Andy Reid, John Dorsey under pressure with Chiefs' 1-4 start
 

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap300...hiefs-14-start



KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The last remnants of Andy Reid's honeymoon in Kansas City officially ended on Sunday afternoon. The head coach lost whatever benefit of the doubt he had left once the lowly (and wounded) Chicago Bears scored an 18-17 victory over the Chiefs in Arrowhead Stadium. That loss wasn't the only bad one Reid has suffered in the past month, but it was a defeat that buried hope that his squad could turn around what quickly has become an incredibly disappointing season.

At 1-4, the Chiefs are just about invisible in the playoff picture. But the bigger issue revolves around Reid -- and his sidekick, general manager John Dorsey -- moving forward. This was supposed to be the year when it all came together for Reid in Kansas City, when two years of coaching and personnel moves gave birth to a team poised to claim the AFC West crown. All the Chiefs have at this point is an inept offense, an even worse defense and a substantial void created by the torn ACL that ended the season of Pro Bowl running back Jamaal Charles on Sunday.

Every game, all season

Even worse, there are no easy fixes for what ails Kansas City. When asked how the Chiefs can improve, Reid could only offer the standard reply coaches give when they are running out of answers.

"We all need to pick it up," Reid told reporters during his Monday press conference. "You have to raise the level [of performance] and you have to do it right now, right now. That's how it works when you're 1-4. That's how it works."

It's bizarre to see Reid stuck in this situation, because his reputation suggested he would work wonders in Kansas City. That franchise was in disarray when he arrived in 2013, largely because former general manager Scott Pioli had run it into the ground. Reid brought instant credibility and a strong résumé forged during an impressive run with the Philadelphia Eagles. He had taken that team to one Super Bowl and five NFC Championship Games -- while winning six division titles -- in 14 seasons.

Reid excited the Kansas City fan base by inheriting a Chiefs squad that won just two games in 2012 and guiding it to 11 wins and a wild-card spot in his first season. There also wasn't too much grumbling when the Chiefs finished 9-7 last year, largely because people expected lesser results from a much tougher schedule. Year 3 under Reid is what everybody pointed to as the true litmus test for his reign. This was supposed to be when we all would see how far Reid and Dorsey had come in executing their vision for this franchise.

Well, there is no sense of a clear vision in Kansas City anymore. A nice opening-day win over the lousy Houston Texans has been followed by an embarrassing string of defeats. The Chiefs turned the ball over five times in front of the home folks during a 31-24 Thursday night loss to Denver. They looked uninspired in a 38-28 thrashing in Green Bay that wasn't nearly as close as the score suggests. The Chiefs also only managed seven field goals in a 36-21 loss at Cincinnati. And then came the kicker last Sunday, when Bears quarterback Jay Cutler rallied his lifeless team from a 14-point deficit -- on the road -- to secure Chicago's second win of the season.

As has been his style, Reid's been quick to point the finger at himself, with his team playing worse in each passing week. What is becoming more apparent is that his biggest challenge will be keeping this team focused and committed as this season continues.


"There is a time that, obviously, your character is tested, right?" Reid said. "So there are not a lot of people patting you on the back and saying how good you're doing. You've got to reach a little deeper and pull together and good things can happen when you do that."

Actually, good things are likelier to happen when there's plenty of talent to help right the ship. That's the first thing to realize about what Reid is now facing in Kansas City: This team isn't nearly as strong in the personnel department as some (including this writer) believed going into this season. Quarterback Alex Smith has faced his own share of criticism -- both for his lack of aggressiveness downfield and his inability to impact games -- but there are several other issues plaguing the Chiefs. The most noteworthy is that Smith is playing behind an offensive line that is making a strong case for being the worst in the NFL.

If that's not bad enough, a defense that seemingly had the potential to be a top-five unit has allowed 28.6 points per game. Unlike the offense, this isn't a group lacking in players that arrived with high expectations. Six members of that defense were selected in the first round of the NFL draft, while five have appeared in at least one Pro Bowl. They should be doing for Kansas City what Denver's defense is doing for that franchise -- setting an undeniable tone and making enough plays to win games.

The scary part for Reid is that it's reaching a point where he will have to make some extremely tough decisions. The Chiefs have invested plenty in Smith -- they traded two high-value picks to acquire him from the San Francisco 49ers two years ago and also gave him a four-year, $68-million extension in 2014 -- but he's played poorly enough lately to wonder if Reid really can stick with him long-term. Defensive coordinator Bob Sutton also has had enough ups and downs that his future should be uncertain. He's shown an inability to adjust at times and his defense rarely steps up when facing a quarterback who isn't on the level of a Brian Hoyer or Ryan Fitzpatrick.

