Shane Life

Over the last few days (and weeks), there have been several positive changes at 1 Arrowhead Drive. New General Manager Scott Pioli and Head Coach Todd Haley are intent on ensuring that Kansas City fans know they are not messing around.

First, the Chiefs dumped the unproductive, salary-cap heavy Patrick Surtain, Donnie Edwards, and Damon Huard. All three players were consistently injured

Then, Pioli leaned on his buddies at the Patriots for one last favor. He managed to acquire Matt Cassel and Mike Vrabel for only a second-round pick in what could potentially define the early years of this young general manager’s career. To get two players of this caliber for only a second-round pick is a no-brainer. The Chiefs will obviously restructure Cassel’s $14.5 million guaranteed (franchise-tag-determined) into a longer term deal. Vrabel is on the downside of his career, but is still pretty productive. I’m not sure if he’s an upgrade over Donnie Edwards (a player that I always really liked), but I’d say he’s at least equal value.

There isn’t much of a risk to this deal. Even though Cassel only has one year as a starter (thanks to the Chiefs, ironically), he’s got the stats to warrant the trade. In a relatively shallow draft, the Chiefs managed to keep their 3rd overall pick, which they can now (and should) spend on a stud pass-rusher or try to get two first-rounders.

Whatever happens, I think it’s safe to assume that we’re in for a very different ride than we’ve been used to under Carl Peterson. To see the Chiefs in the free agent mix this early in the game is a great thing. I’m really looking forward to seeing what else they look to do. They certainly have the cap room now that those veterans have been jettisoned. We need to fill lots of spots and without a lot of great draftees out there, I’d look to the Chiefs to sign more free agents in the next few weeks. Hopefully a wide receiver so Cassel has someone to throw to besides Dwayne Bowe.

Preseason football can’t get here soon enough.

I’m about half a day late to this dance, but that doesn’t mean I can’t celebrate. Herm Edwards is finally gone.

I want to point you to a post that I wrote on December 18, 2006 in which I called for his firing:

The Kansas City Chiefs are a poor excuse for a mediocre football team. And I blame Edwards. His poor game planning has single-handedly ruined one of the league’s most potent offenses over the last 5 years and turned it into a team that loses to THE CLEVELAND BROWNS.

So a mere two years later, I finally get what I’ve been asking for all along.

I’m not sure what took the organization this long to let him go. He had to know that the writing was on the wall, but I’m assuming that Edwards thought to himself, “If I get fired, I still get paid, but if I quit, I don’t.” I’ve never seen Herm as a quitter. He’s a decent guy, a man of faith and family and all that, but as a football coach, he is dismally underqualified.

We know that Herm can’t take all the blame for the disaster that is the Chiefs, but he should bear a large amount of the responsibility with his antiquated approach to offense and his inability to put together a defense. With Carl Peterson gone, the writing was really on the wall for a guy whose team was only better than Detroit, Oakland and St. Louis over the last two years and only had two wins in the last 25 games.

The rumor mill is abuzz with who will be the next head coach at 1 Arrowhead Drive. Chris Mortenson at ESPN is lobbying heavily for former Donkeys redfaced coach Mike Shenanigans. I hope for the love of God he is wrong. The Chiefs fan in me will always be conflicted cheering for that guy. I can’t figure out what the appeal of Shanahan is. This is a guy who melted down in the horrid AFC West this year, ultimately losing their last three games and the division to the Chargers who had started the season at 4-8.

If the Chiefs are looking to go with a proven coach, I’d prefer Bill Cowher (he claims he doesn’t want to coach this year, but I imagine he could be convinced). But honestly, if I’m Scott Pioli (or any general manager for that matter), I’m not paying these big salary coaches a dime. I’d rather go with a guy like Haley, the offensive coordinator from the Super Bowl-bound Arizona Cardinals. The time for these old coaches is over. Let’s get some new blood on the sidelines and see what they can do. It seems to be working out OK for Pittsburgh and Arizona, who both have first-time head coaches (Mike Tomlin and Ken Whisenhunt, respectively) at the helm.

