Sunday, September 25, 2011

Chiefs at Chargers - Week 3 - Record: 0-3

So can we fire Todd Haley now???

Do not let the close 20-17 score fool you. This was a disaster from start to finish, only made close because San Diego had their own injury problems and Norv Turner is still their head coach lousing things up on their side. The Chargers should've won this game 40-10, really. This is a good team that is woefully coached, and oh do we know about that.

Probably the most telling evidence today was the fact that we had to burn all three of our timeouts expressly because we simply couldn't get the right personnel on the field for the right plays, situations that are standard procedure for any team registered to play in the NFL.

We actually had a chance to actually pull this one out (I know! It would've been a miracle!) With a minute left, Haley called a screen pass that was thrown right into the hands of a defender. Screen passes are wonderful plays, especially when you've got a guy like Dexter McCluster, but they must be executed with the greatest precision. The one we tried on that last offensive play fell apart -- simply because Todd Haley cannot get this team to execute as it should.

Sure there are a lot of things that enter into the mix of a loss like this one. Our offensive line is not playing as well as I'd hoped. We're missing key scoring chances (Succup missed his third FG in as many games). We can't get fumbles to fall into our defenders hands. We can't get our teams to mesh at the same times (In the first half our offense stank but our defense played okay. In the second half our offense took off but our defense went soft... Sigh.)

Yes, our injury situation is awful, but it is made worse by the fact that it'll most likely be continued to keep being used as an excuse to keep Todd Haley around. Come on, every other play is a play that just goes haywire because the players look like they don't know what they're supposed to be doing out there.

But hey. At least we're still on track to get some Luck, yes, Luck in caps, and every Chiefs fan across the vast arrays multiuniverses knows what that means.
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Sunday, September 18, 2011

Chiefs at Lions - Week 2 - Record: 0-2

Okay, this isn't the "Fire Todd Haley" blog, but it certainly could be. No, it is simply "The Chiefs Game Today," and it is indeed about the Chiefs, and not the coach.

But the "Fire Todd Haley" theme will indeed be running through the course of this blog, this year, this season, and however many more miserable units of time we'll have to endure having Haley as coach until the day he isn't our coach any more.

Yes, today we faced what may indeed be a very good Lions team. They did look very good today, however awful the Chiefs looked. And I take nothing away from the Lions -- they themselves have been so bad for so long that I do wish them well. Thing is, if they play like this regularly, they should win a playoff game this year, leaving only the Bengals as the one NFL team that would have a longer drought without a playoff win than the Chiefs. (Unless, of course, the Bengals win a playoff game too, then... Well, we know the Chiefs won't be winning any playoff games this year.)

Here's the deal for the rest of the year. It is easy, it is simple, it is quite uncomplicated.

We need three things to be a Super Bowl contending team.

Just three. That's all. I don't ask for much. We do have a lot of things in place that are good. Again, I do like our team's owner, I do like our team's general manager, I like a lot about this team. I like a lot of the players. I could list a bunch of things I like about the Chiefs.

But these three things are in such awful, wretched, pathetic, putrid, and any-other-such-adjective that they really are the focus of what needs to happen for the Chiefs for however long it takes for them to happen.

The three things we need are:

- A head coach.

- A quarterback.

- Some luck.

I've already written a ton about a lot of this, but here's the latest:

A head coach. Is there still anyone with a nanoliter of brain cell matter who thinks Haley needs to stay leading this team for one more nanosecond? If so, raise your hand. I thought so.

Come on people, there is no way in the world an NFL team can do what this one has done over the past two regular season games, over the past four altogether including the final game last year and the playoff game, and still hang around. It just doesn't happen.

No no no no NO it doesn't have to do with turnovers, and it doesn't have to do with lack of talent. Turnovers happen but that's just the game. Some teams have better talent than others, but not by this much of a margin.

No, sorry.

This is coaching.

Haley's inadequacy was evident today after the opening coin toss. When you have a team like this one, who uses the run best with the score as close as possible, you want the ball with the score 0-0 at the beginning of the game. Well, the Chiefs won the toss, then deferred to receive the ball at the start of the second half. Yes, I know in the grand scheme of the game it didn't mean anything! The point is that this is the NFL where the talent is not so disparate and there is always the possibility any team can beat any other team on any Sunday!

What happened was Detroit stormed down the field, scored a touchdown, and instantly we were on our heels. And it was worse when we got the kickoff at the beginning of the second half, down then 20-3. So what was the point?

Listen. Let me make this perfectly clear. I am one of those guys who always always wants to hang on to a coach we already have for far too long! I was one of the last guys to support Herm Edwards! I was even with him to the very end, on his side, championing him to stay! I liked John Mackovic! For cryin' out loud I even liked Frank Gansz! (Okay, okay, I admit, not for that long.) I only disliked Marty Schottenheimer after he got fired and that was because I was just so mad at him for being such a choke in the playoffs!

