Pioli offers an excuse

[Hammock Parties]

Pioli will bring Chiefs back to life

http://www.projo.com/sports/jimdonal...3.37be5c8.html

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ORLANDO — If you know Scott Pioli, you know he’s going to do in Kansas City what he did in New England — win Super Bowls.

Most likely not in his second year on the job, as the Patriots did in 2001.

But he’ll get the job done. He always has.

Pioli knows football. He knows people. He knows how to evaluate not only how a player will perform on the field, but also his character — what he’ll be like in the locker room, where the all-important chemistry that is an integral part of championship teams is established and maintained.

He knows his business, as he showed throughout his nine years in New England, when, working hand-in-hand with coach Bill Belichick, Pioli assembled the talent that enabled the Patriots to play in four Super Bowls – winning three of them — and five AFC championship games.

The Pats won six division titles while Pioli was personnel chief, going 18-0 in 2007 before losing Super Bowl XLII in the final seconds to the Giants.

He knows how winning teams — championship teams — are built, and he’s determined to do it in Kansas City, where he’s now a couple of months into his second year as general manager.

“The big difference is that, in Kansas City, I was starting at ground zero,” he said Sunday afternoon, stopping to chat for a few minutes in the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton, where the NFL owners meetings are taking place this week.

The Chiefs were 2-14 in 2008, the year before he arrived. They doubled that win total last season.

“Where I’d come from,” he said, referring to his years with the Patriots, “we had a system and a program that was up and running, with people with a great deal of experience.”

It’s a somewhat different experience for Pioli in Kansas City, where he’s clearly at the top of the totem pole. In New England, Belichick had the last word. With the Chiefs, while Pioli discusses personnel moves with coach Todd Haley, he has the final say.

“It’s similar to my situation in New England,” Pioli said, “but the lead role has swapped.”

To help him in that lead role, he said: “I’ve brought in a number of people who are smarter than I am, starting with the head coach. I don’t ever kid myself that I know that part of the game well enough.”

The head coach is the 43-year-old Haley. It’s his first head-coaching job, but he has extensive experience working with teams that have had to rebuild — most recently the Arizona Cardinals, for whom he was offensive coordinator in 2008, when they won the NFC championship and played in the franchise’s first NFL title game since 1947.

“We have a shared vision of what it takes to build a successful franchise,” Pioli said.

To do that requires more than simply bringing in talented athletes.

“I’ve learned that chemistry is critical,” Pioli said. “In New England, we didn’t just have great players — we had great team players.”

The Patriots had players like Mike Vrabel, who was brought to Kansas City by Pioli last season as much for his leadership as his linebacking talents. Along with the likes of Willie McGinest and Tedy Bruschi, Vrabel made sure that every player who put on a New England uniform knew what was expected of him.

“We also had selfless leaders, like Roman Phifer, Bobby Hamilton, and Anthony Pleasant,” said Pioli, who recently added Pleasant to the K.C. staff as defensive line coach.

A veteran of 14 NFL seasons — the last three in New England — Pleasant is one of several Chiefs assistants with a Patriots connection.

When Charlie Weis was fired at Notre Dame, Pioli snapped him up as offensive coordinator. The Chiefs new defensive coordinator is Romeo Crennel, who was fired as head coach of the Browns after the 2008 season. Crennel and Weis were, of course, the coordinators for Belichick in New England when the Patriots won their three Super Bowls.

Pioli also has hired former Patriots defensive back Otis Smith and put him in charge of “defensive quality control.”

Throw in quarterback Matt Cassel, who filled in so capably for the Patriots after Brady was lost for the 2008 season when he was injured in the opener — against the Chiefs — and there clearly is a strong New England flavor to what Pioli sees as the recipe for success in Kansas City.

Which shouldn’t be surprising.

He doesn’t have to convince people with Patriots ties to, so to speak, buy the Kool-Aid he’s selling. They’ve already been drinking it for years.

“It happens all the time,” Pioli said of the practice of hiring people you know — and who know you.

“Look at what Josh (McDaniel) is doing in Denver. Look what happened when Brian Billick went to the Ravens, or when Andy Reid went to Philadelphia. (Bill) Parcells has done it everywhere he’s gone.

“It’s natural, when you’re looking for leaders.”

It’s been 40 years since the Chiefs have been to the Super Bowl. They’re looking to Pioli to lead them back.

It won’t be this year. But it may not be too many more.

[ChiefMojo]

GoChiefs knows what he is talking about and is smarter than Pioli... he writes for WPI.

[Hammock Parties]

Originally Posted by ChiefMojo

GoChiefs knows what he is talking about and is smarter than Pioli... he writes for WPI.

Well hey, let's take a look at YOUR post history.

Originally Posted by ChiefMojo

I'd much rather get Bomar or White over Sanchez. I'm still in the boat of Aaron Curry at #3.

