If it were easily possible to give up on years of emotional attachment to team when they underachieve, the NFL wouldn't be nearly as popular as it is now. The Lions, Browns, Chiefs, and several other teams wouldn't even exist.

I'm waiting to see what happens with this hire.

If they **** up this offseason, I'm done with em till he's gone.

No but he's also said he doesn't like to part with draft picks, yet he did so for Cassel. He said he wants to build slowly, through the draft, yet he traded for Cassel and gave him a handsome contract, even though Cassel was 27 years old and had never played a down for the Chiefs.

There's a lot of examples if you get down to it.

I think he saw what this franchise was and what it had personel wise.

He knew Cassel could come in a be a good leader, outspoken, and consistent while the change was occuring.

However, I don't understand why you give him such a big contract.

reading fail

although you are being pretty lame

bingo

maybe he thought it sucked so badly that it would take as long as the cassel contract to get better. :shrug:

either way it was a bad decision ... i just hope he realizes and tries to change it.

OK, if it's reading fail, explain this statement further:

I could care less whether or not you think I'm being lame. Pioli fired Haley so he's alright in your eyes. Completely myopic.

Yes, I gave up my tickets. I told them as long as Matt Cassel was here, I had no reason to support the team with season tickets.

You act like it's so easy to just shut off your loyalties as a fan. It's not. I'm also not a programmed robot that's going to embrace everything the Chiefs do as gospel.

The team drives me crazy, I hate the GM, but this is the team I grew up watching and have supposed for 23 years. I'm not someone who just starts following another team. I'm loyal to a fault, but I'm not blinded by this bullshit.

Though, we won't land somewhere in the middle. We land near the negative side just about every year.

Yep. There are.

I don't care how open he's been, saying you're going to hire one type of coach because of familiarity is how this team got to be so shitty under Carl.

The same stuff is happening over, and over, and over again.

He's literally excluding countless choices because they didn't have some seven degrees of separation from Bill Parcells.

Bad Guy, have you heard anything about this column coming out from the inside. Or more what is the feeling of the inside about this?

i said 'it will be one lame ass reason after another'

do you really need me to give you an grammar lesson about how 'lame ass' is an adjective describing the 'reasons'?

pretty sad since my grammar sucks

I also never said that everything Pioli does is 'alright'

a few posts ago i addressed his mistakes and how i hope it's not a 'flaw' in the way Pioli is going to do things. I also said i hope the Pioli doesn't have to fail here in KC before he learns to be flexible etc etc.

I'm just not ready to cry every day in every thread about the same thing over and over again. Go back and search your posts recently ... how many can basically be summed up with "cassel sucks, damnit pioli!"? What, like 80%? They aren't the constructive,discussion type posts either ... they are the whiny, passive-aggressive-WTF-is-the-point, type posts. You're better than this.

Nothing.

I've sent 2 emails to this guy and he hasn't replied, which is odd considering I normally get a response a few hours later.

If 10% of this is true we are ****ed.

Maybe Piolis goons got to him with the phone and email tapping.

why?

They got his shit tapped!

It isn't "usually done" for any reason other than when you're on company property, using the company network, on company time, they can do whatever they want. It's a condition of your employment.

That's not how I act at all. I'm a born and raised fan of 25 years, so believe me, I know exactly how you feel.

I still enjoy Arrowhead stadium when it's rockin, though, and we're not far from it. I'm not going to give up my tix and complain about it all the time. It's not worth it to do that.

I enjoy conversations with other fans about this team, sharing opinions about what should happen, discussing the facts about what actually does happen, and seeing it how it all plays out on the field.

Pioli has not done that bad of a job if we really step back and look at things. He pulled the trigger on a QB when he first got here because yes, he does know the QB is important. Unfortunately, it didn't work out the way he planned. Because of that, though, he's all we've got right now.

They're making more changes to try and right some wrongs. I hope just as much as anybody that QB is a position they target heavily one way or another.

Again, though, this is where all the bitterness is. The QB situation. Not the business operations. We're just looking for reasons to bitch and moan, and Babb gave it to us.

Exactly.

In this season, the Chiefs, which have an incredibly tight-lipped organization, leaked out two bits of information about Haley being at a Lil Wayne concert. And secondly, "going out" the night before a game. The second incident, if you believe Danny Parkins, was strange in the way the source tried to pretend like he accidentally made a mistake in calling the wrong person. It seems very likely that the Chiefs' front office was purposely trying to sabotage Haley's reputation to set him up to be fired. So in that case, he was paranoid about the right stuff. And it also makes you question... how did the team know what he was doing outside of work?