This is one instance, however, when it is categorical. Todd Haley simply cannot stay. He should be fired, and right now. No "Let's give him a bit more time." No "He's just had some rough luck." No "It was the lockout's fault." Or any other excuse.

Take care of business now and get us a coach, even if interim, so we can have a good solid coach.

A quarterback. Today was another nail in the coffin of Matt Cassel, and another point for the case to get the best QB in the draft next year for the long-term future.

The nail was Cassel's complete inability to move the ball through the air. Sure Bowe dropped a couple of passes, but only a few times did he get decent separation. The other receivers were worthless, yet again, and it wasn't entirely their fault. And some of the six turnovers today were interceptions in which Cassel just threw very poor passes.

The point earned for my incessently strident case for a QB was in seeing what first-overall-pick-in-the-draft Matthew Stafford could do for the Lions. What is the main reason the Lions are going to compete this year? Everyone knows the answer:

They have a future Hall-of-Fame quarterback.

You could see it all over Stafford today. He fired the ball right where it needed to be, he knew what was going on, he brimmed with confidence. He still looked a little raw, but I'd sure rather be the team to have a Matthew Stafford getting all ready to make us a true contender right now. Instead we've got a seventh round pick who in college was a career backup throwing a grand total of 24 passes, and absolutely no one even remotely in the mix getting groomed to take this team farther than one playoff game.

Some luck. We are so due for this. We are so due for luck it isn't even funny.

Instead we keep getting the worst worst worst luck you can possibly get.

How's this for our luck? In fact, this will say it all, really.

Here's a simple question for you: How many teams have any players who suffer season-ending anterior cruciate ligament damage ever? I mean of all 144 North American team professional sports teams (football, baseball, basketball, hockey), of all the thousands of players in that mix who play hard and stress their knees day in a day out, how many teams mind-you have a history of having even a single player endure a critically damaging ACL injury?

30 of those teams? Maybe 40 as the most conservative guess? And how many players? Most of them just one. For their entire histories. If any single team has two or three in their entire existence, that's a lot.

Well guess what, completely, thoroughly, and abjectly luckless Chiefs fans.

We've already had two, and may even have a third in three weeks.

That, friends, is not only phenomenally incredible, but that it has happened to three of our very best players makes the odds for this kind of thing to happen simply astrostratogalacticable.

Tony Moeaki against Green Bay: ACL tear and out for the season. Eric Berry against Buffalo: ACL tear and out for the season. Jamaal Charles today against the Lions: it is inconclusive as of this writing, but if you watched it you have to admit it really looked like an ACL tear before he was carted off the field and out of the rest of the game.

This season is making that train wreck look like playtime in the sandbox.

Too much. Absolutely too much. Enough writing for now. This just too much.

Thank goodness I have a whole week to find even more gruesome adjectives that will describe next week's affair with San Diego. I really don't know if I'll find them. I'm already scared that I won't be able to find them for Pittsburgh, and New England -- several weeks from now!

But hey, maybe Clark and Scott will do the right thing with their head coaching situation before then, and there will be just one little thing this year that'll make me a nanoliter less depressed.
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Monday, September 12, 2011

Bills at Chiefs - Week 1 - Record: 0-1

Okay, let's just get this out of the way. No need to pull any punches, every Chiefs fan is thinking it, let's just be honest. Let's just get this thing over with and be done with.

It's time to fire Todd Haley.

What? After the first game of the season? Are you kidding me?

Now, who on earth is actually saying those words I just typed in underline right there? Maybe Clark Hunt, and maybe Scott Pioli, and maybe even Todd Haley's mom. But I really don't think anyone else is thinking those words. I really don't.

Let's look at the facts. And this is from someone who pays absolutely zero attention to anything else except the game. I don't read or hear any remarks from any columnist or announcer anywhere anyplace.

I'm just looking at the facts as they are out there on the bare naked field of play.

I have to start with the complete ineptitude of the entire coaching program, revealed in bright bold colors yesterday. This is 100% Todd Haley's responsibility. I can accept that maybe our guys were really, really affected by the lockout. What I can't accept is the catastrophe that was our attempt to overcome it. There is no reason in the world our guys should not have been better prepared for this one. Our exhibition efforts were abysmal and those who say the preseason means nothing only needs to look at the train wreck that is this team. How many of you could see this coming, watching us waddle around in the four "meaningless" games before the season opened?

What was that? Everyone? Everyone and his uncle could see this coming? What a surprise! (Bitter sarcasm purely intended.)

