Analyze the Enemy – Week 5 – Kansas City Chiefs

THURSDAYS: We catch you up on this week’s opponent with an overall portrait of their team. This is not breaking down this week’s match-up, because that happens on Friday. This is just to set the table in preparation for laying out the gameplan.

5747 days.

There are very few teams who can claim a longer drought since a playoff win then your Dallas Cowboys. On Sunday, the Cowboys will be at 4669 days, and the Chiefs will be able to actually claim that they have gone over 1,000 more days since their last playoff win.

Jan 16th 1994, the Chiefs beat the Houston Oilers in Houston, 28-20. The next week, they went to Buffalo and lost 30-13 to the Bills. The week after that, The Cowboys beat Buffalo in Atlanta for their 2nd Super Bowl of the 1990′s.

The Chiefs have had problems for a long, long time. Since Joe Montana and Marty Schottenheimer combined to take them to that playoff win in Houstin in 1993. 3 coaches have come and gone since then (Gunther Cunningham, Dick Vermeil, and Herm Edwards) and 6 QBs have led come and gone as leading passers since then (Steve Bono, Elvis Grbac, Rich Gannon, Trent Green, Damon Huard, and Tyler Thigpen). And with new QB Matt Cassel and new coach Todd Haley they appear to have plenty of work to do.

Here is the current Kansas City Chiefs depth chart and the stunning lack of top-end talent is obvious.

In fact, besides their in-state neighbors, the Rams, no team ranks lower on the NFP Blue-Power Rankings . The Chiefs have nobody in the Blue-Chip category, and just 2 players in the “almost” category.

Kansas City

BLUE CHIP: None.

ALMOST BLUE: RB, L. Johnson; OT, Albert.

It all started this past off-season, when the Chiefs finally moved on from the Carl Peterson era by hiring long-time New England Patriots executive Scott Pioli to be the GM of the team. He, in turn, hired Todd Haley, who exploded onto the scene of coveted coaches-to-be last season when he coordinated the Cardinals Super Bowl offense. Before that, he was coaching under Bill Parcells as a WR coach in Dallas where stories were always popping up about disputes with some of his more out-spoken students.

Haley and Pioli then started assembling their new staff that was going to try to raise the Chiefs up from their incredibly low depths, and grabbed many assistants from Arizona (including Cardinals DC Clancy Pendergast) and many with coaches with Cowboys ties. Since Pendergast and Gary Gibbs have designed game plans against the Cowboys in the last few seasons that had some levels of success (remember how bruised and battered the Dallas offense was in Arizona last year?) I believe they will have no issues coming up with a plan for the game on Sunday.

Of course, a plan is good. Having the players to carry out that plan is a different story altogether.

By the way, I think Todd Haley will be a fine coach. He is everything that I look for in a young NFL coach. I had a chance to stand next to him at the Super Bowl media day and listen to him talk football theory last January and was happy to be there. His approach is abrasive, but I think it is the only way.

Todd Archer wrote about his philosophy yesterday :

“I’m an emotional person and I’d like to think that’s what helped me get to where I am,” Haley said. “Contrary to what some people think as a coach, you’re not in this business to get players to like you. You’re not in this business to get players to like you. You’re in this business to get the players to play the best they can play. That’s what I prided myself in as I’ve been an assistant coach in this league is my players and how they played on Sunday. I don’t ever judge myself when the day ends and [think], ‘Hey, does so and so like me?’ I’ve always said this in the end all I hope is you respect me for getting the most out of you. Did you like it? Was I friendly? Was it fun all the time? I don’t care. My job as a coach is to get the most out of you. I prided myself in each position I’ve had in doing that as a coordinator and I just continue to coach the same way now now that I’m a head coach. I do agree or will say you have to temper it. You’re the leader of the team. You can’t be out of control in critical situations. You have to keep some composure. I’ve said to these guys here, I fight to keep my composure driving to work when somebody cuts me off. That’s when you have to keep your composure because you’re liable to get yourself shot.

Wow. I love it.

Here are two wonderful examples of demanding accountablity (or being a bit of a jerk ) -

The 8 seconds that got Haley the job?

