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Haley Takes Over … Tuesday Cup O’Chiefs
September 1, 2009 - Bob Gretz

We already knew things were different around the Chiefs with the new regime and all.

On Monday, Todd Haley drove that point home once again with his decision to dump Chan Gailey as offensive coordinator.

With that move, Haley did something that Gunther Cunningham, Dick Vermeil and Herm Edwards were not willing to do. All three of the more recent Chiefs head coaches had assistants on their staffs that were not working out and all three soldiered on with those coaches rather than going through with the difficult decision of making a change.

Cunningham, Vermeil and Edwards were also big on allowing their coordinators free reign and they were reticent to inject themselves into game planning and game-day decisions. With Vermeil that approach worked out on offense with Al Saunders, and did not work with Greg Robinson. With Edwards, that worked last year with Gailey, but not before with offensive coordinator Mike Solari. Part of the problems with the Chiefs defense last year was that Edwards and Cunningham were intent on doing different things and the team’s defensive identity was split.

Ultimately when there are those types of situations, it’s the head coach who pays the price in the end because generally there are more defeats than victories.

It appears that Haley is going to work with his staff more in the manner that Marty Schottenheimer handled his over 10 seasons as head coach. Schottenheimer was never afraid to stick his finger into the offensive, defensive or special teams plan; he made known what he wanted and if it didn’t come, heads rolled.

The decision to relieve Gailey of his position has nothing to do with the quality of the man’s work or his competence. Gailey is one of the best offensive minds in the game. On top of that, there are not many better people in the game of football. He’s the personification of class, something Haley acknowledged on Monday.

It’s just that Gailey’s approach and style, and his idea of what’s important with the ball and play calling are different than Haley’s approach.

There needs to be some soul searching on the part of both Haley and Scott Pioli on what’s happened. Haley was encouraged to keep Gailey on his staff by Pioli. This kind of outcome was predicted by folks in the NFL that knew both men and their styles. It could have been and was predicted.

One guy who predicted this clash of styles was Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman. At the Pro Football Hall of Fame ceremonies in Canton, Aikman talked of a conversation he had with Haley during the NFL owners meeting in southern California. The former Cowboys quarterback predicted there would be problems between Haley and Gailey because of their different approaches. He explained that Gailey didn’t like to call plays where the pass went over the middle and that he was conservative in his passing game approach. Aikman said that was going to clash with Haley’s willingness to use the middle of the field and his more aggressive style in throwing the ball.

Now, we must remember that Aikman is not a Gailey fan from their days together with the Cowboys. It was Gailey’s job to tell Aikman his career was over, and that’s something the quarterback has not forgotten.

But he turned out to be right on the money with this insight.

Stand on the same street corner on NFL Main Street long enough and you’ll see t he same parade go by several times. There may be different faces among the marchers, but their route remains the same.

Haley is not the first Chiefs head coach to fire a coordinator in the pre-season, one of the worst possible times to make a coaching staff move. Back in the summer of 1984, head coach John Mackovic fired defensive coordinator Bud Carson (right) on a Monday morning after a contentious personnel meeting the previous night.

The subject of that Mackovic-Carson disagreement was LB Charles Jackson. Mackovic wanted Jackson more involved, while Carson thought he was a coach killer, a player whose mistakes would ultimately lead to the termination of the coach. Turned out Carson was correct, but in a way in never envisioned as he was killed in a football sense the next day.

That situation 25 years ago was not really about a single player or meeting. It just came down to Jackson being the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Mackovic and Carson had many disagreements in the season before. In fact, at the end of the ‘83 season, Carson tried to resign but Mackovic refused to make a change. He thought they could work out their differences.

Was it a similar plot 25 years later with Haley and Gailey? Sometime in the future the real story of what happened will be revealed, but right now the head coach says there was no particular moment that created this move. Did they disagree on the approach of the Chiefs offense that has so few weapons in the passing game? With Matt Cassel injured, did they disagree on whether it should be Tyler Thigpen or Brodie Croyle as his replacement? Did Haley want to go back to using Thigpen in the spread offense from last year?

What Haley wouldn’t say is this: he and Gailey were not on the same offensive page, and the head coach was not going to live with that in his first season and first chance as an NFL head coach.

Hopefully Haley is also quite aware that the move and his decision to call plays and serve as the team’s quarterbacks coach takes the bull’s eye on his back and makes it even bigger. He will be severely second guessed if the Chiefs offense continues to stumble around like it has during the pre-season.

Todd Haley wants his fingerprints on the offense. He wanted to be the answer. It’s now his problem to correct and turn around.

He’s got his work cut out for him.