I've never seen a defensive coordinator given so much as Carl has given Gunther...
 

It's as if he's trying to apologize for firing him.

He rehires him and makes him one of the highest paid DC's in football and Gun tells him he will turn around that defense and win a Superbowl with that offense because to not do so would be a crime.

That failed, so Gun blames the players, and Carl goes out and gets Gun every single player on his list. Gun is happy and says that he finally has the pieces to make the fans of Kansas City proud.

That failed, so Gun blames the players AND the coaches AND the head coach, so Carl goes out and gets Gun a defensive minded head coach, who is going to cater the offense to help Gun's defense, spends his first two draft picks on players Gun drooled over, got Gun a whole new defensive coaching staff, and topped it off by signing one of the best corners in football.

I would say Gun has run out of excuses but I said that going into last year. I guess he's just run out of places to point the finger at. If gun doesn't get it done this year I want his a$$ canned so fast that he won't even have time to log onto his PC at 3:12 AM to read the latest on Chiefs Planet...

Gun's got:

Bell
Surtain
Knight
Hall
Hali
DJ
LAW

no ****ing excuses

yea but sadly he was also given when he took over the job.....

Sims
Siavii
Warfield
McCleon
Battle
etc....

Warfield - gone
McCleaon - gone
Siavii - soon to be gone
Battle - replaced by Surtain/Law
etc...

no ****ing excuses

agreed

Though I feel he has run out of excuses, I also feel his excuses to this point are justified.

Pretty much, I mean come on, we had Guinta teaching our secondary to suck. I'm damn glad that fool is gone. It isn't like Gun took over a middle of the road D, he took over the worst D in the entire league.

When you have Bartee and McCleon, under a Guinta, battling for starting position, well, you are gonna suck. 'Cause you can't even get a blitz to the QB, because as soon as he saw anyone coming he would just lay the ball up to that side of the field for an easy 20 yard catch.

Of course having Hicks on the bench would be a giant leap forward.

Just my opinion but, I think Gun was a little naive about the situation in which he was walking into. Most of his excuses have been legitimate, IMO. There shouldn't be much of an excuse anymore, though. Besides the DTs and FS positions.

My .02

Gun took over a defense that was starting to gain mention among the worst in NFL history. I don't think it's unreasonable that the overhaul was such a big project.

Besides, you guys act like our defense was a monumental failure last year. We made big strides in nearly every defensive statistical category. If we continue to improve at the rate we did the last two years, we'll be a top 10 defense in '06.

I really don't think that Herm being hired had one ounce of shit to do with Gunther Cunningham.

(6)

Gun is out of excuses.

He chose to return here.

If he was naive to the situation, that's his fault for not doing the research.

If it was the coaches, that's his fault for not insisting on his own coaches.

There's just NO WAY one can slice this where Gunther is absolved of blame.

Come on. When he had the same players as GR did (Gun's first year), the D was worse than GR's 2003 D.

Here's the only legitimate argument one can make if you ask me:

Either both Gun and GR get a free-ride because Carl assembled one of the most talent-less squads ever or they're both terrible D coordinators.

So...either Gun is a moron, or Carl is a moron.

He took a terrible defense and made them respectable in only two years. I'll reserve further judgement until after this year.

If he makes us a top 10-12 defense in only 3 years, I think that's doing a solid job as a coordinator.

We sucked agaisnt the pass last year for lack of Pass Rush. But we stuffed the run pretty good all year except 1 game.

It doesn'thelp the D when the offense either goes 3 & Out several tiems a game or they score in 3 plays and the D is right back on the field. Although the latter will always be acceptable.

Don't you think Gun did a little of feeding the masses what they wanted to hear after the first year? I mean, most everone on the Planet said the players sucked so bad, so Gunther said the players sucked so bad.

The year before that, the fans said, the coach sucked so bad. I am afraid to admit it, but Dammit Carl is just giving into the fans demands at all points, within budgetary constraints of course.

He also brought in a new scheme with players that were far below average. THey couldnt adapt to what he was doing, SO he is getting players that he thinks get his style of defense. Chiefs D went from read and react, to half read and react and half attack. It was obvious that Gun couldnt do what he wanted with his cornerbacks. SUrtain and Warfield playing 10 yards off the wide outs becuase he knew that he had no push up front and that the ONLY one that coudl get to the quarterback was Allen. Gun had to somewhat adjust his style of Defense becuase he did not have the kind of players up front to attack.

There is no excuses this year for them this year. ON paper i think they should be a top 15 D. I am one of the few that like our starting safeties. My only problem is our interior line. That worries me somewhat.

Nothing like shelling out $60M+ on cornerbacks just because that's what it takes to run the "scheme".

:rolleyes:

I think he's appologizing to not just Gunther , but also the FANs for ruining our beautifull D of the 80's . Dont forget that Gunther was the Coordinator of several of those Defenses and some pretty darn good ones in San Diego, Oakland, and Tennessee.
Of course we are stocking up on D because our offense is #1. Our D is 31st. Where would you spend your money and your picks?

Oops I meant 90's....

Thats what makes this so funny. All the fans thought Robinson sucked, so we replaced him. All the fans thought we didn't have the talent, so we got some FAs. All the fans thought coaches like Guinta sucked, so we replaced them.

They are doing exactly what everyone thought they needed to do, yet somehow it's become "making excuses". It's possible that the front office and Gun don't know how to fix the D. It's also possible that everything they've tried so far really did need to be done, and it wasn't a matter of just one thing.

After this year, I'd say the criticism will be deserved. But I just don't see how anyone had such high expectations for this defense in only two years.

