Carl the reason our d sucked last year
 

By not signing ja he basicly killed our d. Ja was our main guy who distracted the other team offense. By not having him he slowed down the learning of the d for glen dorsey he could of been studying historical study of the american old west but instead he learning to tie his shoes and not eat paste. That why we need julius pepper to help glen take the next step. I know you all want gunther gone but him and krumie got shafted last year by carl.

This defense hasn't been any good for the last 10 years.

Jeez, not again. Gunther just hasn't gotten his players right? That's the reason he's a failure. Just give him a little more time and he'll be good right?

yeah...that's it. a little more time, yeah. i think he's proved he dealt with a once in a career group of players in the 90's. of which, he probably had less say in who was there than what he's letting on. as much as i like goonther, it's time for him and the chiefs to part ways

Carl Peterson deserves most of the blame for personnel problems. The reasons I can't excuse Gunther Cunningham is that he was given a blank check four years ago to load up on free agents, and he failed miserably. He brought in failures like Sammy Knight, Kendrell Bell, Carlos Hall, and Patrick Surtain--arguably, this spending spree was a large reason why the Chiefs struggled to rebuild.

Apart from that, you again have to understand what his direct accountabilities were. His job was to build the X's and O's, and to coach players on fundamentals. Carl Peterson may have brought in the wrong players, so I can understand if our players were too slow to make tackles. But it doesn't excuse players constantly missing tackles and it doesn't excuse Gunther calling lousy plays in the wrong situations.

It's a new day
and a new way
get over it

that bitch was blowing guys
and greating you with a kiss
dwell on that and you die each day

I like Gunther too, Nut. But I don't like him enough to keep my team from winning the Super Bowl. Good luck in Detroit, sincerely. But it's time to move on. You may love the next guy even more. OK, that sounded creepy.

****her sucks ass.
He has never accomplished a damn thing on his own.

Everyone from Carl, to herman ****ing Edwards, to ****her, to Tim Krumrie are all responsible for the ass sucking defense.

In football, just as in business or in any aspect of life, sustained success relies on building a sound foundation from the outset. Building a team on solid ground (in cement, not sand) allows for future success. Pursuing shortcuts to quick successess may be tempting, but most of us recongize that those methods produce short-lived successes the can jeopardize the future of a team (Sounds fimilar? If you are thinking that's Carl, you are correct.)

One should build a solid foundation through strict adherence to a well-thought-out set of principles that represent a value system that is strongly believed in.

Nah... It wasn't just the JA trade, and this "saddled with the wrong players" excuse is tired.

Gunther went from average, to way below average, because we have a head coach that forced him to use the Tampa 2.

The Tampa 2 is not Gun's cup of tea, nor did it fit with our personnel. It's also outdated.

But Gun's average at best, even without a forced upon him sh*tbag scheme. So he has to go.

Gun only looked great when he was surrounded with very very high talent.

We need a D-coord. who can put a decent defense on the field with only 75 - 80% of the puzzle put together.

With Gun, we'd have to wait till nearly every single positon was upgraded with a very high caliber player, just to have an effective defense. And with the state of our D right now, that could be a very long wait. No Thanks.

First off, JA wanted out of KC. Don't know whether it was because he didn' t like KC, or Peterson, or Gunther, or Herm. I just know he wasn't content here, and that is the biggest reason he was risky to keep on (besides his DUIs).

I thought Gunther was one heck of a DC back in the 90's. But, we also had a bevy of HOF defensemen I don't need to remind you. Now, whether those defenses' successes were attributable to Gunther, the players, or a synergy of both, there's no way to tell. Sure, we could have used another premier pass rusher on the end. So could a lot of teams who did better than us. But, we could have easily won half our games this year had the defense been a little more effective than a wet paper bag. I don't blame the players for that. The responsibility lies with the coaching. Gunther was VERY conservative calling the blitz. I don't know why. Unless he was terrified of getting the D burned by screens. I don't know.

Let's discuss this.

I have to split the blame where it deserves. Carl has had a decade to bring in a defensive tackle and has failed miserably at it. How much of that is coaching though. I know Herm likes the cover 2 but if he's going to run that Herm is not the guy to do it. I hate the cover 2 and blame Herm for that. The only place where that defense has really succeeded was in Tampa and during the Colt's super bowl run.

