Tribal Warfare
09-01-2011, 01:10 AM
Chiefs’ mediocre preseason breeds frustration, questions (http://www.kansascity.com/2011/08/31/3113278/chiefs-mediocre-preseason-breeds.html)
By SAM MELLINGER
The Kansas City Star
For perhaps the 7,274,214th time, Todd Haley is insisting that this was the plan all along.
He won’t say whether he specifically thought his Pro Bowl quarterback would complete fewer than half his passes or the starting offense would manage two scoring drives covering a grand total of 1 yard or the defense would generally act like it thinks these games are flag football.
But he will say — as he’s done so many times it’s become a boilerplate part of his news conferences — in so many words that your frustration at the Chiefs this preseason is missing the point.
“We’re doing things kind of the way we thought we would do them,” Haley says.
Le’Ron McClain doesn’t have to think this way, of course. He’s the Chiefs’ fullback, not the coach, so his job is to play hard every chance he gets and, now that he’s thinking about it, yeah, he does care about the score in tonight’s final preseason game at Green Bay.
“I feel like we need to go out here and play our best, man, get better and try to get a victory,” he says.
This is the disconnect that has driven angst throughout the preseason. Haley has used the first three games as televised conditioning drills, which means that not only have the Chiefs lost all three times, but even squinting through red-and-gold glasses it’s hard to see a good NFL team.
The Chiefs have gone from 2-14 to division champions in two seasons under Haley, earning him the benefit of the doubt, but it’s hard to feel good when the biggest apparent positive so far is the play of the backup quarterbacks.
Plus, recent NFL history suggests the preseason is actually more important — or, at least, less meaningless — than you might think. The history says that while any specific development can be dismissed as irrelevant, there is value in the bigger picture.
For instance, only two teams in the last five years have gone winless in the preseason and then made the playoffs. Over the same span, each year’s group of playoff teams was collectively above .500 in each preseason but one.
The Big Lead blog found that since 2006, returning playoff teams that were outscored in the first three preseason games during the quarters mostly played by starters made the playoffs only 35 percent of the time.
There is no clean cutoff on when the backups have come in, but using the first quarter of each of the first two games and the first half of last week’s game, the Chiefs have been outscored 27-6 during that time.
Of particular concern with the Chiefs is that even ignoring the overall results, there are precious few signs of progress underneath it all.
Matt Cassel, most notably, has completed 12 of 27 passes for 132 yards.
There are any number of reasons for this, some of them (like vanilla gameplans) accounting for struggles and others (missed throws and awful protection) that won’t make anyone feel better.
But what can’t be argued is that Cassel’s numbers are simply a product of a screwy year where no offseason means conventional standards don’t apply. Look around the league. Other quarterbacks are doing just fine.
As a quick example, take the 10 quarterbacks Cassel ranked closest to in passer rating last year — his theoretical peer group, in other words. Peyton Manning hasn’t played yet, and of the remaining group, Cassel ranks dead last in pass attempts and completion percentage and ahead of only Michael Vick in rating.
Vick, you might remember, was awful in last year’s preseason before blowing up. Cassel has no such record of moving beyond a bad preseason.
Including Vick, the nine quarterbacks are averaging a 60.2 completion percentage, 87.2 passer rating and 44 attempts. Cassel’s numbers are 44.4 completion percentage, 59.5 rating, and 27 attempts.
It’s one thing to say that Cassel is entering his fourth season as a starter (including 2008 when he started 15 games for New England) and doesn’t need the reps coming off a Pro Bowl season.
But that argument feels shaky when Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees, among others, have taken more snaps and thrown more passes than Cassel.
Look, none of this is empirical evidence that the Chiefs will lose 10 games this year, or even enough to believe that if they do end up missing the playoffs we can confidently look back and say, If they’d only played those preseason games with more purpose…
McClain’s sense of urgency would be more interesting to watch, but Haley has his ideas and his convictions and last season earned him the trust to do it.
It’s just that Haley is pushing the Chiefs into a place that history suggests is better to avoid.
It’s getting real
How the Chiefs have done in the preseason hasn’t necessarily foreshadowed their performance in the regular season:
Year Pre. Reg.
