shaneo69
09-13-2006, 08:56 AM
WEIR: Coming to Grips
Sep 13, 2006, 6:42:57 AM by Eileen Weir
There were rumors it could be ugly, and it was.
Despite concerted efforts there is just no way to put a shine on the home opening loss at Arrowhead on Sunday. What could go wrong did go wrong. Wrong uniforms. Wrong weather. Wrong outcome. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Too many turnovers, too many miscues on the field on the sidelines, too many premiere quarterbacks lying limp on the grass.
Nope. There is no way to make this one look anything but what it was. Miserable. Never has a two-score loss felt like such a plastering.
As Kansas Citians are busy running Herm Edwards, Carl Peterson, Mike Solari and KC Wolf out of town on a rail, it pays to try to find a positive to cling to for the remaining 93.75% of the 2006 Chiefs campaign.
Primary on this optimist’s list of priorities is coming to grips with reality. No question the opening day spectacle lacked the old red and gold sparkle to which Chiefs fans have become accustomed over the past half-decade. The offense bore little resemblance to the high powered scoring machine that dominated the upper echelons of the NFL stat book since 2001. Even the most casual fan could taste the palatable void in excitement from the Arrowhead stands, the lack of sizzle emanating from the verdant turf below.
Yes, something is missing. Priest Holmes, for one. An all-world left tackle for another. A steady-eddy fullback and fan favorite, as this list goes on. Eager as fans and sports reporters are to lay the dismal loss at the feet of first year head coach Herm Edwards and his selected offensive coordinator, Solari, some things simply aren’t their fault.
Players get hurt. It’s a treacherous game that makes old men out of young ones in a hurry. No one is to blame that Priest Holmes is on the PUP. Guys retire. Coaches can’t be responsible for players who decide to call it quits. It’s not the blunder of the Chiefs management or coaching staff that John Welbourn violated the League’s substance policy and got himself suspended or that Tony Richardson exercised his rights in free-agency. Coaches can’t prevent the aging process. Everyone is a year older, which is good news for some, not so good for others.
Does anybody think Jordan Black and Kevin Sampson are the answer to Willie Roaf’s retirement? Of course not. But they are who we have. It’s nobody’s fault.
So, in the words of Coach Edwards, “Here we go.”
Looking back across the wreckage that was Sunday’s game, we the downtrodden might choose to take some comfort in the experience of our new head coach. As I mistakenly do, scores of Chiefs fans think of Edwards as a young coach, a newcomer to the coaching fraternity and maybe a little wet behind the ears. With his Puma’s and his laid back saunter, his Southern California cool and hip style, it’s easy to take him for, if not a player, at least a player’s older brother. Stories about his relationship with Carl Peterson and Dick Vermeil are told as if they happened yesterday, not thirty years ago when he was heavily recruited by Peterson and later coached by Philadelphia Eagle’s head man, Vermeil.
Edwards has been around the block, especially when it comes to adversity. No stranger to the reality of losing a starting quarterback in the beginning stages of a season, Coach knows how to respond. Now, some will argue that his response failed as he replaced not one but two starting quarterbacks for the New York Jets last year, resulting in a disappointing 4-12 record, but like Elizabeth Taylor once counseled on the topic of divorce, “The first time is the hardest. After that you know what’s coming.”
In Edward’s five seasons in New York, he amassed a road record that was nearly equal to his team’s home field victories, winning seventeen times in hostile stadiums and twenty-two times in the Meadowlands. In his rookie year as a head coach, Edwards boasted a winning 10-6 record and a Wild Card spot, accumulating a remarkable seven wins away from home, including triumphs at New England, Indianapolis and Oakland. In five playoff games, four on the road, Herm lead his team to two victories.
Big deal, you say. Better than the Chiefs, I say, who racked up only thirteen road wins over the same span and twenty-one Arrowhead victories, earning just one playoff berth.
My point isn’t to absolve the coaching staff for the disastrous first step of this much-anticipated football season, only to lend perspective. Labeled in pre-season assessments as predictable and conservative, putting the exclamation point on his take-no-chances persona by appointing a former offensive line coach to the coordinator position, Edwards did little to debunk the image opening day, employing cautious play calling, relying on solid defense and ball control running.
The snazziness that we’ve come to expect apparently left town on the bus carrying Al Saunders to the nation’s capital, leading us to conclude that the Edwards/Solari combo managed to coach all the fire power out of the Chiefs offense within a few short months of OTA’s and training camp practices. Is that possible? It doesn’t seem possible that a coaching staff could reverse a unit’s identity and productivity while retaining the majority of its personnel. Maybe the reality is that the Chiefs offense isn’t as quick, as strong, as young, ultimately as good, as it once was. That’s no one’s fault. It’s just life (as a Chiefs fan).
What can we expect from this year’s team? Growth, improvement, adjustment, effort in the face of challenges that are self-created and set backs that are inherited through unavoidable circumstance and plain bad luck.
Here we go.