And again, it's very possible he was paranoid because the Chiefs were in fact monitoring more than they should have. Not illegally, just unethically. What we know right now for sure is that Pioli, the guy being accused, has a very bad history of taping things he's not supposed to be even when he knows it's outside the rules (Spygate). We're hearing that Pioli was requesting month old e-mails and call logs to use as damning evidence against Denny Thum. And what we're hearing is a ton of smoke that employees, not just Haley, were all under constant paranoia that everything they did and said was being monitored.

Here's what I'm guessing happened. And again, this is only an educated guess. My guess is that Haley had, over 3 years, become very, very careful about what he talked about where. I bet that despite being careful, he still found that the team somehow knew what he was up to. And I imagine that became more concerning when that included his private life too. While I doubt his cell phone was tampered with, I wouldn't be surprised if his conversations on company grounds were all heavily monitoried and a lot moreso than anyone else on the team. There is plenty of fact and tons of smoke in this story that leads you to believe that some of that paranoia may have been justified and that he wasn't the only one.

Zilla, I think you are a little off here. Because of your feelings that Haley can and will indeed be a good HC in the league you tend to side with him.

The Lil wayne thing wasn't leaked. It was stated on Twitter by players and by Lil wayne himself. It didn't come out until the day after, and I know guys who actually seen him there.

Do I think there is some stupid shit going on, probably. I think Haley might have lost it a little and went over the edge also.

I think Pioli has done a pretty decent job with his personnel. And I think he will continue to do so. And everyone's right that if the team starts winning championships, everyone will forget this article. In my opinion, players don't really care too much about the toxicity of the front office work environment.

My concern continues to be about the future of this organization. There was already a suspicion that this was a toxic place to work, and the Haley thing probably made some coaches pause. First, I'm not excited about the Romeo hiring and I truly believe that it was the result of either or both: 1) the team being too close-minded to look outside the tree; 2) the inability to bring coaches in from the outside because they know what Haley went through. Second, I worry big time about good talent leaving our front office. Phil Emery is being approached right now for GM positions. Who knows if we'll start to see some disgruntled staff from our scouting and personnel department start to leave, in which case, I think those positions will be much more difficult to fill now that prospective candidates know what kind of a toxic work environment to expect.

So a few things I see coming. I think as this team becomes more of Romeo's, in 2 years, we're going to see Haley's disciplinary influence wear off and this team is going to start playing sloppy again. I call it Norv Turner syndrome. However, because Romeo won some games and I think he could definitely take the team to two consecutive playoffs, that could be just enough to keep Pioli's job safe for a while. After those 2 years, you expect that Romeo will near retirement. After that, I think it's going to be difficult to bring in a top-flight coaching hire, just as it was difficult for Oakland to do given their reputation. These are reasons why I think the article is important. If it's true that the environment in Arrowhead is toxic, I think we're going to see some tremendous drop-off in talent at both our personnel guys and our coaches.

In today's age of mobile technology, no public figure can keep anything a secret no matter who they work for.

Some NFL players and their head coach go to the concert of a popular artist and you really think their management wouldn't find out about it whether they cared or not?

Right...IF it's true. The only one's saying it's true are people who are no longer there, and some who aren't there anymore are also saying it's not a big deal, but just what you'd expect from a regime change like they've been through before.

If it is true, then yes, I share all of your same concerns. I just don't see how so many people can let the media steer their thought process any which direction they want, whether it's about football or anything else.

Stories, quotes, etc. can be spun however people want to spin them. Some are very good at it, too.

Not sure if you saw my comment about ESPN and the UFC from an earlier post, but ESPN aired their piece about it this morning, and Dana White already posted a clip that they so conveniently left out. It's already interesting. He'll be posting their full interview footage before long. We can all probably get a good sample of what the media can do by looking at that sample.

Good point on the Lil Wayne comment. The other information leak... that's a lot more sketchy. On Haley, I recognize that both sides did some stupid stuff during his time. But I also don't think it's outside of the realm that all communications Haley made within Arrowhead's walls were monitored and, more importantly, scrutinized. Given the tremendous lengths the Chiefs allegedly went to use that sort of information to bring down Denny Thum, I wouldn't be surprised if that same sort of deal was being done to Haley.

