I think it's fair to say Haley deserved a chance without Cassel. It's also fair to say he had that to a point and chose to stick with Palko who he had brought in the year prior and it was no secret Palko was his guy. He could have pulled Palko against NE and didn't. He could have pulled Palko against Pit and didn't. He could have pulled Palko against NY and didn't.

Nah. At no other time in the season was there a formation on the field without some combination of those three. Only Offensive Mastermind Todd Haley could come up with something like that.

That's total BS.

You can look at the game threads. It came up a few times that Baldwin didn't see much of the first quarter. We wondered if he was in Romeo's doghouse.

Hey, he could bench those 3 but he couldn't put Stanzi in what was a lost game because it was "unwinnable".

No, YOU can look at the game threads. I'm not disputing whether or not Baldwin's snaps went up or down, I don't care. That has no relevance to what I said.

He could have pulled Palko in NE for a 5th round rookie QB who they believe wasn't yet ready. We have no ****ing clue what Stanzi looks like in practice. Maybe he didn't feel comfortable putting a rookie in the fire that was that young and unprepared. Or maybe it was just a dumb decision. We don't know. There are just as many legit reasons not to play Stanzi as there are bad.

And that's what bothers the shit out of me. People are sooooo pissed off about him starting Palko. It amazes me that no one in this group questions what the **** we're doing when your next best option when your shitty starting QB gets hurt is a journeyman with a noodle arm and a 5th round rookie who may or may not have been at all ready. People blame Haley for the Palko decision. I blame Pioli for putting Haley in that shitty position to have to choose between two very unappealing options as your plan B.

And we know Haley brought Palko to KC. You have no idea if he was blindly loyal to him because Pioli NEVER gave Haley a competitive enough option to force Palko off the roster.

I can't be 100%, but I am pretty sure that happened again, on a few 1 WR sets.

And besides, you don't think some of that had a little something to do with the fact that Haley knew he had to run a horizontal offense because his QB couldn't throw over 20 yards? It's not like Haley was so dumb he didn't know his QB's limitations. The entire offense was based largely on a bunch of quick screens and slants.

Cue the part where people discredit the story because Gretz was a disgruntled employee. Gretz brings back a few memories that are more than a little interesting: 1) Haley was on the chopping block before the season even started. We heard whispers about that all season long. So BS that he was fired because of poor performance or Tyler Palko. He was fired because Pioli finally found an excuse to do it. Haley was on the bubble IMMEDIATELY AFTER MAKING THE PLAYOFFS in his second season; 2) the unkempt appearance. We heard rumblings about that too, which is hilarious, because I remember bringing up how funny it was that they're hung up on Haley's hat but not on Hoody's disgusting cut-off sweatshirts.

You put the picture together, and it's pretty crystal clear. Pioli wanted Haley fired and he was willing to annoy the bejeezus out of Haley until he did. Between the two shadily leaked stories about Haley. Questioning his appearance. Certainly plausible that Pioli questioned the hell out of every one of Haley's decisions, as Gretz says. Who knows... maybe Haley thought his phone was bugged because Pioli used his mind games to make him paranoid enough to believe so.

As of right now, teams have expressed interest in Haley even though they know about the Arrowhead Anxiety story. And head coaches and coordinators have no interest in joining Kansas City. And now we have multiple writers with sources saying Kansas City is a complete cluster****, and the only people who have defended the Chiefs' practices are... members of the front office.

I don't care how much you love the Chiefs. This story is getting worse every day.

1. He didn't play Orton in the game two days after he arrived in KC. No coach would have. He brought him in to the second game and he immediately got injured. I can't think of a game where a QB played two days after arriving at the team. Can you? You are really unreasonable on this point. And none of us know how prepared he was for that second game. It is entirely possible that the coaches reasonably decided he needed more time.

2. You have no idea how Stanzi looked in practice and whether it was reasonable for Haley to start Palko over him. Stop pretending you do.

When Bob Gretz writes an article this critical of the Chiefs you have to think there is something to it. He has never been very critical of the Chiefs.

Well, the grain of salt is that Gretz was not just a fan of the Carl Peterson administration, but a raving fan. And there have definitely been sour grapes since Pioli took over, even before he really did much of anything.

But agreed that Gretz is throwing quite a few things in this article that I don't think he throws out without legit sources.

I'm expecting a CYA Stanzi was injured story to leak out
emergency QB only

Gretz notes the organization's laughingstock status. Gretz? That's impressively embarrassing.

The clues are all there if you want to look hard enough. Haley may be nuts for all we know... but it's pretty clear the Chiefs were floating rumors out there about getting rid of him for a while now. Pretty much all of last year really... there were tons of rumors about Haley and Pioli having problems. Maybe it's all coming from Haley. Either way it's obvious the situation was toxic. Amazing we won 7 games, really.