The work Dorsey has done in the front office is more mystifying. Pioli was a disaster overall as a general manager, but he deserves credit for supplying Reid with some of his best players, including nose tackle Dontari Poe, outside linebacker Justin Houston and safety Eric Berry. Other key performers -- Charles, inside linebacker Derrick Johnson and outside linebacker Tamba Hali -- arrived when Carl Peterson was the team's general manager. Aside from rookie cornerback Marcus Peters and emerging tight end Travis Kelce, Dorsey hasn't unearthed any impact players in the draft. Hell, his first two first-round picks (right tackle Eric Fisher, the No. 1 overall selection in the 2013 draft, and outside linebacker Dee Ford) have yet to do anything memorable.

Together We Make Football

It's those facts that critics are looking at now when assessing the Chiefs. There's just as much talk about Reid's reputation for mismanaging the clock at critical moments and how unprepared this team looked for both of its prime-time games (against Denver and Green Bay). Reid has been around long enough to know this comes with the territory. He faced plenty of tough times in Philadelphia and somehow managed to pull through when other coaches might have been axed.

Still, this is starting to feel a little different in Kansas City. Reid is starting to look less like the man who made Philadelphia a perennial contender and more like yet another talented head coach who can't duplicate his success with a second franchise (a group that includes George Seifert, Mike Shanahan and Dennis Green). It's also becoming harder to recall the good vibes that followed Reid to Kansas City, when he arrived as a savior blessed with both experience and answers. Sadly, as this season continues on, he's only creating more questions about his current reign moving forward.

Can't be said enough.

Under pressure? They need a better OL.

<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=k065it" target="_blank"><img src="http://i57.tinypic.com/k065it.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>

This is an extremely accurate article. The author knows exactly what's going on.

Under pressure from the fans? Yes

Under pressure from Clark? Doubtful.

Another article that fails to mention our shittastic wannabe QB

Oh look....another article where Alex Smith is given a ****ing pass because of everyone else.

The quickest and easiest thing Reid could do is turn over the play calling duties.

Why aren't more writers calling for Alex Smiths ass to be benched?

This team hasn't believed in him since last year and it's obvious he's a major reason the team struggles.

It's hard to ply inspired football when the quarterback doesn't give you any hope.

There's a reason he sits ALONE on the bench when he comes off the field...show me where that happens to Rivers, Brady, Manning, luck, etc.

When REAL quarterbacks that aren't pussies get hit in the mouth, they are working with their receivers, backs and TEs on the sideline between series to try to get things worked out.

Alex just goes straight to the bench and sits down.

Alone.

Fixed that for yah.

Unlike every single thread on here, which does.

Very good article and accurate assessment of the situation.

bullshit.

Bench Alex Smith.

I think it's clear that Andy is trying to get Alex out of his rut by putting the ball in his hands more and more.

Like trying to get a shooter out of a slump by forcing him to take more shots...except Alex isn't a shooter, he is at his best when he's handing it off.

I'm still trying to figure out what the Chiefs' OC actually does, if they have one?

Read it and weep. NFL.COM's early mock:

7. Kansas City Chiefs
2015 record: 1-4 (.720)
Top need: Offensive tackle
Other needs: Defensive end, cornerback
Senior prospects at positional needs: OT: Vadal Alexander (LSU), Taylor Decker (Ohio State), Spencer Drango (Baylor); DE: DeForest Buckner (Oregon), Shilique Calhoun (Michigan State), Shawn Oakman (Baylor); CB: Maurice Canady (Virginia), Danzel McDaniel (Kansas State), Will Redmond (Mississippi State).
Analysis: A very difficult early season schedule, including a heartbreaking loss to the Broncos, has the Chiefs in this predicament, but they might right the ship soon. However, Eric Fisher is unlikely to right his own ship and it is time for the Chiefs to move on from their former No. 1 overall draft pick tackle. I'm certain that GM John Dorsey will look to build along the defensive front, which means finding an impact defensive lineman. The Chiefs love 2015 first-round cornerback Marcus Peters, but landing a bookend or a quality third cornerback could be a priority.

Hooray. Let's have another Alex Smith hate thread!

CHunt already has your money for 2015. You can bet your ass the first week of January 2016 the Chiefs email gestapo will be sending out season ticket appeals for next season.

Don't take it personally.
It's just business.

Beat me to it.

:spock:

Walterfootball's mock. http://www.walterfootball.com/draft2016.php

3. Kansas City Chiefs - Connor Cook, QB, Michigan State

The Alex Smith experiment has to end now. Smith's struggles haven't all been his fault, but it's clear by now that he's not the answer. He is a weak-armed quarterback who never takes chances downfield. Kansas City needs to move on from him.