So while we don't know the answer for sure, I think this article most definitely brings up two interesting hypotheses: 1) Haley was a paranoid schizo and grossly overreacted; 2) Haley was paranoid but the team did some over-the-top tactics most organizations do not do that drove him to that level of paranoia. I tend to think it's a little of both, but think there's enough smoke to believe there was a lot of the latter.

I didn't mean to sound overly critical as you have brought up some great points.

I think alot of shit went wrong with Haley and there was fault on both sides. However, he's gone now and I think this is one of hte most critical offseasons the Chiefs have had in a long time.

Things could go two ways in my opinion.

They coudl bring in a great OC, great free agents, have a really good draft and be contenders in a year or two. Or they could be shitty in all phases and we are cleansing this house again in 2 years.

Reasons for what? What reasons?

Why don't you just admit that you look down your nose at fellow Chief fans? They're apparently not worth of your intellect, are they?

Cassel is the #1 problem with this team. THE problem. Until he's replaced, there's nothing more to talk about. There is no hope for the future. No amount of free agent moves will amount to success. Nothing.

What would you like to discuss then?

No, that's not true. For most of the concerns, Donovan or Farmer or a current associate admit that the stories are true. In other stories, e.g. the Denny Thum bit, he was careful to disclose that not all sources had been contacted. Even with the "tapping" of communications, he has multiple sources from Hunt to the HR person giving statements of denial that they do not know of any of that activity going on.

While the article does skew to one opinion, it is very balanced in that most issues were allowed to be addressed by the counter-party. This is more than just some one-sided argument. The Chiefs offered a counter-point to most points--it's up to the general public to decide which side they believe, but it seems to me that Babb used fair enough quotes from the counter-party to build their case in an effective way.

I think these stories might affect the OC hire. I don't think it affects our draft or personnel in the short-term. I do think there is tremendous potential that it could very negatively affect our ability to hire a future head coach and to keep/bring in good talent in the front office. So the good news is, I think at least for 2 years, this team could be very fun to watch.

Actually, I've been talking about the business operations stuff since the day I came back, before Haley was even fired.

Because it DOES matter.

But nobody really wants to talk about it. And I never even MENTIONED Cassel in those threads.

You could be right.



Maybe I'm to naive, but I think we are getting pretty close to being serious contenders.

Overall we have built this team the way you build sustainable, competitive teams. Thru the draft.

I think this team has enough leadership to keep it on the right path, after our boyscout draft of 10, so I don't think it's gets that undisciplined.

For a small bit of insight on where I'm coming from with all of this, check this out.

I mentioned in a previous post about the place I used to work got raided by the FBI and the news coverage of it was completely false and misleading. Here is the actual news clip from that day. Take a look, it's only 45 seconds.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Ijc1gzNpVdA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

After watching that, let me now tell you the facts in order of what they had wrong (which was nearly everything.)

- DealExpress does not have 8 locations. They have 1 single location.

- They were not investigating pirated product, but rather counterfeit product. While similar, these things are different and the misuse of terminology can drastically effect ones view of the story.

- It didn't have anything to do with general electronics like TVs or stereo's at all. It was Cisco networking equipment that was being questioned.

- The 50+ FBI agents (that part was actually accurate) found 3 small, empty Cisco boxes which were proven to be legit and came from Cisco themselves. You can actually see the guy carrying these 3 boxes onto a truck at the end of the clip when the guy says "agents loaded up rental trucks with evidence" as if they had truck loads of stuff. Nope, just 3 small, legit boxes.

Rather than report about how much of a waste of tax payer money it was having 50+ FBI agents raid this place, and rather than provide ANY of the information that we employees gave them which completely negated everything they were trying to dig up (at 24 seconds you'll see me in the background getting interviewed by an FBI agent), they proceeded to fabricate this entire story because eBay fraud was a hot topic at the time.

This was the day I decided I would never take anything from the media seriously again.

Now, that was a long example of why I do NOT think this will effect our future coaching hires. These coaches and people in the NFL in general live this type of thing every single day with the media. They see first hand how full of shit the media is all the time, and I highly doubt they would ever allow it to weigh on their minds during an important decision they're making about their own lives.

This did make the Rumor part of ESPN so it's getting out there.


I think either way it's win win.

Either things are changed or things suck and Pioli is fired.

Would you kill Pioli though?