The opinions offered in this column do not necessarily reflect those of Carl Peterson.
http://www.kcchiefs.com/news/2006/09/13/coming_to_grips/
Sep 13, 2006, 6:42:57 AM by Eileen Weir
There were rumors it could be ugly, and it was.
Despite concerted efforts there is just no way to put a shine on the home opening loss at Arrowhead on Sunday. What could go wrong did go wrong. Wrong uniforms. Wrong weather. Wrong outcome. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Too many turnovers, too many miscues on the field on the sidelines, too many premiere quarterbacks lying limp on the grass.
Nope. There is no way to make this one look anything but what it was. Miserable. Never has a two-score loss felt like such a plastering.
As Kansas Citians are busy running Herm Edwards, Carl Peterson, Mike Solari and KC Wolf out of town on a rail, it pays to try to find a positive to cling to for the remaining 93.75% of the 2006 Chiefs campaign.
Primary on this optimist’s list of priorities is coming to grips with reality. No question the opening day spectacle lacked the old red and gold sparkle to which Chiefs fans have become accustomed over the past half-decade. The offense bore little resemblance to the high powered scoring machine that dominated the upper echelons of the NFL stat book since 2001. Even the most casual fan could taste the palatable void in excitement from the Arrowhead stands, the lack of sizzle emanating from the verdant turf below.
Yes, something is missing. Priest Holmes, for one. An all-world left tackle for another. A steady-eddy fullback and fan favorite, as this list goes on. Eager as fans and sports reporters are to lay the dismal loss at the feet of first year head coach Herm Edwards and his selected offensive coordinator, Solari, some things simply aren’t their fault.
Players get hurt. It’s a treacherous game that makes old men out of young ones in a hurry. No one is to blame that Priest Holmes is on the PUP. Guys retire. Coaches can’t be responsible for players who decide to call it quits. It’s not the blunder of the Chiefs management or coaching staff that John Welbourn violated the League’s substance policy and got himself suspended or that Tony Richardson exercised his rights in free-agency. Coaches can’t prevent the aging process. Everyone is a year older, which is good news for some, not so good for others.
Does anybody think Jordan Black and Kevin Sampson are the answer to Willie Roaf’s retirement? Of course not. But they are who we have. It’s nobody’s fault.
So, in the words of Coach Edwards, “Here we go.”
Looking back across the wreckage that was Sunday’s game, we the downtrodden might choose to take some comfort in the experience of our new head coach. As I mistakenly do, scores of Chiefs fans think of Edwards as a young coach, a newcomer to the coaching fraternity and maybe a little wet behind the ears. With his Puma’s and his laid back saunter, his Southern California cool and hip style, it’s easy to take him for, if not a player, at least a player’s older brother. Stories about his relationship with Carl Peterson and Dick Vermeil are told as if they happened yesterday, not thirty years ago when he was heavily recruited by Peterson and later coached by Philadelphia Eagle’s head man, Vermeil.
Edwards has been around the block, especially when it comes to adversity. No stranger to the reality of losing a starting quarterback in the beginning stages of a season, Coach knows how to respond. Now, some will argue that his response failed as he replaced not one but two starting quarterbacks for the New York Jets last year, resulting in a disappointing 4-12 record, but like Elizabeth Taylor once counseled on the topic of divorce, “The first time is the hardest. After that you know what’s coming.”
In Edward’s five seasons in New York, he amassed a road record that was nearly equal to his team’s home field victories, winning seventeen times in hostile stadiums and twenty-two times in the Meadowlands. In his rookie year as a head coach, Edwards boasted a winning 10-6 record and a Wild Card spot, accumulating a remarkable seven wins away from home, including triumphs at New England, Indianapolis and Oakland. In five playoff games, four on the road, Herm lead his team to two victories.
Big deal, you say. Better than the Chiefs, I say, who racked up only thirteen road wins over the same span and twenty-one Arrowhead victories, earning just one playoff berth.
My point isn’t to absolve the coaching staff for the disastrous first step of this much-anticipated football season, only to lend perspective. Labeled in pre-season assessments as predictable and conservative, putting the exclamation point on his take-no-chances persona by appointing a former offensive line coach to the coordinator position, Edwards did little to debunk the image opening day, employing cautious play calling, relying on solid defense and ball control running.
The snazziness that we’ve come to expect apparently left town on the bus carrying Al Saunders to the nation’s capital, leading us to conclude that the Edwards/Solari combo managed to coach all the fire power out of the Chiefs offense within a few short months of OTA’s and training camp practices. Is that possible? It doesn’t seem possible that a coaching staff could reverse a unit’s identity and productivity while retaining the majority of its personnel. Maybe the reality is that the Chiefs offense isn’t as quick, as strong, as young, ultimately as good, as it once was. That’s no one’s fault. It’s just life (as a Chiefs fan).
What can we expect from this year’s team? Growth, improvement, adjustment, effort in the face of challenges that are self-created and set backs that are inherited through unavoidable circumstance and plain bad luck.
Here we go.
The opinions offered in this column do not necessarily reflect those of Carl Peterson.
http://www.kcchiefs.com/news/2006/09/13/coming_to_grips/