Aghast Over Pendergast?
 

http://kan.scout.com/2/848248.html

Maybe we don’t want to question Scott Pioli, Todd Haley and the new Kansas City Chiefs. It feels wrong. We’re not used to dealing with such highly successful football minds (we’re used to highly mediocre football minds). Our first instinct is to accept what we’re served on good faith.

But, as our buddy Jason Whitlock pointed out 11 days ago, maybe it’s irresponsible to allow the new Arrowhead regime to exist without question. Maybe we’re just asking for a repeat of history.

That’s how I felt when the Chiefs announced Clancy Pendergast as their new defensive coordinator last week. We’ve seen this movie before, although admittedly it has a slightly different setup.

Eight years ago Dick Vermeil tabbed Greg Robinson to be his defensive coordinator. I won’t pretend to remember the general reaction at the time, although if memory serves, Robinson was lavished upon in the media to some extent for his energetic coaching style during practice.

Eventually, no one cared about the calories Robinson burned during an average practice session. Instead, there was extreme outrage over Kansas City’s terrible defense, and a bitter backflash following the infamous no-punt playoff perdition. Eventually Robinson tearfully resigned, you already know this story, roll credits.

Why didn’t Vermeil see Robinson’s utter failure coming? What clouded his vision, that previously appeared so crystal clear in St. Louis and Philadelphia? We’ll never know, but a strong case can be made that the wrong choice at defensive coordinator prevented the Chiefs from winning a championship.

So the question is, what do Greg Robinson and Clancy Pendergast have in common? Besides a history of bad defense, they also have history with great offense.

You’re likely already aware that Robinson won two Super Bowls with Mike Shanahan in the late ‘90s, and admittedly Denver’s defense at the time contributed heavily to those championships. But you know what? When John Elway, Terrell Davis and Shannon Sharpe are rolling up 30 points almost every week on the other side of the ball, sometimes defense gets a little too simple.

Denver’s prolific offense routinely jumped out to big leads and made opposing offenses one-dimensional, allowing Robinson to send Alfred Williams, Neil Smith and Trevor Pryce screaming after the opposing quarterback with their ears pinned back. It wasn’t difficult for Steve Atwater, Darrien Gordon and Ray Crockett, the veterans in Denver’s secondary at the time, to capitalize on that pressure.

Sometimes winning makes a great deodorant, however. In this case, Denver’s Super Bowl trophies covered up the subtle, yet ominous stench emanating from Robinson’s defense.

The 1997 Broncos boasted the league’s fifth-ranked defense, and yet somehow got away with allowing a whopping 4.7 yards per carry (30th in the league) and 4.9 yards per play (17th). The 1998 Broncos boasted the league’s eighth-ranked defense, and yet somehow got away with allowing 4.9 yards per play (19th).

When Elway retired and Denver’s prolific offense began to deteriorate ever-so-slightly, the right guard sport stick evaporated and Robinson’s defense, even with many of the same players from the Super Bowl teams, began to stink a Mile High.

It probably wasn’t a coincidence that the 2000 Baltimore Ravens, not known for their offense, scored three touchdowns in a wild-card playoff game against Robinson’s defense. Baltimore would not score three offensive touchdowns in one game again until Week 4 of the following season. Not surprisingly, Shanahan fired Robinson after the 2000 season.

Now, maybe Robinson wasn’t completely to blame. Certainly his players aged, and he wouldn’t be the last scapegoat Shanahan ever found in Denver. But there’s no denying the fact that Robinson was fitted for two Super Bowl rings in large part because he hitched a ride on the John Elway train. He was completely exposed in the following years and has not returned to the NFL.

Now that we’ve vaporized Robinson’s skeleton once and for all, we have to wonder – is Pendergast similar, at all? Can we draw any parallels?

The obvious comparison is that Pendergast, like Robinson, has coordinated defenses while enjoying the luxury of a Super-Bowl caliber offense, quarterbacked by a Hall of Famer (or a potential one, anyway). The obvious difference is that Pendergast doesn’t have any Super Bowl rings to show for it.

For five seasons in Arizona, all the Cardinals did was get worse, defensively. They allowed more points from one season to the next from 2004 to 2008, and mostly did nothing but lose football games until Ken Whisenhunt came along and knocked the rust off Warner’s right arm.

Take a look at the 2007 and 2008 Cardinals. How can you not be reminded of the 2002 and 2003 Chiefs? Simply put, we’re looking at back-to-back years of prolific scoring offense, held back by terrible, awful, downright putrid defense. No wonder Pendergast was fired, despite the fact his defense made a major contribution in the playoffs.

