Source: yardbarker.com
Scott Pioli and Todd Haley have to do better this offseason. I told you yesterday that I thought some fans overreacting a bit to the Chiefs current lack of moves in the free agent market. I preached patience and talked about the virtues of making smart personnel moves and not overacting by blowing huge chunks of money on big name fee agents.
That being said, I still think this is a crucial offseason for Pioli and Haley. Thus far, their moves last season were total failures. The highlights were the trade for Matt Cassel and Mike Vrabel and the pickup of Chris Chambers off the waiver wire.
Other than that, Pioli’s first season with the Chiefs was marred by what appears to be a weak, slowly developing draft class and poor free agency signings.
I don’t want to get too down on the draft class because it is much too early to judge them. I believe Tyson Jackson was the right choice and that he will develop.Ryan Succop was an absolute gem. For all the other picks, however, the jury is still out.
No, the real bungle job was free agency. Mike Goff, the only significant offensive lineman picked up in free agency, was utterly terrible at the G position. I was actually relieved when he was placed on IR because I was sure he was going to get Matt Cassel killed. The Chiefs then panicked when they realized how bad the line was, trading for Ikechuku Ndukwe and Andy Alleman from the Miami Dolphins. Neither really helped. Though I will credit Pioli for picking up Ryan O’Callahan off the waiver wire who played pretty well and could turn out to be the long-term answer at RT. Then again, if you throw enough crap at a wall some of it is bound to stick.
Pioli also switched the team to the 3-4 defense and failed to pick up adequate linebacker help. He did bring in Zach Thomas, who never started a regular season game for KC.
The effort to upgrade the WR position was also a disaster but not for lack of effort. The Chiefs brought in a parade of players including Amani Toomer, Ashley Lelie, Bobby Wade, Lance Long and Chris Chambers to go along with Dwayne Bowe and Mark Bradley.
Toomer and Lelie never made it out of camp and Bradley was released late in the season. The only players that stuck were Long, who was not very effective and Wade, who while he could get open on occasion, couldn’t seem to catch the damn ball. Wade finished 4th in the league in dropped passes behind Dwayne Bowe, who tied for 1st, despite missing 4 games due to suspension. Chambers was the only good move and that was mainly due to the fact that the Chargers had so many good receivers that their worst one would turn out to be the Chiefs best option.
Even with all of that, the biggest and most glaring mistake was not cutting running back Larry Johnson. Had the Chiefs cut L.J. before the start of the season they would not have been on the hook for most of the rest of his contract after winning a decision against Johnson. In the preseason, Larry hoodwinked the Chiefs new regime into thinking he was on the straight and narrow. However, once the season started and Larry got his bank, Johnson went right back to being his old scumbag self. To top it all off, Johnson wasn’t even a productive scumbag, as he could only manage 2.7 yards per carry. Johnson was so awful he slowed down the Chiefs already slow developing offense.
Still, Haley kept running Johnson straight ahead for 2 yards a pop, apparently hoping L.J. might slip into a black hole, go back in time and come out the other end 26 years old again. Unfortunately, Johnson never found that black hole, unless you count the constantly backpedaling Rudy Niswanger’s ass as a black hole. Johnson constantly found himself trying to run up Niswanger’s ass before falling down for a 2-yard loss. Larry finally took to Twitter to spew out some homophobic slurs and the Chiefs finally cut him loose.
Haley then briefly tried to turn the often-injured Kolby Smith into the lead back. Smith didn’t fair much better than L.J. in his half dozen or so carries as the lead back. Once Smith got a look at how putridly terrible the Chiefs offensive line was at run blocking, he promptly re-injured himself and retired to IR in fear of his own life. Finally the Chiefs were forced to start Jamaal Charles, who made them all look like a bunch of chumps for ignoring him for the first half of the season.
The intention of this column isn’t just to bash Haley and Pioli for the mistakes they made in their rookie campaigns. The pint is to show that a lot of avoidable mistakes were made last year and while some of them were understandable and hindsight is 20/20, Chiefs fans will not be so forgiving in 2010.