No, I didn’t get a job.

It appears the Chiefs have hired Scott Pioli as their next head of football operations. This isn’t exactly news…Clark Hunt has been courting the Patriots’ head of player personnel for weeks now, but Pioli made no bones about the fact that he didn’t want to inherit Herm Edwards and wanted him out the door before he came in.

That didn’t happen, but it appears that it is only a matter of time before the Evil Carl and his awful hire (from the start, as I said time after time on this blog) Herm have both been run out of town.

I’m so happy.

We all know the Chiefs stink. Carl Peterson getting fired (or resigning or whatever) isn’t going to fix our problems. We still have a complete clown for a coach.

I had said to myself that I wasn’t going to blog about it anymore, but watching the hatchet job he does every Sunday, it’s difficult to keep quiet.

Now that Clark Hunt has done the right thing in getting rid of Carl, he should follow up by removing the coach who single-handedly has dealt this team loss after loss over the pass two years. Watching Miami’s Tony Sparano coach his team to a possible playoff berth one year after their abysmal Cam Cameron 1-15 season assures me that with the right leadership, ANY team can turn it around. There are folks who will say that Carl was the problem and that Herm should be given the chance to “get his guys”. Well, I think that Herm could fill every coaching slot with “his guys” and draft for another 2 years and we wouldn’t be much closer then than we are now. He’s just a bad coach.

He was a bad coach in New York. He lucked into the playoffs on the heels of Dick Vermeil’s guys his first year here and has since turned the Chiefs into the AFC’s version of the Detroit Lions. In fact, if the Lions didn’t exist, I doubt there’d be much discussion as to who the worst team in the NFL is.

Clark Hunt has shown that he’s got the stones to do the right thing. He should do it again and get rid of Herm, start anew and renew the loyal Chiefs fans’ faith in 1 Arrowhead Drive. I think that 2-14 is a good enough excuse to blow it up. Let’s now see if Clark Hunt will do it.

Let’s hope that next week’s second half meltdown to the Bengals is the final time we have to watch Herm stomp the sidelines of the field acting like he cares when he really has absolutely no clue how to coach an NFL team. For the sake of the organization, it’s time to let him go.

I went to see the tragic Chiefs game today with my future brother-in-law, Tyson.

We arrived at the game and the thermostat on my car read 60 degrees. By the time we finished grilling up our burgers, the temperature had dropped at least 20 degrees. Since this was Tyson’s first game ever (and we’d already dropped the $22 for parking – straight-up highway robbery), we weren’t going to let a little cold Canadian air chill us out.

We froze with about 25,000 other people – starting the first quarter and half of the second quarter up in the Northeast corner in Section 339. The Chiefs looked good…a little TOO good. And then I remembered (as did they) that they were the Chiefs, and they are only capable of ONE half of football per game. Unable to stand the cold anymore, we mosied down to section 112, but the wind was just as cold there.

Something happens to the Chiefs when they go into the locker room. Herm’s speeches must be the most mind-numbing, heart-breaking, soul-sucking stories because the team that emerges in the second half doesn’t look a THING like the one that led San Diego 21-10 at the half.

I feel like I’m the only sane person in a city full of crazies. I know that Carl Peterson is mostly responsible digging the grave of this once great franchise, but Edwards is the guy who came and desecrated that grave, stole the gravestone, and replaced it with a bunch of garbage behind the guise of “a defensive mind”. I’m sorry…”defensive-minded” coaches do NOT blow a 21-10 lead with 4:55 left in the game.

This team is a mess. People say that firing Edwards won’t solve the problem. I think they’re wrong. See: Miami.

