Kent Babb dismantles Fat Scott

[FloridaMan88]

http://www.kansascity.com/2012/09/16...-big-with.html

Chiefs will never win big with Pioli in charge

By KENT BABB

The Kansas City Star

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. -- Scott Pioli pushed his way through a doorway, into the Ralph Wilson Stadium tunnel and then, alone, disappeared into the Chiefs’ locker room.

As the team he built was enduring the final minutes of death-by-Ryan Fitzpatrick, an embarrassing 35-17 loss to the Buffalo Bills, the Chiefs’ general manager walked toward a few minutes of solitude. Days like this are lonely when you’re the king, and maybe he embraced what is obvious to so many others who saw Sunday’s loss: that another team he constructed looks lost and unprepared. No injuries and no excuses, no former head coach to blame, and no safety net below the Chiefs’ most powerful football man.

The Chiefs’ problems are with their coaches and players, but the bigger issue is about the man who brought in those coaches and players. Yes, this game and this season are on Pioli, and there’s no denying that anymore. And there’s no more denying another truth, whether you’re ready to read it or not: The Chiefs will never win big while Pioli is this team’s boss. His priorities are too misguided, his insecurities and denial too immense to allow Kansas City’s favorite team to win the Super Bowl that he was brought here to claim.

Pioli is now in his fourth year of trying to justify the hype that earned him accolades in New England, respect within the NFL, and a multi-million-dollar job as a GM. Expectations were unreachable, maybe, but Pioli has done himself no favors by obsessing over trivial details, spending too much time trying to feed his addition to his own reputation, and engineering a team using the “discount football” philosophy that has made the Hunt family richer but has gotten the Chiefs only marginally closer to a Super Bowl.

Days like Sunday should be behind the Chiefs. This roster is so much better than the one Pioli inherited in January 2009. He’s responsible for that, too. But how much better could it be if Pioli weren’t so consumed by off-the-field nonsense? He arrived nearly five years ago and promised to curb a culture of losing. Instead, Pioli now oversees an organization shadowed in a culture of misplaced priorities and anxiety — and, yes, more losing.

Now in his fourth season as GM, Pioli has spent too much time trying to justify his decisions, rather than trying to improve them.

He whines to outsiders that the Chiefs’ salary-cap shortcomings are misunderstood? Well, spend more money, as team chairman Clark Hunt has said Pioli is authorized to do. Pioli excuses himself for his biggest mistakes, such as saying he just didn’t do his homework before hiring former coach Todd Haley? Well, why not? And he says privately that drafting a quarterback in the early rounds isn’t the point; it’s about drafting the right one. Well, Scott, then draft the right one. These things are big parts of Pioli’s job, but instead of acknowledging that, he chooses to tell himself — and, through back channels, you — that things are just fine.

In Scott We Trust? Not anymore.

Pioli cares more than you can imagine about what others think; about how his gilded reputation still shines nearly five years after it landed him this job.

He calls opinion-makers in Kansas City to plead with them to share his side of the story in exchange for a nibble of access, and he spends his own time compiling ultimately meaningless statistics in an attempt to spin unpopular draft choices and questionable spending habits into a more favorable light. He hints to anyone who’ll listen — in exchange for agreeing that you didn’t hear it from him — that the Chiefs’ playoff run in 2010 and a brief winning streak last season weren’t a result of Haley’s coaching. Those, he is convinced, were results of the magic of former offensive coordinator Charlie Weis two seasons ago and, last year, the motivating skills of Romeo Crennel. He obsesses over public relations, attempting to manipulate the message large and small. Pioli is as responsible as anyone for the misconception that Haley ruined the Chiefs and that, by firing him last December, Pioli helped to save it. How does that narrative look after the Chiefs’ second consecutive blowout loss?

Pioli craves credit and validation on good days, and he wants to hide and blame others after days like Sunday.

He worries so much about trivial matters that it’s impossible to think that such an emphasis hasn’t been an obstacle to the Chiefs’ success. He was concerned enough about what cornerback Brandon Flowers might’ve thought if Pioli had signed Brandon Carr to a richer contract that this factored into his decision to let Carr leave Kansas City and sign with the Dallas Cowboys.

