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.
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