John Rieger-US PRESSWIRE
The Kansas City Chiefs have hit rock bottom and their head coach Romeo Crennel is totally clueless.
Don’t take my word for it.
Take Romeo’s.
After Sunday’s latest embarrassing loss, Crennel once again demonstrated he didn’t have the answers.
First, he was asked if Matt Cassel was mentally tough enough to take back over the starting QB position Thursday against the San Diego Chargers should new starter Brady Quinn not be able to play.
“Uh, you mean, at times he he did ok today, you know? Uh. You know, here again, the quarterback is the quarterback and and he has to take all the responsibility but uh, we all know that it takes a team, uh, to get things done and when things don’t go well, uh, the team has to take responsibility uh, in that. But I know that Matt is a strong young man and he’ll do everything he can uh, to try to help this team because I think the team means a lot to him.”
The quarterback is the quarterback? What does that even mean? Did he even hear the question?
The answer here should have been “Yes. Matt it is a tough-minded player and he’ll be ready to go out and help his team win on Thursday if he is needed.”
Next, Crennel was asked who would have been his QB had Cassel gotten hurt during the Raiders game. You see, third string QB Ricky Stanzi was inactive for the game so he was ineligible to play. With Quinn out, had something happened to Cassel, the Chiefs wouldn’t of really had a QB left to play. Usually in these types of situations, teams have an emergency QB, someone on the roster who has played a little QB and can throw the football. For instance, Josh Cribbs of the Cleveland Browns played QB in college at Kent State. He’d likely be Cleveland’s emergency QB should all their QBs go down to injury.
The identity of your emergency QB doesn’t really need to be a secret. This isn’t a guy who is going to come out with his own package of secret plays. No NFL team has a secret Tom Brady playing third string WR for them. If you get to the point where your using your emergency QB, you aren’t throwing the football anymore. You are running and more than likely, you’re losing.
Yet Crennel, when asked the simple question of who the Chiefs would have used, acted as if he was protecting a state secret.
“In this game? Yeah. We have a contingency plan and we would have had someone playing QB but uh, but I’d rather not say who it is right now because that gives our opponents and edge.”
Whoah, whoah, whoah….hold on.
First of all, it is absolutely shameful the media in attendance let Crennel get away with that.
It gives the opponent an EDGE? Yeah, it does coach but not because they know the identity of the emergency QB but because the emergency QB will be even more bad at playing the position than the other three guys you have at that position.
I point this out because it is another example of how mixed up the priorities are in the Chiefs organization. These are people that are worried about candy bar wrappers. They think that if their opponents know that the emergency QB is Terrance Copper or Dexter McCluster, that those opponents will have an advantage. As if he said that Copper would have stepped in that defensive coordinators around the league would have started game-planning for the Dexter McCluster-led Chiefs offense.
Good grief.
The Chiefs don’t even know how to use their best players. Their only win of the season came when they rode Jamaal Charles like a government mule against the New Orleans Saints. Later, the Chiefs played the Baltimore Ravens and were competitive. Not surprisingly, they used Charles heavily in that game. Perhaps even too heavily. But at least it seemed like the coaches were wise enough to know that their best chance of winning was by using their best players.
Yet on Sunday, Charles got a mere five carries. Five.
Why? Was it part of the game plan?
Coach Crennel?
“Now, that I’m not exactly sure either. We were rotating our running backs in there. Hillis was back, and he was able to get some carries. He was somewhat effective. When a guy’s effective, we kind of stay with him a little bit. Hillis was able to run through there and break some tackles and get some things done.”
You don’t know?!? RAC, you’re the head coach! If you don’t know, who does?
But this, this is the money quote of the day from Crennel.
“Well, generally, if the other team is able to score, that puts you down. You can say this is similar to what we’ve been talking about all along. We get penalties at inopportune times, we turn the ball over, then we allow teams to score.”
If the other team is able to score, that puts you down…
Crennel clearly has a communication problem. If he can’t answer simple questions asked by the media, what does that say about his ability to communicate to his players what they need to be doing on the field? Furthermore, if he doesn’t know why his best player only got five carries in the game, what exactly is he doing as head coach?
Look, Romeo Crennel seems like a great guy. But it is pretty clear he is in over his head here. The Chiefs are playing historically bad football. Two years ago, we saw these same players play an entire season of solid fundamental football. Easy schedule or not, they protected the football and made the playoffs. The team is arguably more talented now then it was then.
Something is wrong in Kansas City and it is clear that Crennel has no clue what to do.
It’s time for him to go.