Here he tells Brodie to snap the blanking ball

The first objective after finding Todd Haley, was to then find a QB. Scott Pioli had a first-hand familiarity in New England of Matt Cassel, and decided to roll the dice on the 7th round draft pick who famously remained a back-up QB his entire tenure at USC. But he also performed very well with Tom Brady getting hurt in 2008, and Pioli out-dueled Josh McDaniels in Denver to get Cassel when it became obvious that the Patriots could not keep him.

The trade wasn’t much, but the contract was …

Matt Cassel, a career backup in college and in the pros, parlayed a great 2008 season into a lucrative franchise tag. Now, he’s locked himself into a deal to be the long-term quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs.

Cassel and the Chiefs worked out a six-year deal that will pay him in excess of $10 million a season, according to a source. The contract will keep Cassel with the Chiefs until 2014.

The deal is for $63 million, with $28 million guaranteed, according to a source. He’s going to make $40.5 million in the first three years of his contract.

Cassel was designated as the New England Patriots’ franchise player in February and signed a one-year deal that paid him $14.561 million. He was then traded to the Chiefs along with linebacker Mike Vrabel for a second-round draft choice.

The fact that he could get a deal of that magnitude over the off-season simply demonstrates a few long-known truths; A) Teams are desperate for QBs. and B) The going rate for QB in this league demonstrates that if you want one, this is the going rate. I dug these contracts up this summer :

5/7/05 – Patriots give Tom Brady 6/$60 million thru 2010

3/14/06 – Drew Brees paid 6/$60 million by New Orleans thru 2011

3/21/07 – Matt Schaub paid 6/$48 until 2012

10/29/07 – Dallas rewards Tony Romo 6/$67 million thru 2013

3/3/08 – Pittsburgh grants Ben Roethlisberger 8/$102 million thru 2015

4/7/08 – Jacksonville gives David Garrard 6/$60 million thru 2013

10/31/08 – Green Bay pays Aaron Rodgers 6/$65 million thru 2014

6/11/09 – Eagles give Donovan McNabb 2/$24.5 million thru 2011

7/14/09 – Kansas City grants Matt Cassel 6/$63 million to 2014

8/5/09 – New York agrees with Eli Manning on 6/$97 million extension thru 2015

The issue with the Chiefs rebuilding this thing is that the cupboards are bare. 2 years ago, the Chiefs had 3 elite football players to build around: Larry Johnson, Jared Allen, and Tony Gonzalez. They knew that Johnson and Allen were both interested in drinking a little too much, and only wanted to bet on one of them. Well, they clearly got that decision wrong. Allen is destroying Left Tackles every week, and Larry Johnson looks like 25% of the RB who dominated the NFL in 2006.

Later on, there is a story about the Jared Allen trade from a Chiefs perspective, but I would just say this about that deal: Guys who consistently dominate games are so rare in this league. If you have one, there is almost no price you can receive that will make it worth your while. Draft picks are so hit-or-miss even at the top that you will almost always come up short on a deal.

Then, Pioli decided that nearly his first move in office would be to take away Matt Cassel’s security blanket by trading Tony Gonzalez to Atlanta. For a 2010 2nd Rounder? I couldn’t believe that decision.

Atlanta picks up a premier play-maker

The Atlanta Falcons boosted their hopes for another trip to the playoffs by acquiring tight end Tony Gonzalez from the Kansas City Chiefs on Thursday for a draft pick next year.

The Chiefs insisted they also improved their chances for success in 2009 by making the trade.

The Falcons will send a second-round pick in 2010 to Kansas City in exchange for Gonzalez, the only tight end in NFL history selected to 10 Pro Bowls.

Gonzalez caught 96 passes for 1,058 yards and 10 touchdowns in 2008. He owns NFL career records for tight ends with 916 receptions, 10,940 yards receiving, 76 TDs receiving and 26 100-yard receiving games.

The 33-year-old Gonzalez, who has three years remaining on his contract, asked to be traded last October. But then-general manager Carl Peterson said no team Gonzalez was willing to go to made a good enough offer.

That is right. He had 3 more years on his deal. He could have really made this offense make sense. Instead, they traded him away for nothing that could help the team in 2009. And that is how you know the Chiefs are not worried about this year.

And it shows.

