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Originally Posted by keg in kc

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.

Yep.

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