Chiefs Team Report
Inside Slant
The Carl Peterson era officially ended Jan. 6 with a farewell address to some 250 club staffers, family members, former players and VIP guests that included George Brett.
Peterson, insisting he is not retiring from the NFL, left unanswered questions about his future elsewhere in the league, saying only that he will take some time off after a mentally exhausting 2-14 season before determining what he will do next.
The future of the team’s chief executive of the past 20 years wasn’t the main one on the minds of most Chiefs fans, however.
The identity of his replacement was.
Though club chairman of the board Clark Hunt’s search for a new general manager has been skillfully conducted out of the spotlight, the few leaks that have developed suggest Hunt has moved beyond interviewing into a negotiating stage with New England vice president of player personnel Scott Pioli, the top candidate on any number of wish lists.
The two 43-year-old men likely found philosophical similarities, especially in the long-established Hunt family philosophy of a hands-off management style.
But
control issues may be a stumbling block, as might the salary question.
Pioli, in his more highly publicized meetings with Cleveland owner Randy Lerner, reportedly asked for nearly complete control over all aspects of the Browns organization.
Hunt, in his most significant organizational move following the 2006 death of Chiefs founder Lamar Hunt, has expressed his desire to divide Peterson’s total control between a business-oriented team president - likely long-time current interim president Denny Thum - and a general manager in charge of all football operations.
It also will be interesting to see if the Hunt family, long known as fiscally conservative during Lamar Hunt’s lifetime, will consider the kind of $5 million annual payout that Seattle reportedly offered Pioli a couple years ago in an attempt to lure him from a New England position in which he was part of four Super Bowl teams (and three champions) during a nine-year period as Bill Belichick’s player personnel man.
Pioli, who twice has been named the NFL executive of the year, clearly has everything Hunt wants in a proven ability to identify and acquire talent necessary to build a winner.
But, do Hunt and the Chiefs have all that Pioli requires?
Among the selling points: There is salary cap room (of more than $30 million); a foundation of young, inexpensive players; a fan base hungry for a return to the better days of the first half of the 20-year Peterson reign; and a renovated stadium and newly constructed team headquarters and practice facility.
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