Win, and nobody cares about how many dollars the Chiefs are under the salary cap, or which coach was responsible for past success, or why a free agent was allowed to walk. Lose, and all anyone wants to talk about is going to war with your first head coach, a new and considerably less shiny reputation built on micromanagement and insecurity, and stubbornly sticking with quarterback Matt Cassel just because you drafted him in New England, traded for him in Kansas City, and signed him to an extension.

Pioli has, for years now, learned from far too many mistakes. Haley. Sticking with Cassel. Thinking he can control every ounce of information. A growing number of unimpressive draft classes. The way front-office employees are treated and how bizarrely secretive everyone is expected to be. Pioli wasn’t brought to Kansas City to learn from trial and error; he was hired because he was advertised as being smart enough to avoid learning things the hard way.

Crennel is now the Chiefs’ head coach, and few people inside or outside the organization after last season would’ve suggested that elevating Crennel would be a mistake. But after an 0-2 start in which the Chiefs’ defense — Crennel’s baby — has allowed 68 points and has no idea why, that hire now looks like another blunder.

Fair or not, Pioli’s job is to anticipate days like this, put aside emotion and past allegiance in New England and with the New York Giants, and hire a coach who can take on one of the NFL’s most talented rosters and avoid this kind of start. This is the tradeoff of cashing those big paychecks, of sitting in that sprawling office, and taking on the role of one of sports’ most powerful men.

Pioli is a very bright man. He has made the Hunts a mountain of money and built the Chiefs into a team that should begin each season as a trendy playoff choice, and those things are enough to keep him employed for the foreseeable future. He has a cushion of otherwise undeserved job security because of this and because the Chiefs believe you’ll keep filling Arrowhead Stadium, keep tuning in to disasters like the one broadcast in Kansas City on Sunday, and keep believing that better days are ahead.

Maybe they are, but assembling a team at a discount and prioritizing things that don’t really matter only builds a team with a limited ceiling. As long as Pioli is in that office, your expectations should have a low ceiling, too.

[DeezNutz]

Originally Posted by FAX

That can't be true.

My guess is that Dr. Evil has said this in order to excuse the fiasco in some way.

As time goes by, I'm more convinced that Pioli has some sort of severe emotional problem. He's too sneaky by half.

FAX

I don't believe it either. It sounds like the type of excuse a child gives when he tries to side-step the fact that he failed.

"Eh, I wasn't really trying..."

[Chiefs Pantalones]

Originally Posted by Lou_Zare

They are stupid players. Really, it's just a few key guys that just have zero game and without somebody booting them in the ass constantly, they just do what dumbasses do.

Lol I don't know about that but ok.

[Dave Lane]

Originally Posted by FAX

That can't be true.

My guess is that Dr. Evil has said this in order to excuse the fiasco in some way.

As time goes by, I'm more convinced that Pioli has some sort of severe emotional problem. He's too sneaky by half.

FAX

He wanted Haley, he waited for Haley and then Haley went for it on 4th down and Dr. Evil turned on him like a weasel.

[GloryDayz]

Originally Posted by InChiefsHell

Cassell is not making this defense suck. Or the Special teams. He's responsible for his own epic suckage. Pioli is responsible for putting all the eggs in that ****stick's basket...

The only constant through all these years of futility is the Hunts. I fear as long as Clark is running shit, we're screwed. The whole organization is goddam awful and has been through the CP years and all the goddam coaches we've had. The 90s were fun but ultimately a waste. That starts with ownership.

Soooo true.. I know he's the hardest one to vote off the island, but it's the real answer to the problem. Their are a million bad coaches, GMs and players, and in some cases just bad combinations of "OK" coaches, GMs and players, but leave it to the Hunt family to always be stuck with a cocktail of both! So Hunt selling is the single biggest part of this team getting better.