I have no problem with Fat Scott making drastic changes to the organization... it was long overdue.

The problem is in wins/losses.

The Chiefs are 21-28 under Fat Scott.

The Chiefs could turn their organization into North Korea and if they were winning I could care less.

This.


Again.

That's the just the thing. Turn them into North Korea or turn them into Hollywood - NEITHER has any effect whatsoever on wins and losses.

It's not suprising that Scott Pioli locks doors and pulls blinds - he thinks those things give him a competitive advantage, just like video taping opposition practices gives an advantage.

Guys, it's all gonna work out.

Next year when Stanzi sets the world ablaze, after we have a fantastic offseason, this will all be ok.

I wish I had some of what you're smokin. :)

Hi Scott I knew you were here somewhere.

Nah man.


Stanzi is gonna be the bauce here next year. I really think he will be the next big thing in the league.

You have been on a major positive streak recently. I hope you are right, but I can't be that positive about it. I am not even sure what kind of crap will need to happen outside of an injury that lets Stanzi even prove that next year.

He's gonna go into training camp, after having a great offseason. He's gonna work his ass off wanting to become the guy in KC.

He then will beat out Matt Cassel as the starter, in a training camp competition.

And again, I understand your distrust, but I'd also say that lumping this kind of a story with a trashy expose` is ridiculous. I used to work right next to a PR guy and have taken several writing classes. Trust me, I know the ins and outs of how the media will manipulate a story. One news station doing one of those stupid consumer protection exposes got a tip from a disgruntled employee that the company was throwing out customer records in a dumpster instead of shredding them. 100% untrue. Our PR guy was calling nonstop for a week, but the guy refused to listen to his story. Instead, the guy went on air without us being allowed to say a single word to defend ourself. I know the way the system works.

This, on the other hand, is a well-written story. You may disagree with what Babb has to say. But it's well sourced, it's balanced in viewpoint, and it doesn't appear that any quotes were taken out of context. And in most cases, the accused party was allowed to present their side of the story. And most of the accusations made in this story were confirmed as true by Donovan and Farmer, two guys who appear to be pro-Pioli.

After a while, a saying is going to be adopted by top administrators for behavior that didn't fit the new standards: "That's so Matt Cassel".

Hi Mrs. Haley, knew you were here too.

kneel before me ... and laid down your arms ... ive done nothing but build a better team and surround it with loyal servants .. scott ......

While I agree with the idea that Stanzi will prove himself next year, I doubt it happens as a week 1 starter. I bet that we suffer through a few weeks of Cassel performances before it takes place

Are we..um......are we being watched....?

If this NEW hardass mngt. style leads to success on the field (so far it hasn't) then we will all be happy, very happy. This organization NEEDED massive amounts of CHANGE. Pioli has the keys, for now.

It sounds to me like the truth is in here somewhere, but it's filtered through a lot of butthurt from fired employees who have a bone to pick. If I got to work at a place with no discipline and was never held accountable for mistakes, I'd be pissed to if I was suddenly fired for being shitty at my job.

The candy wrapper thing? Who cares? It sounds like he was just using it as an obviously small example of the attitude of the organization as a whole.

The bugging thing is unsettling, though. That's something I'd like to have more proof of, but if true that is borderline insane.

What you fail to know...most of those people were the best in the NFL at doing their jobs. Other teams would come and learn from them. Scott just wants change for change.

Most of these changes have nothing to do with on the field product.

That's entirely possible. If they had absolutely nothing to do with the on the field product, then there's no way for me to know. There's also no way for me to care.

Locking the media in their room and not allowing them to go to the bathroom without an escort IS insane.

The media is not going to give up your gameplan to other teams, Scott.

But then again, it's not surprising you treat guests this way. Your other team used to video tape other teams practicing...

THIS.

I read the article this weekend but didn't have a chance to respond. Figured this thread would be full of butthurt and MOTHER**** YOU SCOTT PIOLI'S!

But really......i'm glad. Sounds like the Chiefs F/O is getting it's shit together to me.

I have a real life experience almost EXACTLY like this when a movie theater I use to work at got a new GM.....

And and btw, if we had a QB, we'd be winning, and none of this would ever matter.

Next year, when Stanzi lights shit up, this will be all forgotten.

I wonder what he saw, or heard, or did, with NE that made him so paranoid.