That's what was said LAST year.

Look, those of you giving Gun a free-ride his first year are neglection one important point: Gun was brought here not to work miracles...(bring us from last to a top 10 or something like that), but simply make the D respectable. We set multiple ALL-TIME NFL records on offense in 2004. All for not....because Gun's D was so damn putrid.

From day one, Gun knew his job...and instead of a slight improvement from 2003, we went down the toilet even further...

That is complete FAILURE.

And then we went out and spend money, and had some good contribution from draft picks..and it was still awful last year.... So many games where the D didn't get torched have asterisks... SD (field unplayable), NE (decimated with injuries), Cinci (nothing to play for)[and all those in my opinion are BIG asterisks]

Other teams we stopped last year were the awful, unprepared NY Jets to open the season, Miami (not a very good offense at the time, but I will give the D a little credit. They were in impressive.), Houston (joke of an offense)

When we played a good offensive team last year, with no asterisks, they torched us.

Now replacing Warfield with Law should be a big improvement. Throwing at Warfield was an automatic first down.

that's how I feel about Gun...especially your first point

Never said that. Never meant to insinuate that, either.

Don't put me in that camp.

I have been screaming about talent since 1999. If we had given Robinson the tools to work with (Surtain, Bell, DJ, etc.) that Gunther had been given, I'd bet alot of money that we'd be better. Robinson won 2 Super Bowls with the kind of talent we have now.

This is the first late addition FA that I can remember that had possible cap implications down the road. King Carl usually doesn't like being in cap hell in the future because of trying to make a push this year.

Kudos to King Carl! and Gun had better show some results of this upgrade in talent or maybe it wasn't a GR issue?

Yep. Carl and Gun's egos caused them to believe Robinson's schemes were the problem, and that a little pinch of Gun's magic smelling salts would make everything all better.

I thought that from the top down all the D coaches pretty much sucked, and figured that when they got rid of Robinson that we would also get rid of them. In their tenure the only player that I can remember improving was Mitchell, which was the one player that Gun took under his wing. Everyone else stayed the same, some even taking steps backwards.

The position coaches may well have sucked, they were hand-picked by DV.

All I know is that Robinson has won Rose Bowl's and NC's as a college coach and Super Bowls in the NFL. The ONLY place he's failed was in Kansas City.

Well he did get Fired in Denver...

Every year a few teams will change their head coach or D-coordinator and make HUGE jumps defensively. But last year we didn't so maybe it was DV's fault.

The Bears went from 21th D in 04 to 2 in 05.

The Chiefs went from 31 to 25th. That to me is not impressive.

Gun is out of excuses if our D fails this year and should be shitcanned over the Intraweb.......again.

Of course what can I say, I wasn't in favor of bringing Gun back.

The only thing that saves Gun if this year goes bust is if the D gets riddled with injuries.

Without running all the numbers on the Bears, but the schedule and division they play had a little to do with their defensive success.

KC was the only place he's failed.

It wasn't the only place where he was thrown under the bus.

Gun has alot of tools to work with...1-2 years is all he gets or out.

Gun had and still has 0 DT's that are worth anything. Dalton is a role player at best but not the presence we need in the middle.

Show me a great defense and I will show you 2 good DT's

Of course the NFC is alot weaker than the AFC.

Colts 04 28
05 11

Of course they had a fairly easy schedule or at least they made the games look easy

The 1986 Giants.

Siavii Gun drafted him. Waste

Battle not bad

I agree with you in regards to the coaches but don't forget Loyal DickieV Look how hard it was to get rid of GRob and If I rem Guinta is a coach he DickieV wanted to keep.

We've been through this before.

Yes, Dick was loyal and forced his coaches on Gunther.

However, a MAN, with dignity, backbone, and intestinal fortitude, would have told Carl Peterson and Dick Vermeil "Give me my coaches, or find another scapegoat for your shitty defense."

Unfortunately, Gunther is as spineless as he is egotistical.

Good point. but even if Gun did do that he still would not have gotten his coaches but he would have stayed. So if that actually did happen (or he knew this was DVs final year and he decided to stick it out knowing this) and since he stayed then he might be spineless

It's definitely time to get it done. There are a lot of teams who have turned around bad defenses doing less than we have. I think we have the talent to be a top 10 defense. That might sound rough because of how bad we've been, but the talent is there. If the Broncos can be a top 5 defense every year, the talent we have can be a top 10.

There have been a lot of excuses, for three years now, I don't want to see a fourth. I think the coach stuff this year was garbage.

Like how people bag on Peter Giunta a lot, and maybe him and Gun didn't mesh, but Giunta was actually a very successful secondary coach everywhere he's been. Vermeil wasn't kidding when he said that. Then he came here and was forced to work with our prized collection of safety projects. All of a sudden he doesn't look so good. Funny how that works. Even then he turned Warfield into something, had McCleon actually playing pretty well, and Woods had a Pro Bowl year when he probably was on the way downhill. Giunta was not a good D-coordinator, but his secondaries for the Rams were always good.... and he was was secondary coach for the Eagles when they were great. Eric Allen, Wes Hopkins, etc... that was one of the best secondaries of the 90's. It was probably time for him to move on though, but Gun is very lucky. Most coordinators who fail get fired, not have the entire rest of the organization turned over to fit their needs.

Has Battle ever played? If so, I've never seen him on the field.

He also had John "the duck" Elway to bail his ass out.

Yes He played in 03 and 04

Actually Denver did toss him under a bus as well when their D started not living up to the hype of the SB years...

That's what I was saying.

Well then.

Considering this defense has never been the same since DT died, I say it's about damn time.