Pittsburgh Baltimore NY Giants and Philly didnt have JA either and they did alright

You know, I'd almost buy that if anyone can name from memory all the starting D-linemen, all the linebackers, all the corners, and all the safeties on the 1998 Kansas City Chiefs team. I can't. Here's my go at it, and even this might be wrong:

D-line: Neil Smith, Dan Saleamua
Line Backers: Derrek Thomas, Donnie Edwards
Corners: James Hasty, Dale Carter
Safeties: ?

You see? Either there just weren't that many standouts, or my 46yr-old memory is faded.

its the coaches job to make the players better and get the most out of them which is why we should have kept JA. He's the only defensive player we've drafted in a while that developed, because he was that good. Brandon Flowers and probably Carr look to be the same way so we better ****ing hold on to them

A hell of a lot of it was the JA trade. We were 5th in passing yards allowed in 07 and 28th in 08 without JA. The pass rush is the most important element of the Tampa 2 and we saw what happens when its not there. That being said, I agree that the defensive staff is a piece of shit and needs to go.

Those teams already have pretty good pass rushes. What's your point?

He was conservative in calling the blitz because :

*Our front 4 could get zero push, leaving little to no lanes for the linebackers to stunt through.

*Our linebackers were so poor that if one crashed at the snap, it was doubtful the other two could make a play on a screen or handoff.

*The coverage abilities of our safeties were poor, so taking people out of coverage was riskier than normal.

*Our LB's are slow, so if the opposing QB was even the slightest bit elusive, there's a good chance they'd never get to him or miss if they did.

*But #1, the Tampa 2 requires a strong push from the front 4, as everyone else really needs to be in coverage. Our version of the Tampa 2 was really just an agressive prevent defense.

My Solution : Fire Herm & Gunther and let Pioli bring in some defensive help.

Thanks, Chiefsngop. That explains a lot. I really didn't know how the Cover 2 scheme was supposed to work when doing it right.

Hermie said the fans were the reason why the defense sucked.

that they didn't have Jared Allen

You give me 2 dominant pass rushers and 2 lock down corners and you can play defense regardless of who the other guys are, all they have to be is role players.

And I'm really tired of the Gunther defenses it's Herms fault its Petersons fault, it's his fault for sucking balls. If you need elite players to run your defense properly your defensive scheming sucks.

WTF, he had pro bowl talent at every aspect of the defense, DL, LBs and secondary.

Gunther had a lot of high calibur talent at his disposal, but not at EVERY position, nor at EVERY tier of the defense. And besides, as Mecca pointed out, without an effective scheme, having the best of the best wouldn't have mattered. I suspect Gunther used the D's strengths to mask, or make up for its weaknesses. It's just impossible to have a Pro Bowler at every position.

Anyway, I'm not arguing one way or the other. I'm asking questions and inviting responses from everyone's perspective, so that I can have a better understanding. There is such a wide range of opinion on what we need to fix the D. But, one thing we can all agree on; the D NEEDS FIXING!

Die Clown!

This looks like every tier of the defense to me, and it's a lot more than most coaches get to work with.

Neil Smith - Pro Bowler
Derrick Thomas - Pro Bowler
James Hasty - Pro Bowler
Dale Carter - Pro Bowler

I don't know why people insist up and down that this defense failed because of the Cover 2. That's part of it. The Chiefs don't run a pure Cover 2. They integrate a lot of blitz packages and blitz a lot more than people suggest. The problem is that our guys are so poorly disciplined in disguising the blitz and because Gun has an extremely low imagination for innovative blitz schemes.

Gun is not running a defense outside of his wheelhouse. The defense still runs a Gun-style defense quite a bit, and that has not worked either.

To the first point, I don't think there's any dispute that pushing Jared Allen out was almost 100% Peterson's doing. Think about the douchebaggery that was pulled during the negotiation. Allen's agent claimed that Peterson's offer was less than half of what he wanted, which is typical Peterson's lowball tactics. After that, Peterson stooped by publicly labelling Allen as an "at risk" player during a public press conference. Most of all, I never heard even a whisper that Allen was unhappy in KC--his teammates loved him, he seemed to love the city, he even opened up a restaurant there. Allen has said many times that he loved playing for Kansas City, but the negotiation left a very sour taste in his mouth. The fact is, if Peterson offered Allen a competitive contract, he would have stayed. Therefore, it is Peterson's fault that he was pushed out.