Originally Posted by ChiefMojo

For gosh sakes we haven't even got through fu%king FA or the draft yet! This football team is going to be completely different when it comes to quality vets here in a few months. Tony isn't going anywhere!

Originally Posted by ChiefMojo

Umm, we have our QB of the future... his name is Matt Cassel! Stafford is likely gone to Detriot and at this moment Sanchez can't hold Cassel's jock and may never do so (I'm not a big Sanchez fan). There is absolutely no need to draft another QB early!

Aaron Curry is about the surest thing there is in this draft. He is the complete package when it comes to the LB spot.

Originally Posted by ChiefMojo

I guess the fair thing to say is... is this defense good yet? Well no, but it is already a heck of a lot better than last season.

Originally Posted by ChiefMojo

Looking at the schedule, we can still win 6-8 games.

Originally Posted by ChiefMojo

Wade is Cassel's fav target. I think he feels he is the Chiefs Wes Welker.

Originally Posted by ChiefMojo

Heck no we aren't the worst. The likes of the Rams, Bucs, and Browns are for sure worse than we are. I would argue we are on the equal footing of Oakland, Detroit, Seattle, Tennessee, and Washington's of the world.

Originally Posted by ChiefMojo

I think Branden has a long successful future with KC, but I still have a feeling he may end up at either RT or LG in time.

Wow. You are a goddamn genius.

[The Franchise]

Originally Posted by GoChiefs

Well hey, let's take a look at YOUR post history.

Wow. You are a goddamn genius.

[keg in kc]

Originally Posted by GoChiefs

And have a shitty draft?

And screw around with worthless players in free agency?

And hire coaches who are now gone?

And trade for a shitty quarterback?

Yeah, year one was just a year to assess....they didn't REALLY intend to accomplish anything....

Garbage.

You're not answering any questions, you're just throwing out more hyperbole. Again, I'll ask what I did before: what did you expect to happen in 2009? What were your expectations?

And yes, Keg, it WAS a shitty draft. There's something to be said for being patient with players but when all of those players, save the kicker, show absolutely NOTHING and contribute in no meaningful way, there are clear warning signs. So don't sit there and act like we should all be patient and suddenly these guys will turn into All-Pros.

This is the problem when you get tunnel-vision, when you look at 2009 in a bubble. Success or failure, whether you're looking at the team as a whole or at a specific player, is not a matter of one year. Matt Cassel's success or failure is not yet decided, whether you like him or not (and I don't). Neither is Tyson Jackson's, or Alex Magee's, or Colin Brown's, or anybody else's. These guys have years to prove what kind of players they are, for good or ill. And the same's true of Pioli. He's got years to put this thing together; 2009 was just the first step down the path, and some of the moves that look like misses now may or may not turn out to be okay in the long run. There's no way to know.

Don't mistake this as confidence or optimism. It's not. It's just an acknowledgment of my own limits when it comes to reading tea leaves or crystal balls or any other forms of divination. I understand it's easier to just throw your arms up and scream bloody murder, rather than to see how it actually plays out.

[Hammock Parties]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

You're not answering any questions, you're just throwing out more hyperbole. Again, I'll ask what I did before: what did you expect to happen in 2009? What were your expectations?

Not to suck ass? Seriously, pretty much everything we saw last year was a carbon copy of crap from the old regime.

You can sit here and preach "patience" as much as you want. But OTHER teams find impact players in the first year of a new regime. OTHER teams find rookies that contribute in some way in their first year.

It's nice to just sit there and say "anything can happen." You know what? That doesn't deal in reality. The reality is Pioli shit the bed last year. Because it doesn't MATTER what Tyson Jackson turns into. He's still going to be a five-tech when it's all said and done.

And that's why we're sitting here day after day this offseason, PRAYING that they take a player who will have a real impact.

[FAX]

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.

FAX

[DaWolf]

Originally Posted by GoChiefs

You can sit here and preach "patience" as much as you want. But OTHER teams find impact players in the first year of a new regime. OTHER teams find rookies that contribute in some way in their first year.

That's a blanket statement that didn't really play out for "regime change" teams in 2009:

2008 Lions: 0-16
2009 Lions: 2-14

2008 Bucs: 9-7
2009 Bucs: 3-13

2008 Seahawks: 4-12
2009 Seahawks: 5-11

2008 Rams: 2-14
2009 Rams: 1-15

2008 Browns: 4-12
2009 Browns: 5-11

2008 Donx: 8-8
2009 Donx: 8-8

2008 Chiefs: 2-14
2009 Chiefs: 4-12

Sometimes teams catch lightning in a bottle and turn around quickly like the Falcons and Dolphins in '08, but it doesn't always happen so quickly, and due to many factors, be it the availability (or lack of) of impact talent in '09, the financial state of the game, personnel miscalculations, whatever it was, bad teams who went out and changed the guys running the team didn't really improve very much. The only two "bad" teams that really turned it around were Cincinnati and Green Bay, and both of those teams maintained stability in leadership...