2010 1-3 10-6*
2009 0-4 4-12
2008 2-2 2-14
2007 0-4 4-12
2006 2-2 9-7*
2005 0-4 10-6
2004 1-3 7-9
2003 3-2 13-3*
2002 3-1 8-8
2001 2-2 6-10
By SAM MELLINGER
The Kansas City Star
For perhaps the 7,274,214th time, Todd Haley is insisting that this was the plan all along.
He won’t say whether he specifically thought his Pro Bowl quarterback would complete fewer than half his passes or the starting offense would manage two scoring drives covering a grand total of 1 yard or the defense would generally act like it thinks these games are flag football.
But he will say — as he’s done so many times it’s become a boilerplate part of his news conferences — in so many words that your frustration at the Chiefs this preseason is missing the point.
“We’re doing things kind of the way we thought we would do them,” Haley says.
Le’Ron McClain doesn’t have to think this way, of course. He’s the Chiefs’ fullback, not the coach, so his job is to play hard every chance he gets and, now that he’s thinking about it, yeah, he does care about the score in tonight’s final preseason game at Green Bay.
“I feel like we need to go out here and play our best, man, get better and try to get a victory,” he says.
This is the disconnect that has driven angst throughout the preseason. Haley has used the first three games as televised conditioning drills, which means that not only have the Chiefs lost all three times, but even squinting through red-and-gold glasses it’s hard to see a good NFL team.
The Chiefs have gone from 2-14 to division champions in two seasons under Haley, earning him the benefit of the doubt, but it’s hard to feel good when the biggest apparent positive so far is the play of the backup quarterbacks.
Plus, recent NFL history suggests the preseason is actually more important — or, at least, less meaningless — than you might think. The history says that while any specific development can be dismissed as irrelevant, there is value in the bigger picture.
For instance, only two teams in the last five years have gone winless in the preseason and then made the playoffs. Over the same span, each year’s group of playoff teams was collectively above .500 in each preseason but one.
The Big Lead blog found that since 2006, returning playoff teams that were outscored in the first three preseason games during the quarters mostly played by starters made the playoffs only 35 percent of the time.
There is no clean cutoff on when the backups have come in, but using the first quarter of each of the first two games and the first half of last week’s game, the Chiefs have been outscored 27-6 during that time.
Of particular concern with the Chiefs is that even ignoring the overall results, there are precious few signs of progress underneath it all.
Matt Cassel, most notably, has completed 12 of 27 passes for 132 yards.
There are any number of reasons for this, some of them (like vanilla gameplans) accounting for struggles and others (missed throws and awful protection) that won’t make anyone feel better.
But what can’t be argued is that Cassel’s numbers are simply a product of a screwy year where no offseason means conventional standards don’t apply. Look around the league. Other quarterbacks are doing just fine.
As a quick example, take the 10 quarterbacks Cassel ranked closest to in passer rating last year — his theoretical peer group, in other words. Peyton Manning hasn’t played yet, and of the remaining group, Cassel ranks dead last in pass attempts and completion percentage and ahead of only Michael Vick in rating.
Vick, you might remember, was awful in last year’s preseason before blowing up. Cassel has no such record of moving beyond a bad preseason.
Including Vick, the nine quarterbacks are averaging a 60.2 completion percentage, 87.2 passer rating and 44 attempts. Cassel’s numbers are 44.4 completion percentage, 59.5 rating, and 27 attempts.
It’s one thing to say that Cassel is entering his fourth season as a starter (including 2008 when he started 15 games for New England) and doesn’t need the reps coming off a Pro Bowl season.
But that argument feels shaky when Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees, among others, have taken more snaps and thrown more passes than Cassel.
Look, none of this is empirical evidence that the Chiefs will lose 10 games this year, or even enough to believe that if they do end up missing the playoffs we can confidently look back and say, If they’d only played those preseason games with more purpose…
McClain’s sense of urgency would be more interesting to watch, but Haley has his ideas and his convictions and last season earned him the trust to do it.
It’s just that Haley is pushing the Chiefs into a place that history suggests is better to avoid.
It’s getting real
How the Chiefs have done in the preseason hasn’t necessarily foreshadowed their performance in the regular season:
Year Pre. Reg.
2010 1-3 10-6*
2009 0-4 4-12
2008 2-2 2-14
2007 0-4 4-12
2006 2-2 9-7*
2005 0-4 10-6
2004 1-3 7-9
2003 3-2 13-3*
2002 3-1 8-8
2001 2-2 6-10