But surely we can’t forget so soon that Robinson’s defense made a major contribution to the 2003 Chiefs. During KC’s 9-0 start that season, at times the defense was downright dominant. You remember it. We were all in shock when Ryan Sims, Dexter McCleon, Eric Hicks, and the rest of the misfits were pounding Drew Bledsoe into the turf, intercepting Brett Favre, and making game-changing plays week after week.

It didn’t save Robinson's job, and perhaps validated a widely-held opinion that he should have been fired a year earlier. Maybe Whisenhunt did himself a favor by ridding himself of his own Robinson before a third season with his new franchise got underway.

But that’s awfully harsh. The 2009 Chiefs have yet to blow a third-and-long play. Maybe all this worry is for nothing. Pendergast might not even have been Kansas City’s first choice for defensive coordinator, because we know there were discussions with Romeo Crennel. Todd Haley’s late hiring may have made it difficult to secure the best and most qualified candidate to be KC’s new defensive coordinator.

But we can’t sit here and act like there’s no reason to feel a little scared about the direction of KC’s defense at the moment. There is good reason to be concerned about the new defensive braintrust. The Chiefs fielded a dreadful defense a year ago, haven’t been much better since Marty Schottenheimer resigned, and have essentially been a bad defensive football team for a decade now.

A major overhaul, the one that Gunther Cunningham and Herm Edwards failed to provide, is badly needed. The Chiefs now have an offensive-minded head coach, so the foundation for the new defense, the plan that will be followed, the orders that will be given, logically must begin and end with Pendergast, correct?

If you feel totally at ease with that scenario, ask yourself one question: While Scott Pioli and Todd Haley do sport championship rings, are they gleaming any brighter than the one Dick Vermeil was wearing when he phoned up Greg Robinson?

you see, people are looking at this all wrong. if our defense gives up points really fast that just means more time for our awesome offense to be on the field.

I don't think anybody's been particularly ecstatic over the Pendergastly hire.

That's a pathetic excuse for an article, even though the questions raised are legitimate.

Simply another media outlet throwing poop against the wall in case it sticks. If something goes wrong they can look back and saw "See,See ... we called it. Aren't we smart!". It cost them nothing to write it now.

Weak

The article contains no predictions.

Weak post.

One thing that stood out to me during the playoffs was the DEfense of the Cardinals. Each week, everyone was writing them off and each week their defense played great! Their regular season stats looked like a different team. Don't know what to make of that other than they somehow stepped up BIG TIME when they needed to.

They gave up a gob of yards to the Eagles and blew the Super Bowl.

I'd say they had two good playoff games, one poor one and choked in the biggest game of them all.

And of course their offense scored 30 points in EVERY playoff game.

Even weaker still since they allude to a possible mistake in hiring Pendergast but don't come right out and say it. They will still come back to it in the future if it suits their purpose. It's a big time "cover you ass" article.

It's just like some guy on ESPN is gonna predict an upset in virtually every game. If they are wrong, nobody remembers or cares. But if the upset happens then they can tap dance around and talk about how smart they are.

You're really reaching here. LMAO

An article about Pendergast wherein 80% of the article is about Robinson.

I don't know what you think i'm reaching for. It's typical reporting, but that still doesn't mean it's not weak reporting.

A flawed premise.

I don't write to come back later and say SEE I WAS RIGHT!

It serves zero purpose.

With the lack of information coming out of Arrowhead, I wonder how WPI will justify the $110 annual fee? That site is as worthless as ever!

THE DEAL IS DONE!

We have had, and continue to have, other sources. In fact the Chiefs have never been our primary source of information.

Ahh, i see. I wasn't aware that you wrote it. Sorry about that.

All is forgiven.

Jack Harry doesn't count.

Jack Harry uses US as a source.

That explains a lot.

THE DEAL IS DONE!

Starting to make sense.

The bartender at Tanner's and Nick's grandma don't count as "sources".

I don't know man...that bartender knows his shit!

Did you get that job?

They'll let me know next week. I tied the CEO's record on the entrance test so I guess that was a good sign.

There is no way I can allow myself to believe Pendergast equals Robinson.

Holy Shit, are you kidding me? No wonder everyone hates WPI. And people actually pay that? whoa, Jesus.

I thought it was a pretty good story. It compares the past to the present. Knowing history helps us to not repeat the mistakes of the past.

I'm not a fan of Clancy Pendergast as the DC and I think this might be a 1 year plan until a better DC becomes available.

I could not find a recent thread that talked about switching to the 3-4. Since this thread is about the KC DC/defense, I'll post this story here...