[Hammock Parties]

I'm not even talking about overall record.

There were a shit ton of teams last year who got more contribution from their rookie class than Ryan Succop the wonder leg.

Sitting here and saying "eh, the rookies didn't do much, but give them time" is being SOFT. We need to hold our front officers to a MUCH higher standard.

Just for comparison's sake, the Oakland Raiders had a shitty year and a fairly shitty draft. They still got decent production (35 catches, 4 TD) out of Louis Murphy and got 4 sacks out of Matt Shaughnessy.

Meanwhile the Chiefs draft guys like Donald Washington and Quinten Lawrence who are lucky to play in a game.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by GoChiefs

I'm not even talking about overall record.

There were a shit ton of teams last year who got more contribution from their rookie class than Ryan Succop the wonder leg.

Sitting here and saying "eh, the rookies didn't do much, but give them time" is being SOFT. We need to hold our front officers to a MUCH higher standard.

Just for comparison's sake, the Oakland Raiders had a shitty year and a fairly shitty draft. They still got decent production (35 catches, 4 TD) out of Louis Murphy and got 4 sacks out of Matt Shaughnessy.

Meanwhile the Chiefs draft guys like Donald Washington and Quinten Lawrence who are lucky to play in a game.

I took Murphy last year in the 4th.

Too bad it doesn't count.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by DaWolf

Sometimes teams catch lightning in a bottle and turn around quickly like the Falcons and Dolphins in '08

The Dolphins? JFC, WHY would you include them?

It's been discussed to death but the Dolphins were smoke and mirrors. I said in January 2009 that they'd be LUCKY to be 8-8 last year and guess what?

They were 7-9.

[ChiefMojo]

I never stated I was a genius like you do. Your a idiot that thinks you know football because your a hack that gets paid for a crappy website. You think your getting me riled up, but I'm just laughing at you. I'm waiting for your million come backs but in reality you know your hack like everyone else on here knows.

[DaneMcCloud]

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.

That's all well and good but out of seven draft choices and 38 free agent acquisitions, the Chiefs were unable to find something they sorely lacked:

A game-changing, playmaking, difference maker.

Pioli can bring everyone that's even been associated with Parcell, Belichick and himself but until he drafts or signs some playmakers on both sides of the ball, this team will continue to falter.

[Hammock Parties]

Originally Posted by ChiefMojo

I never stated I was a genius like you do. Your a idiot that thinks you know football because your a hack that gets paid for a crappy website. You think your getting me riled up, but I'm just laughing at you. I'm waiting for your million come backs but in reality you know your hack like everyone else on here knows.

Hey dumb****: football is not rocket science. This shit is obvious to anyone with half a brain. If you have less than half a brain, you think Bobby Wade is Wes Welker. You must have thought Lance Long was Steve Largent.

[MTG#10]

Originally Posted by ChiefMojo

I never stated I was a genius like you do. Your a idiot that thinks you know football because your a hack that gets paid for a crappy website. You think your getting me riled up, but I'm just laughing at you. I'm waiting for your million come backs but in reality you know your hack like everyone else on here knows.

Its you're, as in you are. If you're going to call someone out for being stupid at least learn to spell and use correct punctuation.

[DaWolf]

Originally Posted by GoChiefs

I'm not even talking about overall record.

There were a shit ton of teams last year who got more contribution from their rookie class than Ryan Succop the wonder leg.

Sitting here and saying "eh, the rookies didn't do much, but give them time" is being SOFT. We need to hold our front officers to a MUCH higher standard.

Just for comparison's sake, the Oakland Raiders had a shitty year and a fairly shitty draft. They still got decent production (35 catches, 4 TD) out of Louis Murphy and got 4 sacks out of Matt Shaughnessy.

Meanwhile the Chiefs draft guys like Donald Washington and Quinten Lawrence who are lucky to play in a game.

No one is going to argue that anyone outside of the kicker made much of an impact last year. For impact in 2009, it was a bad draft. Do Jackson and Magee make an impact here in the next couple of years? They better. Linemen take longer to mature and I'm still not sure why the hell Krumrie was coaching these guys last year. That still doesn't mean there won't be production in the future from some of these guys. There better be.

If this becomes a recurring pattern, IE the 2009 draft is a bust and the 2010 draft provides nothing, then absolutely, a pattern will have been seen and there's really no way around it. He's gotta do better on this draft. If I recall, AJ Smith and the Chargers had a pretty bad draft in 2003, but have been pretty good from that point on, and Drew Brees went from being a bad QB to an all pro, sort of like Jamaal Charles went from being a fumbling 3rd down back to a dynamic force. Sometimes it takes a while for the light to come on with these guys.

But it still appears that 2009 was a bad year for whatever reason to have a quick turnaround with any team in the NFL...