I am actually a big fan of both Pioli and Haley. I think a large part of last years plan was to institute the new a new football program and to evaluate the pieces they already have. A lot of good should come from last year’s mistakes. While keeping L.J. and not noticing Charles could be considered a failure for 2009 it is also a win for 2010. The Chiefs also uncovered a very good OLB in Tamba Hali by switching to the 3-4. Hali looked dead in the water after his awful 2008 campaign but he is now considered by many NFL types to be one of the most talented pass rushers in the AFC. Progress was made and the groundwork was laid. The early part of a construction project s not always pretty.
I am willing to give them a pass on some of last year’s mistakes but they are now out of excuses. They have had a full year to evaluate the talent and to do targeted scouting. They have all the coaches they want. The table is set.
I never expected Pioli to turn the Chiefs around in one season but I do expect to see marked improvement this season. I am somewhat impressed that through all the free agency bungles, the firing of the offensive coordinator 3 weeks before the season and the refusal to jettison LJ, the Chiefs still managed to win 2 more games than the Herm Edwards Chiefs of 2008. Still, 4 games is not enough. Pioli and Haley need to win at least 7 or 8 games in 2010 for me to feel like they have the Chiefs moving in the right direction, especially when it looks as though they will have a favorable schedule.
For the Chiefs to do that they must make better moves than they did in 2009 or the already restless natives will be reaching for the torches and pitchforks.
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I couldnt agree more…Nothing Pioli has done so far has made much sense outside of signing chambers. Drafting Tyson Jackson at number 3 being the absolute worst decision of them all. Knowing full well the team is converting to a 3-4 you take a DE with the third pick. A DE in a 3-4 is not an impact position, and with such high draft picks you would think a team would be looking for a buidling block type player, not someone to put in a postion that is required to take up space well. I really dont agree with bringing in Weiss and Crennel, anyone who watched Notre Dame play over the past few years saw some of the most bonehead coaching decisions in the history of college football. Its looking more and more to me that Bellichek is really the brains of the organization in New England
Mike Goff. Holy Jesus finger, what a horrible pick up for us. If anything shakes my belief in Pioli and Co, it’s Goff. How could they NOT see that this guy couldn’t play?
I really hope they have an improved season…I think they will, I’m just scared to death of Pioli passing up on Berry for Bulaga in the draft.If he drafts Berry and has a better impact draft class my confidence will be restored. I’m just tired of watching them lose and quote “rebuilding” for the last 3-4 odd years, its getting old fast. I’ll give them this year to just improve, and I would hope they would be making a playoff run in 2011.
3-4 end is a more important position than you realize, especially when you don’t have a nose. Tamba has nowhere near the year he had without Dorsey keeping the double teams off him. That being said, why didn’t we go harder for a nose tackle last year? I don’t know much about any that were available last year, but surely we could’ve drafted someone better than Ron Edwards…
C’mon – seriously? When we picked up Goff last year no one thought he was more than a band-aid solution, but the common feeling was that he was a pretty good pick-up who would lend some veteran experience to a very young and inexperienced line. There’s no way that Pioli or Haley could have known that his talent level would slip as badly as it did in one year. Same thing with Tyson Jackson – give the guy a couple of years. DE’s take a couple of years to develop, and realistically we’re not going to be competing for anything that matters for a couple of years, so hopefully by the time we’re playing meaningful football, by that point Jackson’s hitting his prime.
I’m not saying Pioli/Haley haven’t made mistakes, but sometimes you make a decision at the time that “looks” like a good call, and it turns out badly. That’s not bad management, just bad luck – and every team deals with that to some degree.
Former Cowboys personnel exec, Gil Brandt, stated he thought Tyson Jackson was a top 5 pick. Ron Edwards was out of football when Herm asked him to play for the Chiefs. I think he played better than most of you, he is old and the wear and tear of pro ball slowed him down, also he would do better at at backing Dorsey and Jackson. We need help at nose but we need much better linebacker play foremost. Better linebacker play would help both the NT and safety positions immensely. Actually, if you watch the tape you would see that several plays were botched by the ILB’s while the nose was doing his job. Hells Bells boys this is a team sport and if you have guys filling wrong holes, not tackling well or dropping the ball no one looks like they are any good.
