Chiefs team made it official: securing the worst season record-wise in its history.
_
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Chargers at Chiefs - Week 15 - Record: 2-12
How about just a smorgasbord of the wild crazy things that are banging around in my head after this madness.
Not too many times does a team lose a game up 21-10 at the two-minute warning. I know I could go on and on about how such a crappy team as this could allow such a thing to happen. I won't because what I see is a team working like crazy out there to win games, yet their luck is just awful. Yes, our defense should have stopped them, but you can't fail to secure an on-sides kick and expect a young defense to just jaunt back out on the field and not be at least a bit tired.
The key was our damned offensive line, again. Yeah, I'm layin' on them, as it seems I always do. But I'm sorry, you can probably see it is justified when twice on third and inches we can't get that clutch first down that would prolong drives so the opponent wouldn't even have a shot at getting two quick scores in under two minutes of gametime left.
The officiating was not the best either, and while we got helped by some cheesy calls that went against the Chargers, we got clobbered the most when it sure seemed like Jamaal Charles had that first down and we got a terrible spot. Those are the kinds of things we needed. But, oh well...
The key is that we're just not a team that can get the job done. Tyler Thigpen, for his part, threw the ball okay and did those spiffy quarterback draws again, but with 31 seconds left and a great chance for us to get in field goal range, he ran around on the first play getting only a few yards and losing tons of time. Our kicker then was handed a very makeable 50 yard shot at the win, and that went wide left--alas, that kicker curse continues.
I've been reading David Harris' The Genius about 49ers coach Bill Walsh. My goodness, the number of times his team had awful losses like this one when rebuilding, it almost crushed him before he could do anything. I don't think Herm Edwards has the intellectual gravitas as Walsh, but I know he has the systematic and emotional wherewithal to put a team together.
See, that's really the key. I like Edwards' "spread offense," that's great and all, but it is clear from The Genius-- and it is obvious from looking at this Chiefs team-- that a coach with a brilliant game plan is not nearly enough.
Ya gotta have the guns. And all the pieces need to work together so finely. This is axiomatic.
I think Edwards can accomplish this, really, but this young team must come together and Carl Peterson has got to do the best damn job drafting and developing he's ever done.
So yeah. Peterson is getting his chance handed to him, with a shot at high picks in each round. Hey, we still have a shot at the top pick--hyeah, we're still in the hunt for worst record in the NFL. Of course the Lions have that distinction at this point, still 0-14. Don't think we've got a real shot at it? In case you don't recall, the Lions have lost 21 of 22.
Last year they were starting out okay, then reeled off six straight losses before beating, yes, you got it, the Chiefs. Now they're 0-15 since then. So yeah. The Lions last 22 games, all losses except that one. They can certainly beat the Chiefs.
Here's to just hoping yet another crappy demoralizing loss is inspiring and not destroying. Maybe the early 1980's Niners story can be the early 2010's story for the Chiefs.
_
How about just a smorgasbord of the wild crazy things that are banging around in my head after this madness.
Not too many times does a team lose a game up 21-10 at the two-minute warning. I know I could go on and on about how such a crappy team as this could allow such a thing to happen. I won't because what I see is a team working like crazy out there to win games, yet their luck is just awful. Yes, our defense should have stopped them, but you can't fail to secure an on-sides kick and expect a young defense to just jaunt back out on the field and not be at least a bit tired.
The key was our damned offensive line, again. Yeah, I'm layin' on them, as it seems I always do. But I'm sorry, you can probably see it is justified when twice on third and inches we can't get that clutch first down that would prolong drives so the opponent wouldn't even have a shot at getting two quick scores in under two minutes of gametime left.
The officiating was not the best either, and while we got helped by some cheesy calls that went against the Chargers, we got clobbered the most when it sure seemed like Jamaal Charles had that first down and we got a terrible spot. Those are the kinds of things we needed. But, oh well...
The key is that we're just not a team that can get the job done. Tyler Thigpen, for his part, threw the ball okay and did those spiffy quarterback draws again, but with 31 seconds left and a great chance for us to get in field goal range, he ran around on the first play getting only a few yards and losing tons of time. Our kicker then was handed a very makeable 50 yard shot at the win, and that went wide left--alas, that kicker curse continues.
I've been reading David Harris' The Genius about 49ers coach Bill Walsh. My goodness, the number of times his team had awful losses like this one when rebuilding, it almost crushed him before he could do anything. I don't think Herm Edwards has the intellectual gravitas as Walsh, but I know he has the systematic and emotional wherewithal to put a team together.
See, that's really the key. I like Edwards' "spread offense," that's great and all, but it is clear from The Genius-- and it is obvious from looking at this Chiefs team-- that a coach with a brilliant game plan is not nearly enough.
Ya gotta have the guns. And all the pieces need to work together so finely. This is axiomatic.
