Post your opinions... after two more posts... it's a long article...

[hermhater]

JOE POSNANSKI COMMENTARY

Chiefs don’t have green thumb when it comes to growing their own QBs

JOE POSNANSKI COMMENTARY


Today was going to be the big day. Finally. Today, after so many years of messing around with every geriatric, shuffleboard-playing, used-up old quarterback they could find, the Kansas City Chiefs were going to start a young quarterback, their very own quarterback, Brodie Croyle. Finally.
Look: Everything is aligned. The Chiefs are playing at home. They are playing a Cincinnati Bengals defense that, with all due respect, has not stopped anybody. The Chiefs’ offense is not just in need of a spark, it is in need of the electric paddles. Kansas City has scored 63 points all year, the lowest total in the conference. Meanwhile, quarterback emeritus Damon Huard was bruised and battered in the last game and had to be pulled before the end.
Yes, this was the time. Today was going to be the day. Finally.
And then, suddenly, it wasn’t the day.
“Damon Huard will start,” Chiefs coach Herm Edwards announced early in the week. When asked why, he said it was because Huard seemed to be healthy. But that did not answer the larger question: Why?
As in: “Why have the Chiefs never in their history drafted and developed a successful quarterback?”
As in: “Why is it that in the long era of president/general manager/CEO Carl Peterson, no Chiefs draft pick has started even a single game at quarterback?”
As in: “Why are the Chiefs, who have not won a single playoff game in a dozen years and have barely shown an offensive pulse this year, so scared to go with a quarterback who was born after Ronald Reagan became president?”
One thing is clear. Today, when Damon Huard starts, the Kansas City Chiefs will continue one of the most amazing streaks in the history of the National Football League. This game will mark the 323rd consecutive game that the Chiefs will start a quarterback they did not draft. Think about that. The last time a Chiefs’ draft pick started a regular season NFL game was early in the doomed 1987 season, when Todd Blackledge started at Seattle.
Brodie Croyle was 4 years old.
•••
One good thing about the Chiefs’ bizarre quarterback history is that it leads to some absolutely stunning bits of trivia. Here are a few for your Sunday morning enjoyment:
•Before Brodie Croyle, the last Chiefs draft pick to complete a single pass was — tight end Tony Gonzalez, who threw a 40-yarder in 2001.
•The most successful drafted quarterback of the entire Peterson era is actually a receiver, Danan Hughes, who completed both his pass attempts for 55 yards. This is more yardage than draft picks Mike Elkins, Matt Blundin, Pat Barnes, Steve Matthews and James Killian had combined for the Chiefs.
•The Chiefs have not started a quarterback this millennium who was younger than 30.
•The last Chiefs-drafted quarterback to start the majority of games in a season was Steve Fuller in 1980.
•People tend to think of first-round pick Blackledge as a bust — and certainly he was the mutt of that 1983 NFL draft that included Dan Marino and John Elway — but he actually has the best winning percentage of any quarterback ever drafted by the Chiefs (he went 13-11). No other Chiefs draft pick has a winning record.
•••
So back to the bigger question: Why has it been this way? Why have the Chiefs never in their history managed to develop even a single winning quarterback?
Well, you probably don’t want to go all the way back to the 1970s, just after Len Dawson retired (Dawson, incidentally, was drafted by Pittsburgh). No, let’s focus for now on the Peterson time, because the Chiefs’ refusal to start Croyle this week — even with 34-year-old, lifelong backup Damon Huard beat up — suggests that there’s an addiction going on. The Chiefs are addicted to aging, veteran quarterbacks.

http://www.kansascity.com/sports/chi...ry/316419.html

[hermhater]

We need an intervention.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, most people seemed to think that the Chiefs were going with these creaky veterans (Steve DeBerg, Ron Jaworski, Dave Krieg, Joe Montana, Steve Bono, Rich Gannon, etc.) because of coach Marty Schottenheimer. The sense was that Schottenheimer wanted a quarterback he could count on, someone who had seen it all, a steadying influence, all that. The sense was that he could not trust a young quarterback.
But you know what? Schottenheimer’s history as a coach in other cities tells a very different story. In Cleveland, he started 22-year-old Bernie Kosar at quarterback and went to two AFC championship games. In San Diego, he started 23-year-old Drew Brees and then, just a few years later, went with 25-year-old Philip Rivers. The simple truth is that Schottenheimer has, throughout his career, looked for a talented young quarterback to build around.
Except in Kansas City.
So what does this tell you? Well, it says that Carl Peterson is the true architect of the Chiefs’ bizarre strategy of going from one veteran quarterback to the next, year after year, decade after decade. In his 19 drafts, Peterson has never taken a quarterback in the first round. Not once. He has not taken a quarterback in the second round in 15 years. He has only once taken a quarterback in the third round, and that’s Croyle. Meanwhile, Peterson has brought in a whole slew of declining starters or NFL backup quarterback like those mentioned above — and also Trent Green, Warren Moon, Elvis Grbac, Todd Collins and, yeah, Damon Huard. It’s a pretty clear pattern.
This, I believe, gets to the heart of how Peterson believes you win football games. For him, it comes down to making fewer mistakes than the other team. It comes down to winning your home games, stealing a few on the road, and putting yourself in position to make the playoffs. It comes down to having a dependable quarterback who has been through the wars and won’t try anything rash or absurd.
To sum up, I think it comes down to fear of the unknown. Peterson is a conservative man who, like most successful businessmen, needs to feel in control of his surroundings. He does not like change. He does not like what he sees as unnecessary risk. And he does not like the idea of handing the keys to his franchise over to some kid quarterback who might throw the ball into quadruple coverage with the game on the line.
The interesting thing is Peterson now has a coach in Herm Edwards who sees things very differently. Edwards’ success took off in New York when he went with a young quarterback, Chad Pennington. So Edwards believes in youth. It was Edwards who determined that the Chiefs needed to move on from 37-year-old Trent Green (Peterson, to the end, seemed to think that Green was the best option for this season). It was Edwards who desperately wanted to start Croyle as this season began (Croyle’s preseason struggles convinced him that it was too soon).
And now it is Edwards who drops constant hints, week after week, that he is about ready to make the big move to Croyle. He’s about ready. He’s close to pulling the trigger. He’s really close. Something is holding him back, though.
•••
Here are a few more trivia bits about Chiefs-drafted quarterbacks:
•The Chiefs, in their history, have drafted three quarterbacks in the first round: Pete Beathard (1964 AFL Draft), Steve Fuller (1979) and Blackledge (1983). Combined, the three started 67 games — barely more than four seasons — and went 27-40.

