Well, kind of.

I mean, let's be honest:

He did inherit a team with a young LT with all the upside in the world, a game breaking RB, a player who looked like a #1 WR, a future pro bowl CB, one of the best DT prospects of the decade, the greatest TE of all time, and the 3rd and 34th overall picks.

Now, if you look at what those assets were spun into, it's pretty underwhelming.

They were 9-7 and 8-8 the 2 years prior to BB\Pioli taking over. Compare that with the Chiefs 4-12 and 2-14 record.

Oh, and BB and Pioli's first season in NE was 5-11. I'm not saying that the Chiefs will win the Super Bowl this year, or even be within a year of the Pats second year W/L record..... but, the Chiefs are pretty close to where the Pats were going into their second year.

And yet the roster still had to be turned over.

Just like it does in Kansas City.

In fact, here are the seven starters Pioli inherited in Kansas City:

Charles, Flowers, Carr, Waters, Albert, Bowe and Dorsey.

Great post. Sums my thoughts up precisely.

People usually go with what they know and do best. I think the critical thing is if you go with something, you make sure all of your organization is on the same page and all in. If Pioli feels better about the 3-4 system and the flexibility that provides, and that's his long term plan, then he should stick with it.

I think we've seen it before. Vermeil showed up here year one and took a team that Gunther had "built" to be a big, powerful team which runs the ball and uses the play action pass, and immediately tried to turn them into a quick, finesse type team that scores quickly and often. Edwards came in and made sure he dismantled the offense to slow down, and played his Tampa 2 scheme that he's familiar with.

The failure has always been in the execution. Vermeil paid little attention to defense and the two guys who he brought in were ill equipped to have autonomy over that side of the ball. You bring in a guy with the stature of Gregg Williams or someone like that and hand over the reigns of the defense to them, not jokes like GRob and Gunther. If you are Herm, you don't hand the reins of an offense over to an OL coach or have a guy who likes to play physical man coverage and blitz call a zone heavy cover 2 scheme. If you are Todd Haley, you don't keep around an OC that doesn't mesh with you, only to fire him and change the playbook two weeks before the season, and hire a DC that isn't necessarily a very good 3-4 DC.

Pioli is going to have his system just like Parcells and Holmgren have their systems. The bottom line is going to come down to how they draft, so if Pioli doesn't improve in that department then it's pointless. But probably the best thing he's done since taking over is bringing in people who all seem to finally be on the same page, and for the first time in a decade, I can look at our OC and DC and not be embarrassed by one or the other...

Really?

http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/6639/gutpr5.jpg

What the Chiefs are is a team that's been spiraling downwards for more than a decade - or "swirling 'round the bowl" as I like to put it. This is their 3rd complete rebuild in that time, and each one has involved a completely different approach to building a football team. They've gone from trying to retain the "glory" of the 90s (Gunther '99-'00) built around a defense that was already steadily declining, to trying to recapture the magical season the Rams had in '99 with a system Vermeil built around giving up picks for coaches and veteran players, to again building around defense with Edwards to now building around defense again, but with a drastically different scheme.

This has been one of the worst-managed franchises for years, as far as football goes. They've drafted poorly, they've never built a central core of talent, they've had little to no stability on the coaching staff, . That's where Pioli was starting from. And what he has to do is something their was a pretty lengthy article about during the coaching search last year (or was that even the GM search), when they were talking about how Clark wants to model the franchise around the Steelers. Not in terms of how they play, but how the organization as a whole is structured. They find the systems they want, which was apparently the 3-4 and a more pass-oriented offense, they find the coaches they want to execute that (which I think was Weis and Crennel all along), and then they stick with it...for years.

This has always been something that was going to take a while to turn around. 2009 was always the tear down and roster assessment year, sort of year 1a of the rebuild. 2010 is year 1b. If they're lucky they'll be competitive, although reality is they did win 4 games last year. Although on the other hand, they do play in one of the worst divisions in the game.

Fans are fickle. People are already turning on the 3-4, which is ironic after 10 years of hearing people talk about how they wanted the it. Now that they have it, they want the 4-3 again. I guess that's just how it goes; the grass is always greener. But what the franchise needs to do is stabilize, and that means Haley gets years to put it together. That means the defense doesn't change back to a 4-3 after a single year as a 3-4. Or two years. Or three. That means they stay on the course they're on.

So far Pioli has seen that those traditions continue.

I bet you he isn't even here in three years. He'll be scapegoat #1.

You're proving my point about fans being fickle. 12 months later we know everything. No sense of time.

Sorry, Keg, the time was last year. And they ****ed last year up.

So far they are no better than all the other clowns that had the Chiefs swirling round the bowl.

Is there anything here Pioli didn't say about the Chiefs when he was hired? Maybe it was a preemptive excuse, but it isn't new.

It kinda is. Pioli didn't come out at his press conference and say "oh man, we're kinda ****ed right now so just sit back and relax while we suck."

It's only ****ed up if you don't understand what last year was, which was the year to tear down the roster and assess what was left. And they still won twice as many games against a more difficult schedule. What were you expecting, really, in 2009? That they'd instantly turn a 2-14 team into a contender? If that's the case, then that's a failure on your part, not theirs. What else did you want? Sexier draft picks? Hell, two years from now the guys they picked-up may (or may not) be as good as anybody else out of that class, we have no way of knowing, and that's without even considering that the front office was working with one hand tied behind its collective back (read: Peterson's left-overs). Either way, who Tyson Jackson was in 2009 doesn't particularly matter; it's all about who Tyson Jackson is from 2011 and onward, and the same goes with all the rest of the picks.

Again, no sense of time. Everybody wants instant gratification when the reality is that it's going to take years.

And have a shitty draft?

And screw around with worthless players in free agency?

And hire coaches who are now gone?

And trade for a shitty quarterback?

Yeah, year one was just a year to assess....they didn't REALLY intend to accomplish anything....

Garbage.

And yes, Keg, it WAS a shitty draft. There's something to be said for being patient with players but when all of those players, save the kicker, show absolutely NOTHING and contribute in no meaningful way, there are clear warning signs. So don't sit there and act like we should all be patient and suddenly these guys will turn into All-Pros.