Does Change Help?
by Bill Barnwell

When NFL teams switch defenses, it's almost always because what was being used previously simply wasn't working. Since 1995, there have been 30 instances of a team switching from the 3-4, 4-3, or the Tampa-2 to one of the other schemes. In the year before the switch, those teams averaged 365.7 points against them, worse than the league average of 330.1. Before making the plunge, only 10 of the 30 teams had a defensive DVOA below zero (since DVOA measures performance against the league average, having a total below the league average on defense is actually a positive accomplishment).

In the year after the switch, those teams allowed 330.1 points -- a 10% improvement. Their average defensive DVOA went from 1.2% to -0.3%, an improvement of 1.5%. They won, on average, one more game than the year before. So if your defense can't stop anyone, just switch schemes and reap the benefits, right?

Not so fast.

Bad defenses actually tend to improve from one year to the next, regardless of a scheme change -- the organization acquires better defensive players, weak starters get replaced by new talent, the ball bounces the right way a few more times, and sooner than you can say "2007 and 2008 Tennessee Titans", you've built an elite defense. Teams that gave up between 360 and 370 points in a given season over the same timeframe and didn't respond by changing their scheme averaged 335.0 points allowed in the subsequent season. To put it in scientific terms, our variable (teams changing defensive schemes) experienced virtually the same effect as our control group (teams of similar performance that didn't change schemes).

To measure whether a team performed better than expected by switching schemes, then, we need to compare their results to teams that didn't make a switch. So, we took each of the 30 teams that changed alignments and measured the difference between their defensive DVOA before and after the switch. (As mentioned above, their DVOA improved by an average of 1.5%.) We then compared those squads to our control group -- teams that had a defensive DVOA within 1.5% of the switch-makers, but who decided to stick with what they were already running. We ended up with 28 comparable teams and found that those squads that didn't change their playbooks, on average, saw their DVOA rise or fall almost exactly the same as those that did. Seventeen of the teams that changed defensive looks outperformed comparable teams that stayed the same, but the average team that made a move only performed 0.1% better in DVOA than their its counterparts.

In other words, in most cases, there's basically nothing to be gained the following season by simply switching schemes. That supports the old NFL conventional wisdom: Fit your scheme to its pieces, not the other way around.

Another piece of conventional wisdom we can analyze is whether there's an "adjustment period" for teams changing schemes. It seems logical that new defenses might struggle earlier in the season, as players adjust to new formations and roles, but would then improve later in the year. Is that the case?

Absolutely. As we mentioned earlier, the 30 teams that switched defensive schemes had an average defensive DVOA before the season of 1.2%. In the first four games of the subsequent season, those teams saw their defensive DVOA rise by an average of 1.9%; not a huge difference, but still not the improvement they hoped to see.

Over the final 12 games of the season, though, those same teams produced an average defensive DVOA of -2.1%, a difference of 5.2% in DVOA from the first four games. There is a clear indication that those teams did, in fact, gel later in the season.

That's impressive, especially compared to our control group. The average team that didn't switch schemes actually tended to perform better in the first four weeks of the year; sporting an average DVOA over that time period that is -0.9% different (and thus better) from the previous year's number. But over the final 12 weeks, that figure rises by an average of 1.1%. The trend is exactly the opposite of those teams that switch defenses.

In the end, the success or failure of the new schemes in Denver, Green Bay, and Kansas City will come down to the issues their old schemes faced. If they can find the right personnel to fit their approach, they'll be successful. Fans expecting a sudden change in performance based purely on a new alignment, though, need to scale back their hopes.

Posted by: Bill Barnwell on 17 Mar 2009
http://www.footballoutsiders.com/fo-...es-change-help

Everyone hates big premium. Just like big oil.

Personally I think he might be worse. The Cardinals were MUCH more talented on defense than the 01-05 Chiefs.

And people might want to use Arizona's offense as an excuse (a lot of times you'll find bad defenses and great offenses go hand in hand, just because other teams are trying to keep up), but even when Arizona's offense was PEDESTRIAN, Pendergast's defense were getting destroyed.

:D Doesn't it though?

I hope so, because I'll wish them all the luck, but I'm not even Luke warm on Pendergast.

yes you do, thats why all year we had to hear about darling, and how every loss was BECAUSE of thigpen, you touted darling in TC and hated on Thigpen in TC, somewhat like mecca and buffalo/tennessee

You must have missed the part where I noted I was WRONG about Darling.

BTW, Thigpen is no longer the starting quarterback. Guess why?

agree, Pendergast is not as good

oh yeah when the season was over? and who has said thigpen is not the starter?(i dont believe he will be but who knows def. not YOU) and thigpen wasnt to blame the d was

Gee, you don't say.

