The Chiefs are not married to Haley by any means. I honestly think that if he loses out, hes on extremely thin ice. The team has not improved in any area.
Heres a good read. Haley faces an uphill battle....
http://uponfurtherreview.kansascity.com/?q=node/1721
Thanks to Jason Lisk for this idea! The premise is that Haley inherited a team that was in the bottom fourth of the league in offense and in the bottom fourth of the league in defense the previous season. Since the magical cut-off point (1970), there have been 13 coaches (excluding partial seasons) who were new hires under these conditions. That’s a pretty select group when you consider all the coaching scenarios in the NFL over the last 40 years.
Obviously, you shouldn’t expect miracles by any of these coaches the following season. Nevertheless, you should expect improvement. I enjoy listening to Jack Harry because he is constantly ragging on one item – which I agree with… that being there is no evidence of improvement in the Chiefs. When you think about it, any new coach should be showing signs of improvement – specifically on a team that was terrible the season before. If not, you have to question whether he is doing a good job.
You really can’t evaluate Haley based on wins and losses. He inherited a dog team and if he gets a couple toothless bites out of them, he’s doing pretty good. But, when comparing him to the other 12 coaches in this group, you can make some assumptions.
What I was interested in was the question of yards gained vs yards allowed. As you know, that’s my bread and butter when evaluating any NFL team or any NFL game. It’s the bottom line. Lots of other things (turnovers, bad calls, penalties, special teams) come and go with the wind, but yardage gained and yardage allowed tells you a lot about a team – especially over the course of a season.
Therefore, when a team is already in the bottom 25% for yards allowed and already in the bottom 25% for yards gained, then they are already at a negative differential. The way to measure the coach is to see whether that negative differential improved the following year or not.
Here are the 13 coaches in chronological order.
Coach Year Team
John North 1973 New Orleans
Walt Michaels 1977 NY Jets
Ray Perkins 1979 NY Giants
Frank Kush 1982 Baltimore
Hugh Campbell 1984 Houston
Dick McPherson 1991 New England
Kevin Gilbride 1997 San Diego
Butch Davis 2001 Cleveland
Steve Mariucci 2003 Detroit
Mike Nolan 2005 San Francisco
Steve Spagnuolo 2009 St. Louis
Eric Mangini 2009 Cleveland
Todd Haley 2009 Kansas City
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Each of the above coaches inherited a team that was in the bottom 1/4 of the league in both offense and defense. In order to evaluate how they did, I simply took the yardage gained/given up differential from the previous year to their first year. For example…
Kansas City OFF DEF DIFF
2008 308.7 393.2 -84.5
2009 272.4 385.2 -112.8
Total DIFF -28.3
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The Chiefs, under Haley, are 28.3 yards worse with respect to total yardage offense and defense than they were last season. The question is how does -28.3 rate with respect to the rest of the coaches.
As it turns out, Haley is fourth worst among the 13 coaches on this list. Here they are with the total DIFF listed.
Coach Year Team DIFF
Mike.Nolan 2005 SF -110.0
Ray.Perkins 1979 NYG -63.2
Eric.Mangini 2009 CLE -35.3
Todd.Haley 2009 KC -28.3
Hugh.Campbell 1984 HOU -22.0
John.North 1973 NO -17.9
Kevin.Gilbride 1997 SD +5.6
Steve.Spagnuolo 2009 STL +13.5
Walt.Michaels 1977 NYJ +25.6
Frank.Kush 1982 BAL +27.5
Steve.Mariucci 2003 DET +34.3
Dick.McPherson 1991 NE +36.1
Butch.Davis 2001 CLE +60.5
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The next question I asked myself was what happened to these coaches. How long did they last with the team? Shown are the same coaches in the same order of futility and the number of years they coached that team.
Coach DIFF Years
Mike Nolan -110.0 3.44
Ray Perkins -63.2 4.00
Eric Mangini -35.3 N/A
Todd Haley -28.3 N/A
Hugh Campbell -22.0 1.88
John North -17.9 2.43
Kevin Gilbride +5.6 1.38
Steve Spagnuolo +13.5 N/A
Walt Michaels +25.6 6.00
Frank Kush +27.5 2.56
Steve Mariucci +34.3 2.68
Dick McPherson +36.1 2.00
Butch Davis +60.5 3.63
AVERAGE 3.00
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As you can see, it is hard to make anything out their tenure. Naturally, you would have assumed that Nolan and Perkins would have been gone right away. But, it could be that when your team sucks even worse than the previous year, the GM and/or ownership simply assumes the team was in decline – not the fault of the coach. Thus, they were given more time to correct it.
About all I can draw from this is that under these conditions, the average time a coach survived was 3.00 years.
The other thing that is interesting to me about this is that most of these coaches were just sacrificial
. It was the first NFL head coaching job for 11 of the 13 (except for Mariucci and Mangini). Only one of the coaches ever coached another team after this stint (Perkins). Additionally 12 of the 13 ended their careers with a losing record (Mariucci). And, finally 10 of the 13 had only one NFL HC job.
The odds of Haley being “successful” in Kansas City are remote – to say the least. The chances are he will be gone in another year or two; he will leave with a losing record; he will never be an NFL head coach again.
Does that mean he won’t have provided a benefit to the team? Not necessarily. These HCs appear to be transitional coaches. Eventually, a team will turn around, but it will be more because of player moves than due to whoever is leading them.
Finally, here are the same teams and the number of years before they made the playoffs.
Year Team Yrs.
1973 New Orleans 15
1997 San Diego 8
2003 Detroit 7+
1982 Baltimore 6
2005 San Francisco 5+
1977 NY Jets 5
1984 Houston 4
1991 New England 4
1979 NY Giants 3
2001 Cleveland 2
2009 Kansas City N/A
2009 Cleveland N/A
2009 St. Louis N/A
AVG 5.9
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As you can see, the average length of time before making the playoffs is 5.9 years. That would mean the Chiefs still have 5.1 years of playofflessness left.
It’s worth pointing out the Browns only went two years, but they made the playoffs on a 9-7 record (usually not good enough) and it was another five years before they made it again. Also, the Giants made it on a 9-7 record after three years, but it was another three years before they made it again.
About all we Chiefs fans can hope for is that we fall asleep and wake up in a few years after we’ve had time to rebuild the personnel on the team and after a new coaching staff takes over.