Rand:No good time

[Tribal Warfare]

No good time
Sep 25, 2008, 8:36:17 AM by Jonathan Rand - FAQ

If Herm Edwards and Chiefs fans are on different tracks this season, it’s because they’re not looking at the same timetable.

Edwards considers 2008 the first year of his rebuilding program. His fans consider it the third.

Consequently, the patience gap between Edwards and his public is bound to be even wider than you’d usually expect in a rebuilding season. Both perspectives are easy to understand.

Edwards would have preferred gutting his roster and rebuilding through the draft when he arrived in 2006. But circumstances discouraged that, and now he sees his program headed in the right direction.

Fans, however, see the Chiefs becoming farther removed from their first playoff victory since the 1993 season. By a coach’s third season, it’s usually time for a team to take off rather than start over.

In 2003, Dick Vermeil’s third season, the Chiefs started 9-0 and finished 13-3. Then they squandered home field advantage in a playoff loss to the Colts.

By the time Edwards took over that team, the expiration date of its core was coming up fast. But that date arrived even earlier than we could have guessed, and Edwards was caught in a bind.

The Chiefs finished 10-6 in Vermeil’s last season and seemed to have too much veteran talent to justify a teardown. When the 2006 Chiefs squeezed into the playoffs on the heels of a successful draft, it appeared Edwards might be able to gradually rebuild without bottoming out.

But then came a painful 4-12 season. It was time to patch the walls or demolish the house. Edwards compares this season with 1996, when he left the Chiefs to join Tony Dungy’s original Tampa Bay staff. The rebuilding Buccaneers started 1-8 start and rallied to finish 6-10.

“It’s never easy to do it,” Edwards said. “When you decide, you just do it.

“I can remember sitting on the couch in Tampa Bay and saying (to Dungy), ‘I left Kansas City and going to the playoffs every year and you’ve got me down here. Why are we doing this?’

“He said, ‘It’s going to be all right. We’re doing the right thing.’ Living through it I learned a valuable lesson about being patient and sticking with your conviction. It was the right thing to do and everything turned out good.”

But Dungy’s honeymoon was extended when the Buccaneers made the playoffs in 1997, as well as three of the next four years after that. It didn’t hurt that Dungy, a defensive-minded coach, inherited defensive tackle Warren Sapp, linebacker Derrick Brooks and safety John Lynch. All will be candidates for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Edwards, on the other hand, inherited a defense that was Vermeil’s Achilles heel. Edwards barely started whipping his defense into shape when the bottom fell out of an offense that had led the league in 2004 and 2005. Now every room of the house needs walls and electricity.

An 0-3 start, entering Sunday’s game against the heavily favored Denver Broncos, makes it clear that Edwards’ third season won’t produce a breakthrough. Most people seem realistic enough to be satisfied with significant progress and a win here and there.

This would require in part that the Chiefs routinely stay competitive for four quarters, see their young defense learn to stop the run, and develop a successful quarterback.

Edwards might recall, however that Dungy never could develop a franchise quarterback until he took over at Indianapolis. In an odd twist of fate, he had two journeymen in Tampa, Trent Dilfer and Brad Johnson, who won Super Bowls for other coaches.

Edwards is correct when he says there’s no good time to rebuild. But the sooner, the better. And the longer you wait, the tighter your schedule.