Mellinger: Chiefs are built for an era thats past.....

[Deberg_1990]

Babb and Mellinger, just killin it this week.



http://www.kansascity.com/2012/09/19...is-on-the.html




The talk this week is about Scott Pioli’s competence, Clark Hunt’s commitment and Romeo Crennel’s laid-back leadership, and that’s all good and relevant in many ways, but it also misses a very important point that can be summed up something like this:
Even at full strength, the Chiefs are metaphorically not only running a race on a tightrope but doing it directly into the wind.

Matt Cassel’s limitations have been exaggerated and dramatized, a topic as omnipresent around here as potholes, but the argument for him being anything better than a bottom-quarter passer in the NFL is difficult to make.

That’s frustrating enough on its own, but it becomes a game-changer when you put context to the bigger plan on which Pioli is essentially betting his career in Kansas City. The organizational hope — or foundation, because the whole thing crumbles if they’re wrong here — is that Cassel is good enough to facilitate a championship team.

Even a distracted child can realize, just by watching games, that the NFL is a passing league. But when you look at some plain and simple numbers, you will dismiss any notion that the Chiefs are making chicken salad out of something much less appetizing.
Actually, they’re giving their fans the same old meal.
The numbers are clear, and they’re not encouraging.

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The forward pass got a late start in American football, banned for the sport’s first few decades, and in a lot of ways has been playing catch-up ever since. Even now, when the NFL’s three most expensive positions are the quarterback, the left tackle who protects the quarterback and the defensive end who sacks the quarterback, our clichés are stuck in the days of black-and-white television.

Do a quick Google search on all the coaches who say they have to establish the run and stop the run.

And then digest some statistics that say they’re all full of hooey.
“Everybody says you gotta stop the run, stop the run,” Chiefs linebacker Derrick Johnson says. “But you gotta stop the pass, too.”

Last year, the 10 teams that ran the ball most effectively (by yards per carry) went a combined 82-78. The 10 teams that threw the ball most effectively (by passer rating) went a combined 113-47.

The 10 teams that stopped the run most effectively went a combined 83-77. The 10 teams that stopped the pass most effectively went a combined 96-64.
Put another way: The teams that excelled in the running game won as many times as they lost, while the teams that excelled in the passing game won enough to make the playoffs. That’s the whole thing right there: mediocre or successful, fired or given a raise.
This is more than the anecdotal evidence often used about the Giants winning the Super Bowl last year with the league’s worst running game. And it is particularly timely this week, because the Saints and Chiefs rank fifth and sixth in yards per carry, respectively, and have yet to win a game.

Turnovers have been a particular problem for both teams, but again, the biggest chunk of that problem is coming through the air: Matt Cassel has thrown three interceptions and fumbled twice, while Drew Brees has thrown four interceptions and fumbled once.
Nearly 70 percent of the yards gained in the NFL this season have come through the air, which would be the highest rate in league history.

Perhaps the new maxim should be, “We need to establish the pass and stop the pass.”
“Kind of, because you need to make plays in the passing game,” Charles says. “When you throw the ball down the field, more often those are bigger plays than running plays.”
This is all particularly discouraging when studied through the prism of the Chiefs, and not just as it pertains to the health of defensive backs Eric Berry, Brandon Flowers and Kendrick Lewis. Over the offseason, the Chiefs downgraded at cornerback, going from Brandon Carr to Stanford Routt, while improving at running back, by signing Peyton Hillis to pair with Charles. On top of that, so much of the Chiefs’ focus through recent drafts has been on finding defensive linemen to stop the run.

Meanwhile, if you allow for improvement from young players like Jacksonville’s Blaine Gabbert and Cleveland’s Brandon Weeden, it’s not a stretch to say the Chiefs have one of the three worst quarterback situations in football.

The NFL world is zigging right, and the Chiefs are zagging left.
Increasingly, it looks like they’re being left behind.
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One of Pioli’s biggest successes in Kansas City has been surrounding Cassel with one of the league’s better groups of skills players. There just aren’t many teams that can match the Chiefs’ crop of receivers, running backs and tight ends.

So it’s not that they’re ignoring the pass. Bowe is making close to $10 million this year, and new tight end Kevin Boss made a remarkable touchdown catch against the Falcons — and then was injured in Buffalo. It’s just that they are increasingly emphasizing the run, which by definition increasingly de-emphasizes the pass.

When Todd Haley was hired as head coach, he went from designing a pass-first offense with Kurt Warner and Larry Fitzgerald to a power running game featuring Charles. Cassel’s success in 2010 is often credited to former offensive coordinator Charlie Weis, but it’s just as likely that Haley benefitted from defenses having to focus so much on the run (as well as string of would-be interceptions dropped by defenders). Crennel is now the head coach, his reputation in large part anchored by coordinating defenses that stopped the run in New England.

There is a bit of a chicken-and-egg aspect to all of this — of course the Chiefs would love to have an elite quarterback; but since they lack one, they are trying to create and emphasize other strengths.

But it’s hard to find a team anywhere else in the NFL that’s stressing the run as hard as the Chiefs. And it’s impossible to find another time in the league’s history where doing so is less important.