The fact that the offensive line coach was calling in the plays from the booth is something that just appalled me. The complete failure of Haley to get down precisely what he wants to do offensively through the couple of years he's been at the helm is inexusable. The fact that people like Charlie Weis have come and gone means we absolutely cannot get any coherence on offense. Did you see the train wreck out there on the field yesterday? (Whupp, I already used that metaphor, "train wreck," sorry -- 'cept that it's a pretty dang good one for this team so I may actually use it a few more times. Get ready.)

I guess my question is, don't these guys really want to coach for Haley? Chan Gailey, the guy coaching on the other side for the Bills, was unceremoniously fired by Haley and a lot was said about that. Why? Was there a lot more to it than just professional disagreement?

I can't really say, I'll give the guy that, there may be things about Haley that are very good and nice and positive. But when I look at Haley on the sidelines he just looks angry all the time, like he's going to have a meltdown if his idea or his play or his thing just doesn't work right -- that it is all about him. His whole demeanor just smacks of "this is all about me, so everybody make me look good."

Some may say this is just one game. But the fact (oh those facts) is that this is the third straight home game in which the Chiefs have been utterly, utterly blasted -- again, at home. Not just beaten but blasted. I felt awful for all the fans there, packed house at Arrowhead, ready to watch an at-least watchable game. The stadium was empty by the beginning of the fourth quarter.

This season is over, especially since we lost Eric Berry to an ACL injury. That is just a killer. The one guy who we can really put genuine hope in, the next Ronnie-Lott-Troy-Polamalu guy -- a real defensive playmaker -- gone. And gone after the very first scrimmage play of the game. Just unreal.

That makes it now four straight years of first picks in the draft who aren't going to have any real impact at all. The four? This year (Jonathan Baldwin who got injured in a fight in the locker room -- ahem, did you know your players were doing that Todd Haley?), last year (Berry), and the two previous years (Tyson Jackson and Glenn Dorsey -- did you see our run defense yesterday? -- it'd be funny if I weren't so upset about my pathetic team right now.)

Um, sorry, but I'm just not going to go over all the systemic failures in yesterday's game. The loss of Eric Berry alone doesn't explain this train wreck (okay, I won't use it again...)

I'm just going to say this.

Clark. Clark Hunt, listen up.

Find a coach who really, actually, truly knows what he's doing. I happened to catch a bit of the 49ers game yesterday, the one that featured a Niners team whose management fired do-nothing coach Mike Singletary and went out and paid money to get do-something coach Jim Harbaugh. The very predictable result? They handled a good Seahawks team simply because they'd

Been coached.

Even if you can't get that guy right now, still: jettison Haley, get a decent interim guy to manage the team for right now, and be looking for the next studly sideline general. Who cares if we suck this year; in fact our only hope is to suck enough to get a high enough draft pick to select the top QB in the draft next year.

Come on you guys, Clark, Scott, any other major Chiefs personnel, please... have you no humanity. You have millions of fans who every week deck themselves in red and gold and all other Chiefs accoutrements no matter how silly. They adore your team, Clark.

Please, we all beg you, let's make the firmest of all firm commitments right now. Stop pissing away year after year after year of contention because we absolutely refuse to get a highly drafted quarterback and nurture him. Let's get a coach who can do what no other Chiefs coach in all of our history has been able to do:

Skillfully develop that guy.

Don't believe me? Look at the Indianapolis Colts. For every single year they have had Peyton Manning they have been on the lips of everyone who speaks of the top echelon teams in the NFL. Every single year. Yesterday was the first game in eons he didn't play and look. The Colts were right back to mediocre.

Now this blog post isn't about Matt Cassel. I like him, I really do.

But he will not get us to the promised land.

And he won't get us there especially when Todd Haley is our coach.

For the Chiefs to be a Super Bowl contending team, it is categorical. It is imperative. It is unequivocal. It is everything that is true factual actual and any other superlatively descriptive word that implies factitude:

We need a quarterback that will be in the Hall of Fame, and we need a coach that'll get him there.

It is that simple.

Sure these things don't just drop from the sky. It is very hard work and requires a ton of luck (which the Chiefs are soooo due to get in huge massive slabs). Sure we need great forbearance and patience from Clark, Scott, and all Chiefs fans.

But it has to start right now.

Again, who on this planet who even remotely have any affinity for the Chiefs isn't saying in no uncertain terms, "Fire Todd Haley now"?

Okay, so yeah, let's get to it...

Fire Todd Haley now!
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Sunday, September 04, 2011

Chiefs Preview 2011

Last night I caught much of the exhibition affair with the Packers, yes, that's the one, the one with all the fumbles and dropped passes eventuating in a one-point loss. Yes, a loss even though most of our starters were out there for the entirety. This does not bode well, as exhibition play is always about getting all your rookies and free agents a shot at showing what they can do. We finished it 0-4, which I'm pretty sure is what it was last year.

