How Bad Must Chiefs QB Ricky Stanzi Be?
Jake Roth-US PRESSWIRE
“Put in Ricky Stanzi!”
“Might as well see what we have in Stanzi! The seasons over.”
“No matter what conditioner I use, I just can’t get my hair to have that same body and shine that Ricky Stanzi’s hair has. What is his secret?”
Those are just a few examples of some of the comments I’ve heard from Kansas City Chiefs fans over the past couple of weeks.
Who can blame them?
The current QB offerings being trotted onto the field by the Chiefs, incumbent starter, Matt Cassel and occasional starter, Brady Quinn, are absolutely dreadful. Cassel and Quinn are a combined 196 for 335 for 2,104 yards, six TDs, 15 INTs and 10 fumbles.
So when Chiefs head coach Romeo Crennel benched Cassel for Quinn at halftime of the Chiefs’ 28-6 loss to the Bengals Sunday, it was like swapping out Barney the purple dinosaur for the purple teletubby.
As such, one can understand the calls for third-string QB Ricky Stanzi. The logic is sound. We know the other two guys stink. Cassel and Quinn aren’t suddenly going to become Pro-Bowlers so why bother trotting both of them out there every week. Furthermore, both QBs likely will be given their walking papers at the end of the season. At 1-9, why not turn things over to the only QB on the roster who has a prayer of sticking around in 2013?
While all of that may be true, I think the key to understanding why Stanzi hasn’t yet played an NFL snap isn’t to list the many reasons why he should be given a chance but to consider the reasons why he isn’t and hasn’t been given a chance so far.
One could argue that Stanzi not getting the opportunity to start is just another example of the ineptness of the Scott Pioli and Romeo Crennel but that argument doesn’t really hold water.
First of all, Stanzi has played for two head coaches in Crennel and Todd Haley. Neither man has allowed Stanzi to so much as sniff the football during an NFL game. Despite all the terrible QB play and all the blowout losses, Stanzi hasn’t so much as been sent out to hand the ball off at the end of another embarrassing performance. In fact, both Haley and Crennel have considered Stanzi so unimportant that they have both refused to even have him active on game day unless their hand was forced by an injury to one of the other two QBs on the roster.
Is Ricky Stanzi so bad that despite the team being absolutely desperate for decent QB play that two different coaches, both with their jobs on the line, have refused to even give him a try?
Or have the men in charge of running the KC offense, Haley, Crennel and offensive coordinators Bill Muir and Brian Daboll, just been clueless?
It is hard to know anything for sure. We’ve only seen Stanzi play in the preseason and he looked even worse than Cassel and Quinn. It is hard to believe that he would have any chance of coming in now to save the day.
Still, there is no way to know for sure unless Stanzi is given a chance.
What do you think, Addicts? Should Stanzi be given a shot? Will he even be back in Kansas City next year?