As far as aging broke down players foolin gm’s and coaches, all they have to do for a big check is to roid up, hook up to a dialysis machine and wash their blood and test ok with a prospective team. Then they got the money and w/o the roids they get weak quick. So it is easier to fool folks than you think.
I don’t think they sucked as bad as some think, at Free Agency and the Draft. Haley just got a coaching staff together by the time FA hit last season. He fired Chan, as he didn’t want to waste an entire season with an offense he didn’t believe in, so the team was learning both entirley new offenses and defenses. I think Wade Smith, Chambers, Mike Brown (not great, but a good temporary fill in player), O’Callahan is the best RT we have had in 5 years, and I think will only improve, Nkuywe actually stepped in at RT and played fairly well, and can still provide depth at RT or Guard, Alleman must not have been too bad, the Colts grabbed him and cut Lilja. I will not call Jackson, Magee or Colin Brown busts yet. Jackson did his job in the 3-4. He ate up blockers. Magee played well, in a rotation role, and we got some good performances from players like Wallace Gilberry (2 sacks), Corey Mays and Andy Studebaker. The O-line vastly improved the last 4 games, giving up only 6 sacks (none in the Denver game, and adjusted to the zone blocking scheme well enough to help Charles be the 2nd beat rusher in football, the final 8 games of the season). We have alot better core of young players than many realize, and with most of them in their 2nd to 4th years, they should peak this season. Keep in mind the coaching staff changes, the easier schedule, and every other team in the AFC West also going through some major transitions. This is a team that is going to fly under the radar this season, with Pioli and Haley having a full year to evaluate the roster, and the players we add in free agency will determine if we are an 8-8 team (which I think we are right now), or a 10 win team that is in playoff contention. Thomas Jones and resigning Chambers is a good start. Eric Berry working out with Brandon Flowers, may give us an edge in nabbing him, and rumors are that we are a main candidate for Ryan Lilja, who Carl let go, but he resides in KC, and has been the starter on 2 Superbowl teams. There is an underrated core of good players on the roster, and more will be added.
Ok they signed Jones,Chambers,Vrabel-Wade Smith is shopping? Everyone remember we now have a real OC (Weis) Haley was exposed last year, keep what we have for sure then let SOME REAL COACHES go to work.We aren’t SB caliber yet, but lets fight towards it anyway
With all due respect, Derek, I’m being absolutely serious. I can remember San Diego fans coming on Arrowhead Pride and laughing at us right after we picked Goff up, saying that he had completely hit the wall…so his deterioration must have been visible (before he ever played a down for us, mind you) to even casual fans.
By game 3 or 4 me and the guys I watch Chiefs games with at the Pourhouse in NYC were dedicating our turds to Mike Goff…even the floaters. Praying for Haley to send somebody, ANYBODY to replace him. We even considered putting the Don in at guard (hey, he’s a big guy right?) It was the single most frustrating player situation of the season…OK I exaggerate, not more than L.J.
Not trying to go on an anti-Pioli rampage. He usually evaluates talent with the best of ‘em. For the record, I like Tyson Jackson. I like Pioli and Haley. Hopefully we can beef that line up this year but please, Don, no more mistakes like Mike Goff…
Now we’ve got Jones and Smith on the Team so it’s starting to look up … I agree though … I’m tired of losing and we need to see some serious improvement from this Team .. after today I think we’re getting there. I’ve been hoping the Chief’s pick up Jones since his release .. thank goodness we’ve done it. I’m not that familiar with Smith but we need the help and he played for Crennel so I figure it’s a good acquisition at a position of need. Now can we add a little help at LB and the Secondary along with a good draft … it’s sure starting to make me feel better about the future.