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by mcaj22

thats a tough call to make to claim this is some sort of rare 49ers-like situation.

you dont know that unless they would get the right coach in here, and that is like fitting a square peg in a round hole. Who is the perfect hire to make all this "talent" as you put it fit?

and the true test of if the wagons fall off this team is who stays or leaves for FA in the biggest offseason of Pioli's Chiefs career coming up. That alone will be telling of how much talent we have left

It's not a rare 49ers-like situation.

We saw how good our defense was to close last season. We saw how efficiently we could move the ball even with an average QB like Orton (he couldn't score in the red zone, but he moved the ball very efficiently).

I dont' know why people forget that this team despite bottom 5 players at QB and RB were playing very good football the second half of the year.

[Ace Gunner]

Originally Posted by Brock

Easily the most damning thing about this article. This is your signature hire and you didn't think to check the guy out?

You know, you are really a ****ing moron. Haley was a very very late hire because Pioli was a very late hire.

And what makes me so irritated at posts like yours is, you don't even do your due diligence in researching the fact that Haley and Pioli go back to the Jets under Parcells during the nineties. They worked together for years.

There is no ****ing excuse for the charades Pioli has woven into his arsenal, yet Clark Hunt seems to keep finding them for dumbasses just like you.

[DeezNutz]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

It's not a rare 49ers-like situation.

We saw how good our defense was to close last season. We saw how efficiently we could move the ball even with an average QB like Orton (he couldn't score in the red zone, but he moved the ball very efficiently).

I dont' know why people forget that this team despite bottom 5 players at QB and RB were playing very good football the second half of the year.

The Royals will carry that second-half momentum into next year.

[Red Dawg]

Let's not forget that Jackson and Baldwin look like busts. Baldwin is so slow he will never amount to anything as a WR. Piloi fugged us with those guys.

[the Talking Can]

look what harbaugh has done for san fran

pioli gets $5 mill a ****ing year to get it right

he's failed twice at hiring a HC...and failed spectacularly (no need to mention the QB fiasco)

he's lost any benefit of the doubt and the sooner he is removed the sooner this franchise can try to find a GM that isn't a fraud....

and his drafts are over rated...there has been precious little development of anyone in his drafts outside of Houston and Berry pre-injury

[Fritz88]

Whitlock was right, yet people here flamed him.
Posted via Mobile Device

[Dave Lane]

Originally Posted by KCDC

Haley went down, in part, by his belief in Palko. Pioli might go down for his belief in Cassel.

Yet, the complete team collapse cannot be left at the doorstep of Cassel alone. That is with the coaches.

I see this Palko complaint for Haley over and over. But we've seen what Stanzi is AND he was even rawer and less skilled last year with no off season. Sadly and due to Piolis incompetence Palko was the best option available to Haley.

[DeezNutz]

Originally Posted by the Talking Can

look what harbaugh has done for san fran

pioli gets $5 mill a ****ing year to get it right

he's failed twice at hiring a HC...and failed spectacularly (no need to mention the QB fiasco)

he's lost any benefit of the doubt and the sooner he is removed the sooner this franchise can try to find a GM that isn't a fraud....

and his drafts are over rated...there has been precious little development of anyone in his drafts outside of Houston and Berry pre-injury

This post is like a run right at Tyson Jackson.

[GloryDayz]

Originally Posted by KCrockaholic

Since Clark Hunt has taken over the Chiefs have been the worst team in the league. Disgusting.

And he's a silver spoon trust fund brat, he doesn't give a shit. All his pussy self knows is $30M a year is coming his was free and clear, and that keeps his sack very empty!!

[Brock]

Originally Posted by Lou_Zare

You know, you are really a ****ing moron. Haley was a very very late hire because Pioli was a very late hire.

And what makes me so irritated at posts like yours is, you don't even do your due diligence in researching the fact that Haley and Pioli go back to the Jets under Parcells during the nineties. They worked together for years.

There is no ****ing excuse for the charades Pioli has woven into his arsenal, yet Clark Hunt seems to keep finding them for dumbasses just like you.

I'm just going off of what the article says, Corky. Use a little vagisil for that irritation.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by Lou_Zare

You know, you are really a ****ing moron. Haley was a very very late hire because Pioli was a very late hire.

The excuses never end