Their offense is trying to imitate the dynamic high-scoring offenses that New England and Arizona have rolled out recently, but without much in the play making department. When I watched the Chiefs last 3 games, it is painful to watch their offense steadily move backward. If you think the Cowboys have issues getting their WRs involved, you will marvel at the Chiefs. Sean Ryan, the former Dallas 3rd TE, is now Cassel’s weapon down the seams. Dwayne Bowe (who the Cowboys could/should have drafted in 2007) is generally sealed off by the opposition, daring Cassel and Haley to beat them in another way.

Oh, and speaking of the offense, one week before the season started, they decided Chan was not the man :

Anyway, it’s no secret the Chiefs are rotten on offense, again. Undeniably, they are worse than they were at the conclusion of 2008, even with Tyler Thigpen scattering balls around the field as if he were firing a blunderbuss. Who gets the blame?

You could easily blame KC’s swiss-cheese offensive line, slow wide receivers or unproductive running backs. Not me. I’m going to blame Todd Haley. It’s all his fault. Completely.

The 2009 Kansas City Chiefs have a rotten offense. Haley is the main culprit.

He asked for this kind of disaster when he scrapped Chan Gailey’s offense weeks ago during preseason. You can’t start installing an entirely new offense a week before the regular season begins and expect it to function at any sort of level approaching competency when the bullets start flying for real. It’s a completely unrealistic expectation.

In fact, the three teams that decided they would fire their OC the week before the season started are 3 of the silliest teams in football (TB, KC, and Buf). But, we knew that going in.

On defense, they are also faced with the amazing lack of talent. I expect them to attempt to bring pressure but understand that last year’s Chiefs set the all-time record for least sacks in a season (10). They actually broke the record set in a strike year (1982 Colts) when the Colts played but 9 games. To think the Chiefs had this record set the year after they traded Jared Allen is almost too much to believe.

Pendergast and Gibbs are trying to install a 3-4 defense with 4-3 personnel. The good news here is that they were bad at the 4-3, so it isn’t like they are risking anything. The bad news is that the Giants and Eagles only problems the last 2 weeks in moving the football was deciding which play to run to gain another 10 yards. No resistance whatsoever from the Chiefs.

In the last 3 drafts, the Chiefs have picked high plenty. In fact, the 3-4 has both defensive tackles from Top 5 picks from LSU. Glenn Dorsey in 2008 and Tyson Jackson in 2009. The trouble is that especially in the case of Dorsey, there is real concern as to whether he can have an impact in the 3-4. And if so, at what position?

The LB corps are ordinary, with Tamba Hali an edge rusher who did collapse David Diehl on one particular sequense last week. Mike Vrabel still runs around and makes plays, but there isn’t much as a group. The secondary is particulary thin, and unless they roll the bones and blitz, there isn’t a whole lot they can do to get stops.

As a team, Kansas City can play with reckless abandon. They fake punts (At Philly), try onside kicks at odd times (Giants), and run the wildcat and direct snaps on 3rd and 10! They are dangerous because they have nothing to lose, but beyond that, this is about the weakest opponent you can have on your schedule.

A few stories you may enjoy reading:

Haley points out the schedule hasn’t done them any favors …All 4 NFC East teams in 4 consecutive weeks!

Even in the face of a situation Todd Haley called a “worst-case scenario” on Sunday, the Chiefs’ first-year coach is trying to stay hopeful and poised.

The Chiefs are 0-4, and Haley acknowledged this week that there’s no changing that. There is one productive thing to do, though: Look toward a potentially more forgiving future with, as the coach hopes, a team strengthened by having to play a brutal schedule to begin the season. Baseball players swing a weighted bat in the on-deck circle, sprinters train with ankle weights in advance of an important race, and the Chiefs played three heavyweights in the first four weeks. Haley expects the team to have become stronger as a result.

“We have seen some really good competition,” Haley said, “and I think that’s a good thing for us.”

Haley has tried to make this season seem more manageable for players by breaking it into a series of four-game segments. Like a game, Haley tells his team, the season is made up of four quarters. And in this season’s first quarter, the schedule couldn’t have been much more difficult.

Other than a depressing 13-10 home loss to Oakland, the Chiefs have played — and lost to — two teams, Philadelphia and Baltimore, that participated in last year’s conference championship games and another, the New York Giants, that won the Super Bowl two seasons ago.