I think Edwards can accomplish this, really, but this young team must come together and Carl Peterson has got to do the best damn job drafting and developing he's ever done.
So yeah. Peterson is getting his chance handed to him, with a shot at high picks in each round. Hey, we still have a shot at the top pick--hyeah, we're still in the hunt for worst record in the NFL. Of course the Lions have that distinction at this point, still 0-14. Don't think we've got a real shot at it? In case you don't recall, the Lions have lost 21 of 22.
Last year they were starting out okay, then reeled off six straight losses before beating, yes, you got it, the Chiefs. Now they're 0-15 since then. So yeah. The Lions last 22 games, all losses except that one. They can certainly beat the Chiefs.
Here's to just hoping yet another crappy demoralizing loss is inspiring and not destroying. Maybe the early 1980's Niners story can be the early 2010's story for the Chiefs.
_
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Chiefs at Broncos - Week 14 - Record: 2-11
What else but a truly crappy season could produce such a truly crappy game as this one. Sure it was more likely we'd lose at Mile-High anyway something like 47-6, so at least we played them close. (And yes, I know it is "Invesco Field" and a totally different stadium than "Mile-High"--but that's just commercial crap the media gods want to ram down our throats.)
But the unsavory fact (as if this is new at all) is that we need spectacular plays like Thigpen rolling out and hitting Tony Gonzalez diving at the pylon for us to get any scores to even have a remote chance of being in any games. This was a typical crappy Chiefs game. We get a nice 17-7 lead
Only to hand the game over to the defense.
We have young and still bumbling around D-linemen. We have no linebackers, really, none to speak of. Those guys are huffing and puffing just fine, they still cannot make an opposing offense really work. Derrick Johnson has been exceptionally mediocre, and Donnie Edwards is valiantly (God bless him) trying to capture his old form.
Our D-backfield is our strength, without question, but they simply cannot carry the load. There has got to be pressure up front, and as just noted, there is nothing of the sort. We had yet another game with no sacks. After we went up 17-7, their QB Jay Culter just picked us apart, not throwing an incompletion for something like 57 straight passes. I exaggerate, but what difference does it make.
Down by just a touchdown with effectively a sliver of time left on the clock, we put all our hopes in the legs (whimper, the legs mind you, not the arm) of Tyler Thigpen, who on fourth and goal from the five runs all the way down to the Denver one.
Yet another crappy end to a ballgame in what is easily one of the crappiest seasons in Chiefs history. Just so you know, we're still on track to make it the crappiest of them all--oh joy. The record worst for the Chiefs was 2-12 in that glorious 1977 season. For a 16-game season, we're way ahead of the pace for that one: 1988 at 4-11-1.
Wait. What am I thinking. The worst season we've ever had was, ahem, last season. 4-12. I think then we've pretty much set the Chiefs record for the worst consecutive seasons.
Joy.
_
What else but a truly crappy season could produce such a truly crappy game as this one. Sure it was more likely we'd lose at Mile-High anyway something like 47-6, so at least we played them close. (And yes, I know it is "Invesco Field" and a totally different stadium than "Mile-High"--but that's just commercial crap the media gods want to ram down our throats.)
But the unsavory fact (as if this is new at all) is that we need spectacular plays like Thigpen rolling out and hitting Tony Gonzalez diving at the pylon for us to get any scores to even have a remote chance of being in any games. This was a typical crappy Chiefs game. We get a nice 17-7 lead
Only to hand the game over to the defense.
We have young and still bumbling around D-linemen. We have no linebackers, really, none to speak of. Those guys are huffing and puffing just fine, they still cannot make an opposing offense really work. Derrick Johnson has been exceptionally mediocre, and Donnie Edwards is valiantly (God bless him) trying to capture his old form.
Our D-backfield is our strength, without question, but they simply cannot carry the load. There has got to be pressure up front, and as just noted, there is nothing of the sort. We had yet another game with no sacks. After we went up 17-7, their QB Jay Culter just picked us apart, not throwing an incompletion for something like 57 straight passes. I exaggerate, but what difference does it make.
Down by just a touchdown with effectively a sliver of time left on the clock, we put all our hopes in the legs (whimper, the legs mind you, not the arm) of Tyler Thigpen, who on fourth and goal from the five runs all the way down to the Denver one.
Yet another crappy end to a ballgame in what is easily one of the crappiest seasons in Chiefs history. Just so you know, we're still on track to make it the crappiest of them all--oh joy. The record worst for the Chiefs was 2-12 in that glorious 1977 season. For a 16-game season, we're way ahead of the pace for that one: 1988 at 4-11-1.
Wait. What am I thinking. The worst season we've ever had was, ahem, last season. 4-12. I think then we've pretty much set the Chiefs record for the worst consecutive seasons.
Joy.
_
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