I keep bouncing back and forth between Connor Cook and and Jared Goff as the No. 1 quarterback. Goff just had a poor showing, so I'll move Cook into the top spot, though it's 50-50 right now. Cook has some accuracy and consistency issues that NFL teams are legitimately worried about.

Smith pisses me off as much as the next guy and in confident that removing him for a capable starter would be the single most likely thing to spark this team, but EVERYONE has underachieved of yet this season.

Guys like Houston, Maclin and Charles the least so, but every contributor on this team has had at least one horrible game thus far in this short season. Many have had several.

And this is our 2nd round pick.

34. Jerald Hawkins, OT, LSU

Like the Jaguars, Kansas City could be moving on from its 2013 first-round choice. Eric Fisher not only has been terrible; he's been a wuss as well, failing to play through simple injuries.


I'd rather have Will Fuller in the 2nd to go along with Cook.

Smith needs to be benched and I promise the offense would start scoring.

Walter football is more qualified to run the Chiefs than his own site.

The one consistent thing seems to be Kansas City and the Hunt family.

New coach/GM=new QB.

Funny how many will want smith benched to protect good ol Andy.

Cause its not about the QB.

**** man if anyone steps outside of CP 101 and blames anyone other than smith. This places goes full reerun.

"Played poorly" is far short of "has been an unmitigated disaster"

Yep.

Reid / Dorsey / should be held accountable. Best players still brought in by other GM's. Smith is bad and they need to cut ties ASAP. OL is one of the worst in the NFL....AGAIN. Fisher is a BUST and needs to be cut as well. Jury still out on Dee Ford, but...Sutton needs to be shown the door along with Smith & Fish. Shit, everyone knows the deal.

Pioli 5-0 by rebuilding O-line.

SMDH

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/IqycJpRdVaY/maxresdefault.jpg

Cry intah yer feckin' pillah full of monneh.

Andy still 'learning and getting better.' Is he under the impression the KC Chiefs is a middle school people pay you to attend?

WTF does this coaching staff do all week? Because it not showing on the field.

If anything the offense (minus Charles) has looked worse each week...

How can they be expected to coach anything with all the Alexness all over the place making them weepy, crampy and moody?

Holy Draft Pick Batman!!! Walterfootball has us picking something other than a lineman!!! :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

This team shouldn't be worse in year 3 than in year 1.

The only thing that's getting built is a pile of $#it...

Then the ****tards shouldn't of traded for him. Dorsey and Reid are the ones that gave up pics and a stupid contract.

Custer could win against this team...

Who here is defending Reid? I havent read a single post on here in his defense for this season.

Why do you think people are making excuses for him?

Puts in Andy's postgame Jack Stack orders....

This about exciting as watching the Mars rover on live tv.

At least with ice fishing drinking is involved.

Why? So they can make Alex the fall guy. This way we will get a new QB and Reid will all of a sudden fix all of his issues.

The fact this thread is about Reid and Dorsey and people are still blaming Smith for the sun coming up....

Smith is so irrelevant in the grand scheme of things when it comes to the people leading and building this team.

The only reason I want Smith thrown out the window first is so Reid can land on top of him afterwards...

I think most people want Reid to tear in to Smith Like Singletary did when he was his coach



Q: What happened when you were going to put Carr in but didn't?
Singletary: At that time I was contemplating putting David Carr(notes) in the game. And after talking to Alex, decided not to.
Q: What did he say?
Singletary: I'm not going to go through that. It's [exchanges] we had on the sideline and it's personal.
Q: Were you mad at him?
Singletary: Was I angry? (The question seemed pretty clear.)
Q: You looked animated.
Singletary: The bottom line is it's something that we talked about and I'd rather keep it personal. (Still didn't answer the clear question that was clarified.)
Q: Did you change your mind because of what he said or the way he said it?
Singletary: What he said.
Q: How do you feel he responded?
Singletary: He went in and scored.
Q: Are you feeling better about him now?
Singletary: I leave this game feeling disappointed that I think a pretty decent football team is 0-5. Disappointed for them because we put ourselves in this situation and only we can get ourselves out.
Q: You thought about going with Carr because of what? To get Alex out of there?
Singletary: I thought at the moment I really wanted to see what his response would be. More than anything, in a situation like that, a quarterback that has anything in him is going to have something to say about that. We're in the situation, how do we get out of the situation? Hopefully you're part of the solution.
And I think in the conversation that we had, I felt he felt he was part of the solution. And we went forward from there.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/blog/shu...urn=nfl-276102

If Reid is going to tear into anyone is should be himself. He is solely responsible for smiths play and the team being unprepared.

Him yelling at smith would be ironically stupid.

Reid isn't/won't tear into anything other than a bag of Lays.

he's comatose on gamedays.. he shows zero emotion either positive or negative.
so it's no surprise to me that the player show the same.

Just go to the glue factory.