[hermhater]

•Only one quarterback drafted by the Chiefs has started a playoff game for them. That is Blackledge, who started one in 1986.
•Mike Livingston, a second-round pick out of SMU in 1968, threw for more than 11,000 yards with the Chiefs. This is more than twice as many yards as any other Chiefs draft pick.
•From 1989-2006 — until Brodie Croyle — Carl Peterson draft picks completed a grand total of five passes. That would be two by Hughes, two by Matt Blundin, one by Gonzalez.
•••
You more than get the point by now. The Chiefs under Peterson have kept borrowing and stealing old quarterbacks from other teams, year after year, in the hope that they would play smart and give the Chiefs the best chance to win.
And it is possible to win a Super Bowl with a borrowed quarterback. It has happened a handful of times, most recently when Brad Johnson led Tampa Bay to victory in the 2002 season. There are other examples. Trent Dilfer won a Super Bowl in Baltimore. Doug Williams won a Super Bowl in Washington.
But as you can see, there haven’t been many. Teams that win it all, most of the time, are teams that develop their own quarterback. Teams that are Super Bowl contenders year after year are, almost without exception, led by their own quarterback.
So how do you develop one of these young quarterbacks? Nobody says it’s easy. The franchise quarterbacks are usually very high draft picks — Peyton Manning was the first pick overall, so was John Elway, so was Troy Aikman, so was today’s opponent Carson Palmer — and the Chiefs have not had many high draft picks the last 20 years.
But not all the great quarterbacks are out of reach. You also have to let go and take a chance. Joe Montana was a third-round pick. New England’s Tom Brady was a sixth-round pick. Dallas’ Tony Romo was not even drafted. Brett Favre was a second-round pick and he was traded away after one year. Kurt Warner stocked groceries at Hy-Vee.
Nobody knows if Brodie Croyle is the answer. But this is exactly the point: Nobody knows. Croyle has a freakishly strong arm. He has a gunslinger’s mentality. He has made some fabulous throws. He has also made some terrible throws and shown questionable judgment. But all of that was in the preseason.
And none of that matters. People around the NFL will tell you that until you play him in real games, under real pressure, with real wins and losses at stake, nobody will know what Croyle is all about. The Chiefs know that they will have to find out sooner or later.
“Brodie is our future, I think we all understand that,” Edwards says. “The question we have to answer is: When does the future begin?”
The answer, apparently, inexplicably is: Not this week.

[rbedgood]

Very good points backed up solidly by stats and history. Great article...

[hermhater]

Very good points backed up solidly by stats and history. Great article...

I thought he hit on a few key points here.

Seems we need to get rid of Carl, or do you think there might be a riff growing between HERM and the King?

[rbedgood]

I have a feeling that Herm would go before the King in that case. I don't think Herm is a great coach, but no coach can thrive in an environment where the owner and/or GM is telling him how to set the depth chart and/or what system to run on offense/defense.

[hermhater]

I thought he hit on a few key points here.

Seems we need to get rid of Carl, or do you think there might be a riff growing between HERM and the King?

I have a feeling that Herm would go before the King in that case. I don't think Herm is a great coach, but no coach can thrive in an environment where the owner and/or GM is telling him how to set the depth chart and/or what system to run on offense/defense.

We have a new owner now...

The old owners son, but still...

[rbedgood]

I wasn't suggesting that your owner was the problem...I was referring to the example that a coach who isn't given the ability to run the team on the field is hampered...in your case it is the GM, I was referring to Dallas/Oakland/Washington when stating teams with interfering owners.

[hermhater]

I wasn't suggesting that your owner was the problem...I was referring to the example that a coach who isn't given the ability to run the team on the field is hampered...in your case it is the GM, I was referring to Dallas/Oakland/Washington when stating teams with interfering owners.

I meant THIS owner might actually fire Carl, not that he interfered.

My bad.

[rbedgood]

Good luck with that...