To your second point, I don't agree that Gunther was conservative with his blitzing. They blitzed a lot, especially when they weren't getting pressure from the front 4. The problem is that Gun is not nearly as innovative with his blitz packages as he gets credit for. I think most of his defensive success in the 90's was due to Marty moreso than the players. Marty is such a strict stickler to fundamentals that he is known to get more out of his players than anybody. It is amazing to me that a student of the Marty way is so incapable of teaching his players the same kinds of fundamentals. The blitz packages were weakly designed. Our players were so predictable in the way they crashed in on blitzes. It was a combination of piss poor discipline and unimaginative scheming.

I just wouldn't know Chiefzilla. IN the 90's Gun was the Mastermind. And we all celebrated when Robinson was canned and Gun agreed to return to KC from Tenessee. Now, well, he's gotta go. I'd just like to know what happened between then and now. Is he sabotaging the D in a perverse way of getting back at Peterson for his dismissal as HC? Well, now that Peterson's gone will Gun straighten up and fly right by this team? Or, should he be shown the door.....again.

I don't care what he did in the 90s what he's done here in his 2nd stint earned him his firing.

Here's how I would put it...

Marty Schottenheimer has brought terrific defenses to three different teams and has done so with and without Gun. Gun has not fielded a top defense without Marty.

Marty Schottenheimer is one of the biggest sticklers of fundamentals in the game. Gun, for some reason, did not get that from Marty. How many big plays were given up because of poor tackling fundamentals. And how different would some of our blitzes have been if they were actually timed correctly. Finally, while Marty had an amazing eye for talent, Gunther has continued to make questionable after quesetionable talent about talent, as evidenced by his "wish list" that consisted of Kendrell Bell, Knight, Carlos Hall, and Surtain.

Gun could do okay with a very hands-on defensive head coach who can drill fundamentals into players. But he's not good enough to do it on his own. He's more of a lackey coordinator than a difference making one.

FTR, I wasn't happy that ****her was brought back, though I did believe that he would be better than Spinner.

I didn't, however, expect him to be this bad.

I don't see a difference at all between Grob's KC D, and Gun's KC D. None.

And, BTW, didn't Gun build a pretty good D in Tennessee?

What did he build he was a position coach.

My single biggest gripe on D this year, was the stubborn insistence on starting Dorsey & Tank together time & again...they were clearly overmatched as a starting duo. That kind of willful, prideful stubbornness just screams Herm Edwards.

I HATE that traditional Tampa 2 lightweight DT school of thought, even good versions of it consistently get their ass handed to'em by good running games.

The only times i thought we looked strong against the run was when Edwards was in there, he could atleast hold his own at the point of attack. I also though Boone was misused & underutilized...08's Mr. Invisible, he can do some some good things as a 3rd & long type DT IMO.

No. Why would you think that?

I was leaning towards the notion Gunther must go, but couldn't be sure he was the reason behind the D's poor play. Reminding me of Gun's wish list seals the deal. It's time for a regime change. The EVIDENCE is unequivocal.

Because the Titans went to the SB while Gun was there. If he's such a terrible fundamentals guy, and can't coach, and "defenses win championships" then what business did Tennessee have in the SB? But, now that Chiefzilla has refreshed my memory, it probably is better that Gun be replaced.

I like Gunther but I agree, it's time for him to go. But all this talk about poor tackling fundamentals? Really? I would hope that by the time a player signs a huge NFL contract they know how to tackle.

Well, they didn't WIN the championship and he was only a linebacker coach.

Or look at it this way... By not signing JA, we would have really never known how truly shitty most of that Dline was..

Signing JA would have meant keeping some of those shitty players longer and keeping CP as a GM longer..


Gunther and Krumie did not get shafted by anyone but themselves.. If our OC can learn to put a playbook together that worked for Thigpin, then our DC should have been trying to see what would have worked better for our defensive players besides the tampa 2..

Gunther did jack shit but stand around and watch the suckfest.. If he was forced not to change then he should have just left..

No, he did jackshit there.. He was not the DC, he had no real responsibilities on calls..

Everybody always wants to remember the good ole days as something better then what they were..

No, they didn't. The Titans went to the Super Bowl the first year Gun was our HC.

too shabby.

I predict our defense will be better next year with Carl, Herm, Gun, and Krumrie all gone.