Fat Andy can't work his magic without a dominant Def. his career has been a giant ruse

Dude really should retire his heart isn't in the game anymore.

If we're able to get up out from under Smith and Daniel's contracts we'd have no trouble keeping our young talent.

With that $20 mil off the cap we'd need to throw it at OL and WR. It's realistic to expect an 11 year vet to overcome deficiencies around him but not so for a rookie.

Smith is the biggest problem.

Reid and Dorsey aren't going anywhere. That's why nobody's bothering with this. But it feels like there's enough pressure to push Smith out the door even if that means waiting until 2016 to draft a QB.

Reid and Dorsey still have time to correct the ship. Alex is done. Dorsey can force reids hand on defensive coordinator and QB. We have the talent to become a good defense. We have the offensive talent to be much better on offense, and we've seen reids offense in Philly be much better. I would rather see Reid out, but if I'm picking between the two, no ****ing doubt I believe Reid can win without Smith vs Smith winning without Reid.

The fact that those two numb nuts gave Alex big money is enough to think that Clark is gonna be mighty pissed if we go 1-15 or 2-14

Realistically I'd be stunned if Dorsey or Reid are under any hot seat. Knowing hunts history. If we're lucky, Clark at least forces Dorsey and reids hand on the coaching staff and the QB.

We're not going 1-15. That's not the Chiefs way.

No, no.

We'll string together a couple win streaks to settle out around 7-9.

That's the Chiefs way.

Reid is a bigger problem than Smith, no matter if Smith is here or not, Reid will always be Reid.

Plus seeing them draft Fisher, Ford and extend Smith doesn't scream confidence for the future.

Making Smith the fall guy and drafting a OL in the 1st will make a shit ton of people happy.

Some people strive for success, others support and root for status quo.

This team doesn't look any better then the 2012 2-14 team NFL.com was even comparing us to them

LMAO

exactly.

Exactly. Reid walked into a pile of shit, but he deserves every bit of blame for tying this franchise to Alex Smith like he has. For a supposed QB guru, that is one of the dumbest moves I've ever seen.

No, they won't go 1-15.

But they will go 4-12, which will be good enough to pick fourth.

... behind three teams that can justify taking the few QBs worth taking early on in the draft, forcing KC to draft a LT.

Because Chuefs.

I actually think Smith would be a manageable QB under a different coach

Him and Reid should have never met they have a toxic relationship

That's the next nightmare I'm foreseeing, Alex limping to a championship game somewhere else under some young aggressive new coach while we still argue the same shit about the 2020 Chiefs failures.

He would be doing fine under the Cowboys Bill's or Jets right now

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Mzp_NIP-S8I" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

A pass Alex will never make under reid.

I completely disagree.

2011-2013 Alex Smith? Sure.

2015 Alex Smith? No way. Not a chance. He's playing scared and has no confidence from getting beaten in 2014 and suffering a lacerated spleen.

He's done.

We've already explained that the Chiefs would certainly be 3-2 today without Alex /Claytard.

I would never say Alex is Kurt Warner, but Saccappoo's comparision of 2015 Alex to Kurt with the Giants is meritorious in terms of distance from potential and capacity for rebound.

Smith can borderline thrive in an environment where you give him an Oline, a top 5 defense, and an elite running game. He's proven time and time again he can't win games where he's not carried by the run game or defense.
So... Yeah, not going that route.

Reid can be fixed. If Dorsey is worth a damn, he will force a better defensive coordinator. You match that with the types of offenses he ran in Philly, and the chiefs can win games. I don't think Reid can win us a Super Bowl. But he's good enough to win a playoff game with the right tools. The issue is getting Andy Reid out of the way of himself.

He sure is one stubborn bastard. Maybe if he focused on clock management and gave up the offensive play calling, we might get somewhere.

He is sucking big time at both. :rolleyes:

I concur.

He looks the same now as he did under Singletary and Nolan it takes the right coach for him to calm down.

and it got Crennel, pioli, and cassel fired should do the same for Alex Dorsey and Reid

You give him kcs 2015 defense in San Francisco, and Alex would be the same QB with Harbaugh too. Harbaugh doesn't lose games the way Reid does, so that's true. But it's not exactly the best scenario to have a QB that reliant on other people's help to win games.

Hahaha.

Just like Cassel, no one is ever going to give Alex a chance to start for another NFL franchise ever again.

Coaches and QBs come here to die.

No one is saying he can take you to the superbowl (he almost did) I'm just trying to say he looked like a NFL starting QB under Harbaugh.


With Reid he looks worst then Cassel did with the chiefs.

Report: Cowboys bench Brandon Weeden in favor of Matt Cassel
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-sh...210301046.html

If cassel wins the cowboys a playoff game this place is gonna lose it.