AFC West: Termoil Runs Through It

The Kansas City Chiefs are building a new organization from the top down.

Scott Pioli was the first big hire by the Chiefs,Todd Haley was the second and acquiring Matt Cassel was the third. The talent in Kansas City still isn't very good but the future is looking bright with the moves made by the organization to improve its overall well-being.

The Chiefs should improve on their two-win season from a year ago anywhere from one to four games. The absolute best the Chiefs can hope for is for a nine win season.

To make a nine-win season happen, the Chiefs would need to beat every team with a losing record on their schedule. Young teams without a history of winning always seem to find ways to lose games they should win rather than make the play to win them. 

They play five playoff teams during their '09 campaign which could equal six blow out losses (they play the Chargers twice). The Chargers are the only playoff team from the AFC West. San Diego won five-of-six games to end their season last year, so they have momentum coming into this year.

The Chiefs will need to beat up on the other two conference opponents: the Oakland Raiders, who can't seem to get rid of Al Davis soon enough; the Denver Broncos, who lost their franchise quarterback, Jay Cutler, because of the idiocy of new head coach Josh McDaniels who seems to be tearing a good franchise down with stupid personnel decisions.

The Chiefs only converted 82 of 214 third downs into first downs last season while their opponents converted 100 of 211. The offense couldn't sustain drives and stay on the field and the defense couldn't get the opponents offense off of the field.

Tony Gonzalez is now gone as well. Of those third down conversions, Gonzalez had the majority. Does that number now drop in his absence? The team was already terrible on third down. How do they remedy that problem?

The Chiefs do have Dwayne Bowe still but they are still missing a legit second receiver. Matt Cassel had receivers Randy Moss and Wes Welker with Ben Watson at tightend. Dwayne Bowe is good, but he's no Randy Moss. Mark Bradley and Devard Darling combined don't have the numbers of Wes Welker. Ben Watson, at this point, has no comparison to the anything the Chiefs have.

Matt Cassel can't be as effective as he was last season. The talent around him is not as good, he misses a ton of five-yard check down passes. Though he improved immensely, I'm still not sold that he is a top-notch NFL franchise quarterback. There are always one hit wonders in the league. He could be one of them.

The Chiefs still have Larry Johnson....It is time to cut ties. Johnson signed a huge contract two years ago and has done nothing but cause problems since. He's been suspended, been to court, asked for a trade, been hurt, whined and complained about not getting the ball and has struggled getting tough yards with a bad offensive line. Let him go, insert the speedy Jamaal Charles in the starting lineup, see what happens. At the very least, problems in the locker room will be cut in half.

The Kansas City Chiefs' defense was 28th against the pass, 30th against the run and 31st in the NFL overall. Terrible is the only word to describe the inept way the Chiefs played on the defensive side of the ball.

Bernard Pollard, the starting strong safety for the Chiefs, is the perfect example of how bad the Chiefs were. Pollard led the team in tackles with 98 on the season. Defensive backs should never lead a team in tackles. If they do, it's because running backs are getting past the lineman and linebackers, reaching the third level of the defense which is five-to-eight yards down field.

If backs are averaging five to eight yards a carry against the opponent, they wouldn't have to throw a pass the entire game to score yet teams do. Pollard, despite playing the entire season, only had one pass defended and one interception. He's giving up catches all over the field and making tackles for bad lineman and linebackers. 

Bad defense= losses. Period.

The most telling stat of the combination of bad coaching and bad players is their scoring by quarter:

TEAM     1st  2nd  3rd  4th

Chiefs     68  104   33   88

Opp.       77  141   106 113

The third quarter, right after halftime, where most coaches make adjustments, was the worst quarter for the Chiefs. That directly relates to the coaches' inability to make the correct adjustments for the team to succeed. They were out of every game by the end of the third quarter. That is bad coaching. Bad players refers to the fact that they did not score more points in any quarter in the '08 season.

If the Chiefs hope to improve, they need to improve on defense, Matt Cassel needs to show he deserves a six-year deal and new coach Todd Haley will have to make the right halftime adjustments.

The AFC West is going to be on the down-slope in '09 so the door is open for another team to sneak up to the top and challenge the Chargers for supremacy in the division.

The Raiders have been terrible for almost a decade because Al Davis always screws up the draft, going for straight line speed instead of pure talent. The Raiders drafted Darrius Heyward-Bey with their first pick and took a guy with a fast forty time out of the Ohio...That's right Ohio. Not Ohio State in the second. Both picks were huge stretches at their spots. Oakland has become an embarrassment to the league.

Denver is starting to become the new Raiders. Josh McDaniels has single-handedly torn down a good organization and made it a three ring circus. They drafted knowshon Moreno with their first pick. It was also a head scratcher.

They need defense and a quarterback to take the place of the Pro Bowl quarterback they used to have because McDaniels tried to trade him for one-hit-wonder Matt Cassel. I know Cassel knows the system, but to trade a Pro Bowl guy for a guy that has played one season since high school is crazy! They're going downhill, no doubt!

That leaves the mighty Chargers. The Chargers have been a solid team for the last five years. They have talent everywhere, but the defense was a weak weak spot. Shawn Merriman missed the season due to a knee injury and as a result the Chargers had no pass rush. The Chargers had been consistently in the top of the NFL in sacks and total defense until '08. Merriman comes back this year so the Chargers will be good again.

It may be hard for the Chiefs to win the division and overtake the Chargers but second in the division is a distinct possibility.