Whitlock: Grading the front office and coaches

[Tribal Warfare]

Grading the front office and coaches

98 Clark Hunt: He had a perfect grade, but it’s Wednesday and Herm Edwards, Dick Curl and Gunther Cunningham still have jobs. If this is true come Monday, drop Clark’s grade 10 points. If the Chiefs fail to make a serious, big-money offer to New England vice president Scott Pioli, we’ll drop Clark’s grade another 10 points. The Carl Peterson firing is starting to smell like a publicity stunt to stimulate season-ticket sales. Oh, I hope that’s just my paranoia.

80 Carl Peterson: Took his dismissal like a man. I’m not going to kick him while he’s down. After smugly celebrating Kansas City’s “close loss” to New England, he suffered the final 13 losses with the appropriate amount of humility.

50 Herm Edwards: Most likable coach to work at Arrowhead Stadium during my time here. I like Herm. A lot. I’m not sure he can coach a lick. Oh, he’s a great secondary coach. He rebuilt KC’s secondary. But everything else is a disaster. No way a real head coach concludes that Brokie Croyle is a potential franchise QB. No way. The defensive scheme the Chiefs employed to take advantage of Glenn Dorsey is a fireable mistake. Employing Dick “Father Time” Curl to mismanage the clock is another fireable error. Yeah, Herm was put in a tough situation trying to work through all Peterson’s misjudgments. But Herm hasn’t helped the situation.

85 Chan Gailey: I was initially against the Gailey hire. I was wrong. The dude is creative and sharp. On the fly, he came up with a strategy that allowed Tyler Thigpen to pass himself off as a starting quarterback. Gailey made one big mistake all season. He took the ball out of Thigpen’s hands at the end of the Jets game. Thigpen was having a great day, and for some reason Gailey tried to run out the clock with the running game. Maybe Herm told Gailey to do it. We’ll never know. Gailey took full responsibility. Other than that, I have no complaints about Chan.

52 Gunther Cunningham: You know I championed Gunther’s rehiring? Gunther and Ty Law are my fireable offenses. The game has passed Gunther. He had his day as a defensive coordinator. Or maybe Gun was just another guy that Marty and Derrick Thomas carried all those years. Whatever, the Squirt Gun has been fired. It’s out of juice.