Gretz weighs in:

From Bobgretz.com:

Several thoughts on the Kansas City Star finally catching up to the fact that employment with the Kansas City Chiefs these days is working in a toxic environment. The newspaper did so in a front page story in Sunday’s edition, headlined Arrowhead Anxiety. In case you missed it, here’s the link where you can read what they had to say.

First, it’s a good story that shined light on a dark corner of the operations that those that control the Chiefs would rather have been kept quiet. Second, although it’s a lengthy story it only scratched the surface of how dysfunctional the organization is these days. Third, the person most responsible for the atmosphere of fear and anxiety around the organization took the fewest number of verbal arrows – team chairman Clark Hunt.

This story has been under construction for several weeks; maybe a month and the Chiefs were well aware of the details. But in the typical fashion of the way the organization is run these days, they attempted to strong arm the Star, demanding the names of the anonymous sources in the story and threatening a law suit. Not once, but twice the Chiefs took this tact with the local fish wrap in the last few weeks.

Having spent a dozen years getting ink on my hands, including nine of those with the Star, I can tell you what happens when a business, politician or sports team threatens a newspaper. The folks in charge suddenly realize they have a story that’s even bigger than they thought. The reaction of Hunt’s minions simply increased the visibility that the story was going to receive. It showed his people in charge of public relations have no idea how to deal with the media.

ROFL

But, but, but the media! And Haley said! But, but, but...

What I took out of that gretz quote was a little different. He talks like this is Hunt's way of doing business.

So the team is running like a well oiled machine then.

They should put some oil in it though I guess.

This is true. The business side needed some tweaking and little youth movement but not to the extreme in which happened.

If this becomes more of a national story, will the bathrooms be unlocked a few more days like the day Romeo was hired?

Damn, somethings going down over all this.

What's so Toxic? Are people selling blow in the bathrooms? Hookers lining up outside Arrowhead Drive?

Or is it Toxic because the boss is a big meany and demanding that their job be done right with no slacking, and then holding them accountable when they don't do their job correctly?

Sounds like a culture shock to me. Sounds Like Lamar had it running like a family, and Clark has it running like a fortune 500 business.

When people are afraid to talk to co-workers in other departments and area afraid to be seen going to lunch with each other, it doesn't seem like a comfortable work place. I'd rather have employees focusing on work and not being worried if they spend an extra 3 minutes in the bathroom or are "caught" talking to someone from accounting.

You mean like Matt Cassel?

Or maybe SCOTT PIOLI?

This whole statement is hilarious. As if Pioli and Hunt are in a position to insist on excellence. Pioli hasn't seen excellence since he left New England. ROFL

Some people don't understand productivity in the workplace.

So Gretz believes this is just scratching the surface. Then I take it he believes criminal charges need to be levied against Hunt and Pioli, because the article implies they are committing a federal crime.

Agreed. Nobody's ever heard of silos or workplace engagement?

This is one of those examples of taking accountability one step too far. It's one thing to distrust people outside the organization. It's another thing when you don't trust anyone within your own building.

Ok, so because they whiffed on a QB they should just just let the rest of the franchise rot, right?

IMO it's more because they have stuck with him, when he has looked so shitty.

You go back and remember... I believe it was Kevin Harlan that said before the season even began that he was hearing things about the working environment at Arrowhead that were really disturbing. Something like that. I can't remember his exact words... I think there was an ESPN guy or two also that said things were really dysfunctional. So Gretz is right that it has been floating out there for a while. Although I think we all just assumed it was fights between Haley/Pioli, maybe he meant something else.

People wanted change from the Peterson era.


Well, there ya go. Federal Crimes.

If I were the front office, I would come out and make changes now.

Make a statement saying we went a little to far with tsome things and we are cleaning it up.

Oh and Fire PIOLI>

On second thought, if Pioli was involved in the video scandle in 07', than it is entirely possible that this stuff is true.

Yes. This has been going on for a very long time. I wish I could remember the sources too. There is a ton of smoke and it's coming from everywhere.

I hate Cassel, and if he's our starter in the first game next season it's a knock on Pioli and Crennel, but last year, it's hard not to start the QB that lead the team to a division title. It's the same thing happening in Denver. Tebow really shouldn't be their starter next year, but he's gonna be, (thank God) because of where he got them. 2010, easy schedule aside, Cassel won 10 games and threw 27 TDs, it's hard to say that's just not cutting it.

In closing, I hate Cassel, and don't want him starting another game for the Chiefs.