Also, wasn’t it interesting that Carl Peterson was suspiciously missing from Willie Roaf’s halftime presentation of *GASP!* a framed jersey? This type of thing is the stuff that King Carl lived for. A chance at the spotlight to honor Willie Roaf – one of his minor successes in a long string of absolute failures. Was Peterson’s absence a sign of things to come? We can only hope…

3 years ago, my buddies had an idea. Since most of us were in town during the holidays and since most of us lived in either Gardner or Olathe we should have a football game on Thanksgiving weekend. Thus, the Gardner-Olathe Annual Turkey Bowl was born.

This year was the first year I was able to play. In 2006 I was in Council Bluffs with Alli and in 2007, I had just had that back thing happen to me and I wasn’t really in any state to play.

I had thought that my absence was perhaps the reason that Gardner had won back-to-back games. I learned today (as they went back-to-back-to-back) that Olathe SUCKS at flag football. Two hours later, I’m defeated, demoralized, cold, wet and REALLY tired.

But it was a lot of fun.

I figure, while I’m still young, I probably should take advantage and still play. My sore body would suggest otherwise.

In their last 20 games, the Herm Edwards-led Kansas City Chiefs have won once. That’s five percent.

What kind of league has the NFL become where not a single person is held responsible for this type of futility? I really wanted the Bills to score again, just to drive home the point that the Chiefs really are as bad as their 1-19 record reflects.

I don’t want to hear about “promise” and “potential”. Because promise and potential doesn’t get beaten 54-31 in Arrowhead Stadium. There are other words that describe teams that get beaten by that margin at home. But I won’t print those here.

Herm Edwards and Carl Peterson should both be fired. Peterson’s horrid decision-making is finally to the point where it is affecting ticket sales, which is the only reason that he’s been around so long. Clark Hunt can no longer ignore the awfulness of the Chiefs when 20,000+ fans walk out of the stadium halfway through the 3rd quarter (and those were the ones that actually showed up).

But I feel like I’m just repeating myself. It’s really getting old. Not that winning a game would change anything other than just extending the pain of the Herm Edwards era by giving us some smidgen of false hope in a coach who couldn’t effectively coach a Pop Warner team to a championship and a General Manager who should be arrested for theft, larceny and the robbery all the hopes and dreams of Chiefs fans in this city.

But I’ve said this before…it’s nothing new.

Last week, instead of going for overtime, Herm goes for two to win the game. That’s fine. I have no problem with that call.

I do, however, have a problem with NOT going for it on 4th & 2 in Saints territory with 5 minutes left in the game, especially when New Orleans hadn’t had much of a problem controlling the ball. I just don’t get it.

Actually, I do get it. He’s an awful coach. HORRIBLE even. The Saints fan sitting behind me during the game said, “I don’t understand why you guys are running the ball at all. The only thing the Saints can do is defend the run.” Watching the game, I had to agree with him. Thigpen was once again efficient and effective as a passer and would have been even moreso if not for several dropped passes. (I mean, really, D-Bowe…how about you put up TWO hands to catch the ball instead of just the one?)

It’s getting old that I have to keep saying this, but Herm Edwards cannot coach in the NFL. It took a decent offensive coordinator to make this bunch of clowns actually put any semblance of an offense on the field (not Herm’s doing) and yet the Chiefs still have yet to compete in the second half. This is a head coaching problem. I don’t know how many ways I have to say it. Herm is the biggest problem. His philosophies and approach to the game are antiquated and INEFFECTIVE. There’s no doubt that Carl is a larger part of the problem, but let’s be honest: with Herm Edwards, the Chiefs will not return to the playoffs.

Bring on The Chin.

The Chiefs still stink.

I semi-predicted it before it would happen on Twitter. Herm and his ultra-conservative garbage offensive and game planning led to the Chiefs’ meltdown today. At home, they won the turnover battle and Tyler Thigpen turned in another great game. Jamaal Charles was effective.

Unfortunately, Edwards’ and Chan Gailey’s offensive plan for the second half was lay down instead of putting their foot on the throat of the Bucs like they should have. This lack of a killer instinct always has been and always will be Edwards’ downfall. He can’t close.

And that’s why he should be fired.