Scott Pioli.

When he traded for Matt Cassel.

Actions speak louder than words.

Since I don't believe the rumors of Cassel's availability in trade, the only way Thigpen starts is if Cassel is injured.

you guys are good at assuming things and acting like its fact.(like i said i feel he will be starting too) but the point remains that you do write things and come back with "see guys i was right" even if you have to skew the truth to appear right

Thigpen might not be at fault, but his piss poor second half performances did nothing to increase his value as a starter.

True. But that's not the reason I write. It's just an added bonus.

i agree, but the point started about claythan writing things and coming back later with the "i told you so" he claims that he doesnt do that, i feel like he's a liar

then what serves zero purpose? your writing?

once again i agree, but thats not what this is about just an example of how claythan will root for/against people on this team hoping he will be right

OK, I was wrong. It does serve a purpose. As much purpose as anything on this board serves. Or actually, quite less. It's a sideshow. Don't get your panties in a bunch over it.

Happy now?

That's reeruned. I want every Chiefs player and coach to be the best in the league.

lying again

Yes, and unfortunately for this board you are posting. Again.

ROFL i would say people feel that way about you every time you post

:popcorn:

Not really. I'm pretty much the shiznit around here. Especially compared to you. Twerp.

I quit reading after seeing the continuous mention of the Broncos.

Pioli's forte is supposed to be stellar talent evaluation whether its in the draft or free agents. If we bring in enough of the right talent it wont matter much who the DC is. He turn into a hero just as easily.

Shut the **** up . He's exactly right!

ROFL twerp, funny coming from a no pussy getting rump ranger such as yourself

Are you aware of what the talent on the Cardinals roster is/was?

They have alot of high caliber players on defense.

Sure, I just don't care about that team and what happened in Az. Different staff, different players, different GM now. Pendergrast is our DC now, nothing we do or say can change that so Im just hoping for the best.

I find it hard to say nice things about someone who couldn't get even average level play out of a unit that had great talent.

ROFL THE "great talent" thing has been disputed by multiple people and yet you stick with it

Yea, Darnell Docket, Karlos Dansy, Adrian Wilson, Rolle, DRC all those guys just suck even though every one of them would be far better than anything we got...

no one has said they suck, just that most arent tier 1 guys, you act as though they have 11 should be probowlers who didnt make it because of coaching(yet the horrible coaches we have had for the last few years didnt have ANYTHING to do with some of our players sucking according to you:rolleyes:)

Usually having 1 top tier guy on each level should be enough to atleast be an average defense...

Even if you don't think those players are good they're better than where he had them.

but our defense just sucks right? nothing to do with the coaching, right?:rolleyes:

and once again you are twisting shit, i NEVER said they werent good, just not all tier 1 level players, most are tier 2 IMO

Uh what?

I'm going to stop talking to you, you're reading skills make me wonder if you are human.

WTF? i said they werent tier 1 you come back with "even if you dont think they are good" i NEVER said they werent good players, you act as though they are GREAT players, i dont feel that way, what did i not understand?

What the hell, my entire point is those players should not consistently be ranked in the 20's as a team defense like they were, so what the **** are you arguing?

If a guy can't get those players to atleast average what is he gonna do with guys who are worse?

MY POINT is that if the cards had great players(as you contend) on defense yet their coaches held them back why cant the same be said of the chiefs(another thing you have said, the chief players suck coaching didnt have anything to do with it)

The Chiefs have shitty players and shitty coaches....not to mention several of those Cardinal players have been to pro bowls and all pros.

God, just stop debating with Jason, people. He's reeruned. He'll respond to this post with another reeruned post of his own.

It's like beating your head against a brick wall. A reeruned brick wall. Made from reeruned bricks.

What defensive players on the Chiefs do you see as great?

Don't say DJ, cause that guy is a sack of limp dicks.

Flowers? Potentially. Dorsey? We sure hope.

STFU its funny how things change when its another team's players or coaches.

how in the hell would we know ANYTHING about any player on our defense with the coaches/scheme we have been using for the last few years?

I'm pretty sure we know a few things, coaching aside.

i dont agree(well maybe about the consensus on hali) IMO it remains to be seen

There are guys who simply don't have the physical skill set. Hali, Pollard, and Page, to start the list.

About the only player I'll listen to any argument about is DJ. And he's been in the league long enough that he is what he'll ever be. It's over. He's sub-par to average.

DJ MAY not have the "killer instinct" but pollard IMO might shine this year if they let him play more in the box.(his wrap-up HAS to get better though) and page is a ball-hawk