The Ravens, Eagles and Giants are a combined 9-2 in 2009. The Chiefs’ next three opponents, Dallas, Washington and San Diego each are 2-2 entering the season’s fifth week.

Haley said Monday, during his weekly news conference, that he hopes the Chiefs are learning from those teams. He praised the Giants on Sunday and again a day later, saying that their path, advancing in 2006 from embattled team to Super Bowl champion, offered an impressive blueprint for the Chiefs.

The Chiefs are really bad in 3rd and long …

Here’s where we all know this team gets bad – third downs. The Chiefs are rushing the ball 18% of the time on third down and passing it 82% of the time.

A few observations:

Passing and rushing on third and short isn’t working. The Chiefs only convert 1 out of 3 times they pass on third down with five or fewer yards to go. They’ve only converted one of their rushing attempts on third and short too.

Of the 51 third downs this team has had this season, 71% of the time they need more than 6 yards to get the first.

29% of the time the Chiefs face third and less than five yard to go.

Overall third down success rate: 18%
More successful play call: Not going to put success next to anything the Chiefs are doing on third downs.

Taking apart the Jared Allen decision :

It’s no longer a question of whether the Chiefs should have let Allen go. They traded him to Minnesota last year, right before the draft, picking up an additional first-round pick and a pair of third-rounders, which the Chiefs turned into Branden Albert, Brad Cottam and Jamaal Charles. Two of those guys, Cottam and Charles, have spent time not only out of the starting lineup but inactive for the Chiefs. Albert is having a tough second season, but I still hold out hope that he’ll be OK.

Still. I remember the Chiefs parading around Arrowhead Stadium, talking about how they’d make that deal 100 times out of 100. A first-rounder and two third-rounders? That led to a draft that, at the time, appeared outstanding but has lost almost all of its luster.

I’m taking this thing a little further. I think the Jared Allen deal has firmly placed the Chiefs in the funk they’re in today. It forced the Chiefs to start over on defense, abandon anything that might have been working and experiment. Last year, it forced Herm Edwards to play all those rookies to help validate a youth movement that the Allen trade brought about. Without Allen or a dominant defender like him, Edwards’ replacement, Todd Haley, scrapped the entire defensive scheme and moved toward the 3-4. Because why not? There was no elite defensive end that the move would displace and no one to build around if the Chiefs had remained in the 4-3.

The Chiefs traded Allen, you might remember, in part because former team president Carl Peterson had signed Larry Johnson to a long-term contract. There was only room for one “at-risk” player on the team, and LJ was Carl’s choice. Allen had to go. So he did. The Chiefs waited to see how it played out for them. While they waited, they kept bragging about what a great deal they’d made. One of those three draft picks had to work out. Right? One would become a superstar and make everyone in Kansas City forget Jared Allen, his unusual sense of humor, and that sports bar that was open for seven full minutes.

Then, the Chiefs started backing off the enthusiasm. Some folks started talking about how it should have been Johnson who had been dealt instead of the younger, more promising Allen, a player who could carry a defense and have games like he did Monday night.

Instead, they’re stuck, still, with Johnson and a defense that hasn’t yet found its identity and without an outstanding playmaker. The Chiefs keep burning first-round picks on defensive players, trying to find someone who can even come close to what Allen did and does. In the meantime, they’re having to ignore other positions out of necessity, and it continues to look like the Chiefs are just spinning their wheels.

I remember thinking when the Chiefs traded Allen: Even if those draft picks maximize their potential, a gamble in itself, then there’s a chance they still will never be the game-breaker that Allen was becoming. Even if one of them justifies those draft slots and the trade, then you’ve broken even and nothing more.

Now that we continue to get distance from that trade and watch those three draft picks blossom into whatever they will become, it is becoming clear that there will be no breaking even in the Chiefs’ future.

The Chiefs keep drafting, and defensive players keep trying to become what Allen is. It makes you see how far away the Chiefs are from contending in the AFC, and it lets you know that they’d do just about anything for a player like Allen right now. If only the Chiefs could find a player like that, you’d bet that they’d never let him go.

Then you remember that they already did.

Tomorrow: We game plan the game.