After the game we watched the last part of the horror film The Ring, about a very creepy zombie girl who comes out of the television and frightens the viewer so thoroughly that it causes not only death but gruesome physical disfigurement. Funny, when I turned off my computer shortly thereafter the giant "KC" arrowhead on my desktop went a very spooky shade of black and gray just before the screen went blank. That never happens.

Of course, I could only think.

Are this year's Kansas City Chiefs going to come out of my television set and scare the bejeebers out of us this year?

I do have some serious concerns about these guys, and I'll share them as I round up the five keys to this season. For each and every one, I'll put down a percentage possibility that I think the team will address them and play well. That is, if it says "70%" that means I think they've got a 70% chance to make the good thing happen and do well. Really, if they do all of them, we're going to the Super Bowl. If they don't, then it's just another zombie year.

Those keys to 2011 in order of importance:

No. 1: Todd Haley has to be a big-time big-game head coach. I really think he has the potential to be a fine head coach, but when I watch him I just sense he is too concerned about how he's doing. I dunno, maybe it's just me, but I just get that sense. He's got to jettison all that worry and just have confidence in what he's doing.

It all starts in the front office, and I really like what Clark Hunt is doing in his dedication to the team, and I think Scott Pioli has made some great personnel moves to really start building this team. The key question is will Todd Haley have learned enough in his couple of years already at the helm to really start being a solid, winning head coach?

Chance it'll happen: 75%. Not too bad, because I do think the guy has the smarts and potential. Whether he allows it to flourish without being too self-absorbed is the key here.

No. 2: Glenn Dorsey and Tyson Jackson really need to start playing like the top draft picks they were. It is axiomatic that games are won at the line of scrimmage, and these guys are really going to have to show they have All-Pro skill if we are going to have a chance. They actually do pretty decently with the pass rush -- with a lot of help from Tamba Hali -- but they absolutely must step it up defending the run.

We've been waiting a long time for them to come around. This year is the make-or-break year.

Chance it'll happen: 55%. Not too high, just because if they were something, we'd have seen it by now. I'm sorry -- I just haven't seen it. I just fear Jackson is going to be one of Pioli's major busts. And I have to add that these guys should be better simply because the Chiefs have a very good defensive backfield to help them. Even with that, will they be better? Ehh. Gotta show us there in the Show Me State.

No. 3: We must absorb the loss of Brian Waters on the O-line. This dude was studly, but his discontent eventually led him out when he got the chance. They're sticking somewhat heralded Jon Asamoah in that space and we'll see if he can open up space for our fine runners.

I really believe the key to the Chiefs offensive success this year is Dexter McCluster. This guy is phenomenal, and Todd Haley has shown his confidence in him. The question is, how much will teams now key on that patented shallow-flat route McCluster is so good at running?

Chance it'll happen: 80%. Little bit more confidence in this area, simply because I'm counting on Jamaal Charles being as good as he was last year.

No. 4: Matt Cassel has got to show Hall-of-Fame characteristics as a signal-caller. Oh yeah, how high can one's expectations get? I know, I know. But as I've documented thoroughly in this blog, only HOF QB's get you to the promised land. Is Cassel good? Yeah. Is he great? Nah. Can he be great? I dunno.

Again, I like the guy. He's a leader, a winner, and take-no-prisoners guy. For cryin' out loud he's an All-Pro QB. I know, I know. But I have to admit I'm not sold on the guy and he's just got to step it up for us. A tall order? Yeah.

Chance it'll happen: 30%. Now that's the chance he'll actually turn into a Hall-of-Fame QB. If he's close, maybe, just maybe he can still get us to the promised land.

No. 5: Wide receivers must step it up, a lot. How Cassel does depends a great deal on this critical aspect of our offense, something that was dreadful last year. Sure we have Dwayne Bowe, who is extraordinary. But the rest of the WR corps have been downright abysmal. We picked up vets Steve Breaston and Jerheme Urban. Are these guys really going to be the answer to helping Bowe, or are they going to end up like major busts Mark Bradley and Chris Chambers?

Chances it'll happen: 65%. Who's to say it couldn't happen, but I just keep thinking of Bradley and Chambers. Rookie Jonathan Baldwin is highly touted, but it'll take time for him to develop.

Those are the five keys in my mind. Again, if the Chiefs can make it happen in these areas, we're at least AFC West champs -- and hey, maybe we'll win a playoff game! Yay! If not, Chiefs fans will be feeling a lot like the guy who spent too much time watching the ugly zombie come out of the television.
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