It all comes back around to, "What else were they supposed to do?"

If or when they extend Alex Smith, then depending on his play there will be ample time for hand-wringing.

Based on the options available this offseason (nil), giving him a 1 or 2 year trial is fine.

There isn't a Chiefs fan anywhere who would have cared if Pioli bit the heads off puppies if they won games on the field.

by 'win now' i mean win a playoff game within couple or so, under Reid's coaching, without having to blow the team up again within 5 years

I dont mean this one season

Sorry for miuscommunication

I don't if there's enough data available to state that the current board and Chairman share the same view as their father.

From my perspective, Clark has performed admirably in firing Peterson, firing Pioli and staff before his contract expired and in changing the organizational structure of the franchise.

He hired the best available head coach and a coveted front office man as GM. The coaching staff is certainly the best and most successful since the Vermeil era, if not the Schottenheimer era.

I'm not sure how much more change people expected in less than five months.
.

Spare us the self-righteous indignation.... you'd have sucked Pioli to the hilt if he had brought home the lombardi trophy... we all would have, no matter how he offended our bullshit midwestern aw-shucks morals.

The question is a bit longer, IMO: "What else were they supposed to do based on their level of expectations?"

Too many are leaving out the latter part because "it's unfair to place high expectations on this team."

If the organization expects to be in the playoffs in '13, then Smith might well have been the best option. If the organization is simply trying to break even, put asses in the seats, then the field becomes a bit larger and less costly. Given that we know the metric for success with the Smith trade is 8-8, I'm not so sure that Dorsey is predicting playoffs.

But he should be.

As Bowden recently said when discussing the Royals, and the same principle applies here, .500 is meaningless. You don't need to get to .500 to establish a "winning culture." You need ****ing talent. Talent wins.

And Smith is not a particularly talented QB, even though he now wears Chiefs colors.

We just put up with 20 years of Carl Peterson in exchange for 10 years of regular season-only success, after all.

I was absolutely in favor of all of the organizational changes that were made with management and coaching...until these same assholes made, essentially, the same move that all of the assholes before them have made.

Sorry, Smith is, statistically, a Cassel clone. This is a fact, not an opinion, and I want more. All of the fans, quite frankly, should demand more.

So, it's your opinion that Reid and Dorsey aren't interested in winning the Super Bowl?

True.

But there's a case to be made Pioli being a giant shitheel was a pretty major roadblock to winning...reportedly lots of qualified individuals in the league wouldn't even think about working with him.

I'd say SOC had plenty of moral ground to stand on.

Ultimately? Of course, at least I would assume.

But the team they've assembled for '13 has no chance. None, and this is largely because of the QB, because if you don't have a QB, you have no chance.

So the question becomes, how long will the '13 Chiefs resemble the future Chiefs? Some seem to be betting on the fact that the organization will continue to chase QBs. Others, not surprisingly, are offering, IMO, unrealistically favorable evaluations of Alex Smith, whom I believe is the very definition of mediocre.

C'mon Deez, a little objectivity would be nice here.

Smith was on the verge of taking the 2011 49'ers to a Super Bowl and was one of the elite QB's in the league statistically in 2012 until the concussion.

He's had two very good years where he's been at the top of NFL QB's in a number of categories.

Previous to that, he suffered through one of the worst coaching/offensive coordinator carousels that's been seen in the NFL in recent memory.

The guy has the size, athleticism and talent and has shown that when he's been coupled with a good head coach that he can lead a team to the post season.

I don't think being in the top three in the league in QB rating, completion percentage and YPA is anywhere close to "mediocre."

And I really don't know who the hell you thought was going to be quarterbacking this team that is/was going to be any better than Alex Smith. Were you hoping that Reid and Co. were going to keep Cassel as their starting QB? Did you expect them to sign broke dick Carson Palmer? What exactly did you want if you think that Alex Smith is "mediocre?" What type of QB expectations did you have for the new regime?

The problem is that his YPA is complete misinformation.

He's not a guy who throws the ball down the field.

He was near the bottom of the league in yards per completion.

It's real easy to prop up a mediocre QB with completion percentage and QB rating.

Meanwhile he's still only producing 190 yards a game (or less).

Alex Smith is fool's gold.

There was no better option available in the draft or free agency. They got the best guy they could, for essentially a second round pick.

I haven't sen one move for personnel that I though was a downgrade. If anything, I can't thing of a singular position that hasn't been upgraded, whether its players, coaching staff and front office personnel.

Again, I'm don't know how they could have done more to change this franchise than what has been done to date.

My expectation is that Smith is going to shoulder this team to the playoffs in '13. Anything other than this is a complete failure. No bullshit.

This is the standard that all fans should have.

But if this fails, I see no difference between 8-8, 6-10, or 2-14. They're all ****ing disgraceful failures. But I'm not quite so sure that management agrees that all three metrics are on the level.