ChiefsPlanet - JoPo: Carl has us all fooled

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Let’s face it — Chiefs aren’t that good

JOE POSNANSKI
The Kansas City Star

Picture, if you will, a football team. This is not any ordinary football team. This is a team that has made the playoffs one time in the last nine years. Once. In nine years. This obviously is not a particularly good football team.

In those nine years, this team has been led by four different head coaches (three defensive guys, one offensive guy), guided by four quarterbacks (all backups from other teams) and has finished, on average, 22nd in the league in total defense.

You have pictured a team in total disarray, yes? Let us divulge that team also has been miserable away from home — a 25-46 road record over those nine years. No toughness. This team has had just one of its drafted defensive players make the Pro Bowl over that nine-year drought (and that was a fluke, he was on the bench the very next year). This team has not been to a Super Bowl in Lance Armstrong’s lifetime.

This team embarrassed itself with a Monday night meltdown on national television. This team’s defensive slapstick inspired the commissioner to joke about them during his annual state of the NFL speech. This team had one coach quit suddenly and go into broadcasting, one coach resign to spend time with his grandkids and a third coach dismissed rather coldly and then brought back to be defensive coordinator.

Close your eyes. You are picturing one of the NFL dregs, right? The Detroit Lions? The Arizona Cardinals? The Houston Texans?

Of course, you know by now — you’ve known all along — that we are talking about the Kansas City Chiefs. And yet, somehow the Chiefs have avoided being considered one of those NFL dregs. Every home game sells out. People all over town wear red to work every Friday. Every July, no matter how many years since the team has tasted playoff success, Chiefs fans hope again.

How is this possible? You have entered the Chiefs zone.

•••

It’s strange. We all lived through every one of those Chiefs failures the last nine years. I was there for every one of them. And yet, until they were all piled up one after another like dominoes, I did not quite realize exactly how bad it has been. One playoff in nine years? Four coaches? Four backup quarterbacks? That bad a road record?

If the idea of the NFL is to make the playoffs — and I suspect most of us would say that’s the idea — the Chiefs are right there with the Lions, Cardinals and Browns.

But it doesn’t feel that way, does it? I suspect this has a lot to do with Chiefs president/CEO/general manager Carl Peterson. I know many people believe that he is somehow content with losing (as long as the stadium is filled), but I have never bought that. I think he wants very much to win. He has done everything he knows to win.

The truth of course is that under Peterson, the Chiefs haven’t won. In the early years, they couldn’t quite win playoff games. And over the last nine years, they haven’t even won enough to make the playoffs. Why not? I think the answer is more complicated than “he isn’t trying” or “he doesn’t care.” My quick explanation is that the hardest thing to do in football is a build a team with the right balance between offense and defense, and Peterson has never found that balance. Good teams can beat you more than one way. The Chiefs, under Peterson, have not had that variety.

But what Peterson has done — I think better than anyone in sports — is convince everyone that his mediocre teams are actually good and promising. How? He has kept the Chiefs from having one of those comical 3-13 seasons. He has always found players with star quality — Derrick Thomas to Joe Montana to Marcus Allen to Tony Gonzalez to Priest Holmes to Larry Johnson. And the Chiefs have just missed the playoffs enough times to keep everybody coming back for more.

I’ll bet if you asked big NFL fans to name the four teams that have made the playoffs just once since 1998, everybody would get Detroit. Most would pick Arizona. Most would pick Cincinnati (though the Bengals look on pace to make the playoffs this year and get out of this league of losers).

And I suspect very few would name Kansas City. They seem better than that.

This year’s team is a perfect example. These Chiefs were once 7-4 and two touchdowns ahead of Cleveland. They looked to be a playoff team for sure. They looked to be a team on the rise. Everybody in town was excited. Truth was, they were playing over their heads. They have lost three straight, and really they were not too competitive the last two.

Monday, someone asked me this simple question: If you had a choice to build for the future, would you take this year’s Chiefs team or the 4-11-1 team from 1988 that Marty Schottenheimer inherited?

The obvious answer is that you would take this year’s team. That was my thought.

But look again: That 1988 team had three defensive Pro Bowlers — Dino Hackett, Albert Lewis and Deron Cherry. Defensive end Neil Smith was about to emerge, cornerback Kevin Ross had Pro Bowl years ahead, and the Chiefs had a high draft pick (which Peterson used to take Derrick Thomas). That team also had a powerful running back (Christian Okoye), a solid offensive line, two productive wide receivers and a veteran quarterback (Steve DeBerg). There were some pieces there. And the Chiefs won.

Now, look at this year’s team. They will likely have no defensive Pro Bowlers this season. It’s way too early to predict that any of the young defenders will emerge the way Smith, Ross and others did. The Chiefs will have a mediocre draft pick, so they probably will not get a franchise player like Thomas. They do have the great running back, but the offensive line — especially at tackle — struggles. Hall of Famer Will Shields may retire. Trent Green doesn’t look the same after his injury, and he will be 37 before next season. The Chiefs do have the fabulous Tony Gonzalez, assuming they re-sign him. Otherwise, their receiving corps is shaky and aging fast.

The point is, this Chiefs team really isn’t very good. But, like always, they had people around town (at least for a while) believing they were good. Heck, I believed it, too. This is what the Chiefs do well. They get everyone to believe. Trouble is, they’re going to miss the playoffs again. And they do that well too. Too well.