Mellinger:Chiefs’ season report card
 

Chiefs’ season report card

 Star columnist Sam Mellinger assesses the Chiefs’ season, which ended with Sunday’s opening-round playoff loss to Baltimore:


B+ Quarterback Matt Cassel’s transformation is the defining story of this season, but he played like a dog the last two weeks. He’s a guy you can win with, but not because of, and at this point that’s a huge improvement.

A- Running back/tight end Jamaal Charles is one of the best running backs in football, Tony Moeaki looks like a future star, Thomas Jones brought steadiness if underwhelming production, and Leonard Pope is, well, tall.

C+ Wide receiver Dwayne Bowe was inconsistent but mostly terrific. The rest of them can be (and in one case actually was) replaced by a guy off the street.

B Offensive line This unit probably deserves better. The Chiefs led the league in rushing, and Cassel’s sacks dropped from 42 to 16, but they need to get younger and got manhandled against Oakland and Baltimore.

C Defensive line Glenn Dorsey heads an improving group, and the 3-4 scheme makes it hard to judge, but ranking 19th in opponents’ yards-per-carry suggests there’s still room to get better.

A- Linebackers Tamba Hali led the AFC in sacks, and Derrick Johnson became worthy of a contract extension with a $15 million guarantee. The Chiefs will need another pass rusher to help Hali.

B Defensive backs This is the most improved unit on the team, in part because of rookie Eric Berry, but also because of improvement from Brandon Flowers and Brandon Carr.

D+ Special teams Ryan Succop missed six of 26 field goals, and the Chiefs finished in the bottom half in both kick and punt returns. Dexter McCluster and Javier Arenas were more sizzle than show here.

A- Coaching It’s impossible to harshly judge a staff that oversaw a turnaround from 4-12 to division champions. The wins give Todd Haley the benefit of the doubt regarding Charlie Weis’ departure, but things change quickly in the NFL.

I think that's fair, although maybe higher than I would have graded Cassel and the o-line. He played horribly for a while, played extremely well for a while, and then ended back at horrible. I have a hard time grading him above a C. And I still believe that the o-line was a serious liability in pass protection. I think we see a different kind of passing attack (at least attempted...) with a line that can give the QB a modicum of time consistently. And I'm still not sure how much of the success in the running game was o-line and how much was Charles. He made a lot of yards in 2009 with basically no blocking, and I'm not sure 2010 was really that much better. Right tackle and center still strike me as major issues.

Aaron Curry would have made that linebacker corp a A+++++. Mostly because he can walk on water.

Cassel should get a C. Average. Nothing special. Like keg said, he started out poorly, improved and excelled, but ended up poorly, turning in his worst two performances of the season at home against a hated rival to end the season, and then in a first round playoff appearance.

He may just be that. Average. Occasional flashes of brilliance. But unable to carry a team on his back.

The rest of the grades were pretty good.

JFC that was weak.

Go player by player, like Whitlock did.

siberian khatru earned a "B" this season. He was correct in his request that the grades be player by player but then invoked the name of Whitlock. That gaff dropped him an entire letter grade. Try harder to live in the future if you expect a generous grade in 2011 sk.

That tells me all i need to know about Cassel

Actually, I believe that grade should be bumped up to a "+" because even though I invoked the name of Whitlock, in doing so I demonstrated that even though I have been critical of a lot of Jason's recent (meaning last couple of years) work, I can still in fairness credit him when he did something well.

You just typed the "W word" again. I give you an F.

Weak sauce, Sam. That looks like something a grade school kid would put together. How about some actual analysis and depth into the grades? Worthless article......

Yep. Absolute joke.

This took approximately 5 minutes for Mellinger to throw together.

I'm guessing he put that together on his laptop while he was taking a dump late last night.

Looks like something from WIPE illustrated.

Running back/tight end lumped together?? These should be separate, but I do like the grade.

A- Linebackers??? Did he not see Vrabel?? Sure Tamba and DJ made plays all season and should give this group a B. I can't think of one single play though that Vrabel made all year and he should take them down at least 1 grade as he alone makes the position an offseason priority.

Whitlock's end of season report cards were more interesting.