How Charlie Weis Could Change the NFL

Call me crazy, but it isn't as far-fetched as you think. I am crazy, but the roller coaster of my mind you're about to ride is a bumpy one.

On the day of the NFL Draft, if new Chiefs offensive coordinator Charlie Weis has an entirely new system to install, who knows it better than Jimmy Clausen?

Clausen may be around when the Chiefs are ready to draft. If they choose him, what happens then?

For starters, current starting quarterback Matt Cassel becomes even more irritable. He wants out, and the Chiefs just spent a first-round draft pick and a good bit of money on Clausen, Weis' old quarterback. Would Cassel immediately want out, or would Clausen sit behind him for a year?

Charlie is going to be Charlie, and Jimmy is going to start. It's time for GMs to start talking and working up a trade.

Well in Carolina, Julius Peppers wants out, and he wants to be in a 3-4. The Panthers are concerned about their quarterback situation, though Matt Moore showed flashes that he could be the answer.

The GMs, Scott Pioli and Marty Hurney banter, need to work the deal. Carolina signs Peppers to an acceptable contract extension that suits the Chiefs, and the trade happens. Cassel comes to Carolina, Matt Moore is re-signed to again be the backup, and Cassel, Moore, and Delhomme dive head-first into an offseason competition to become the 2010 Carolina Panthers starting quarterback.

Peppers, in his new home in Kansas City, shores up an already decent defense and makes it a force. Weis' new offense won't be beautiful with a quarterback still adjusting to the pro game despite knowing the system, but it may just be serviceable enough—especially with the Chiefs finding a running game at the end of the '09 season.

The Chiefs aren't a frontrunner, but they are a contender for second place in the AFC West with Denver being a team nobody understands.

Meanwhile, back in Carolina, the nostalgia that is the mind of John Fox has him leaning toward Delhomme for the starting job. Preseason ends and the deadline is fast approaching for Fox to name a starter. He knows if he names Delhomme starter, fans will revolt, and he isn't sure which way to lean with Cassel or Moore, since the fans love Moore but Cassel wowed them since it's like they got the first-round draft pick Fox traded away for Everett Brown in the '09 draft. 

The Chiefs come out of the gates firing on all cylinders on defense, and Peppers is happy and playing in the scheme he wants so he's more productive than he had been, on par with the end of '09. The Chiefs' D allows them to win a few games they couldn't finish in '09, and they are highly competitive for the AFC West with the slow-starting Chargers and sputtering Broncos through Week Six. 

Cassel got the nod in Carolina and even after a few less-than-stellar performances by Cassel, but game-saving performances by the defense and two-headed monster at running back with Stewart and Williams, the Panthers are hanging right in the thick of the NFC South hunt. The Saints have them by a game and the Falcons are tied for second, while Tampa Bay continues to be Tampa Bay.

In a move he would never make with Delhomme, Fox calls for a quarterback change after another less-than-stellar Cassel outing, and Moore gets the call again. Moore comes out like a house on fire and goes on a division-clinching tear to end the season and propels the Panthers into the playoffs.

While in Kansas City, the rebounding Chargers clinch their fifth straight AFC West Championship, but the Chiefs are kept alive by a late-season slump by the Broncos to get second and clinch a wild card when Cleveland upsets Baltimore, knocking the Ravens out of the playoffs.

So who wins? Who loses?

Either way, that's just an out-of-this-world prediction on what could happen if Weis has some kind of influence in Kansas City, and how Kansas City could change the NFL in 2010.