What if Herm still coached the Chiefs?

            So as the days, weeks, and games tick off this latest disastrous Chiefs’ season many people have been wondering if anything could have been done to prevent what has come for the Chiefs.  I have heard many different solutions to fix the scores of problems with the current installment of our hometown football team.  There was one solution that perked my interest and got me thinking more and more.  I think the way the Chiefs could of prevented the ills that have fallen upon them this season would have been to keep Herm Edwards as head coach of the team for one more season which I think rolls into another discussion that has been taking place:  Which team is better?  The 2008 Chiefs or the 2009 Chiefs?  The statement about keeping Herm Edwards really got me thinking about what this team would look like if Herm Edwards were retained.  The main reason people think Herm should have stayed Chiefs head coach for one more year is centered on the idea that Scott Pioli would be able to fire Herm after a bad season and then go hire one of the many big name Super Bowl winning head coaches who would be looking for a new gig after sitting out for a while.  This is good in theory but there are some holes in it as well, which I will get to later.  But for now lets look at your 2009 Kansas City Chiefs under the direction of Scott Pioli and coached by Herm Edwards.

If I were Scott Pioli I would have first extended Herm’s contract for one year.  For those who may not remember, Herm would have been in the last year of a four-year contract.  Me, personally, I would have extended him simply because I do not like the idea of a lame duck head coach.  If you are serious about giving your head coach a chance to win and showing support to the team that you in fact support him then I think you have to avoid a lame duck situation.  Now that being said I am not Scott Pioli and I could seem him telling Herm that he gets one year to do something with this team and that at the end of the year they would talk about an extension, which I would not have a problem with at all.  A lot of people were hoping that would have been the approach he took with Matt Cassel and his contract. 

So in this scenario, Scott Pioli, the crown jewel of GM candidates is running the Kansas City Chiefs, he keeps Herm Edwards and now its time to prepare for the draft.  Here is where things get really fun.  I think that the 2009 Herm Chiefs roster would look a lot different and be a lot more talented then the current incarnation.  The most talented player that would still be on the Chiefs would be Tony Gonzalez, the future Hall Of Fame tight end and outstanding player in both on field play and off field preparation.  He would be one more offense weapon on this team that has struggled the entire season.  A move that would not have happened would be the trading of the second round pick for Mike Vrabel and Matt Cassel.  I know Mike Vrabel would have been very happy to stay in New England because that man has been constantly ****** off since being traded to this horrible team back in February.  I’ve heard insight that the Chiefs would have brought in a veteran free agent quarterback to compete with Brodie Croyle and Tyler Thigpen for the starting spot.  Looking at the free agent QBs past off-season I cherry-picked the best veteran QB and honestly, the one that would have most likely come to KC is Jeff Garcia.  The man signed with the Oakland Raiders this past off-season and that had to compete with JaMarcus Russell, which wasn’t a fair competition at all.  So the Chiefs sign the veteran QB and keep the Hall Of Fame tight end.  So now the Chiefs look forward to the draft.  But before the draft I must mention one event that would have been different.  If Herm were still the coach Brian Waters would still be coming on The Program with Soren Petro every week and talking to the media in the town.  There would have never had been an incident with the phrase, “I can get 22 guys off the street and win two games!” being said to the team captain/team spokesman.  For some people I know they are probably glad that Brian Waters finally shut his trap and were tired of his constant talking.  I have been very disappointed in Waters’ actions since the “incident” with Todd Haley.  It should not of been uttered and Waters actions since then have also not been warranted.  But on that same level many other players in the locker would be talking to the media - Branden Albert and Tamba Hali being two of them. 

Now back to the matter at hand.  The Chiefs now focus on the NFL Draft with the number 3 overall pick and the third pick in the second round as well.  So we know the Chiefs are not going to take a QB with the 3^rd overall pick.  And they are not going to take a Defensive End who is the “Prototype” for the 3-4 Defense in Tyson Jackson.  From the people I talked to in and around the organization the place the Chiefs would have looked is offensive line.  So looking at where the Chiefs picked and which offensive tackles were out there, let’s say the Chiefs take Eugene Monroe, who the Jacksonville Jaguars took 8^th, two picks after Andre Smith, a Tackle from Alabama who was taken by the Bengals.  I don’t know if you could accuse me of cherry-picking here because it isn’t like Eugene Monroe has been setting the world ablaze or anything.  I think Monroe has been better by default.  So your starting tackles for the Chiefs are Brandon Albert and Eugene Monroe.  I think that is a very great place to starting building/rebuilding a team.  Now let’s look at that second round pick that the Chiefs didn’t trade for Cassel and Vrabel.  Now I am not sure who the Herm Edwards Chiefs would have selected here but I know I would have taken James Laurintaitis, linebacker from Ohio State who the Rams took one pick after the Chiefs’ original pick, and who is the son of Road Warrior Animal of the WWF.  I have been a fan of his for a while and you have to love the fact that he is the son of Road Warrior Animal…that alone makes him awesome in my book.  So the Chiefs draft Eugene Monroe in the 1^st round and James Laurintaitis in the 2^nd round and seem to be in pretty good shape at those positions for the next few years. 

Now that the draft is taken care of let’s look at the other new and old faces that would be on this Chiefs team if Herm were still around.  The guy that has been getting the most run this season after being cut from the Chiefs has been safety Bernard Pollard.  There were a lot of people in town who were glad to see Pollard go after reliving numerous games where he was burned for deep pass plays and went for big hits instead of sure tackles.  And many people thought he was out of position and would be better playing linebacker (many people being myself and Jason Anderson.)  So Pioli and Haley don’t like the way Pollard plays or the way he talks too much and they cut him.  Pollard sits out there for a few weeks before being picked up by the Houston Texans.  I am amazed at how long it took before a team picked him up.  ****, Turk McBride, another Chiefs draft pick that Pioli and Haley cut, got picked up by the Lions in a heartbeat.  Then word surfaces, from Pollard during an interview with the Border Patrol, that the current Chiefs brain trust black balled him around the league.  And it took a call from Herm Edwards himself to get a shot with any team.  All he has done with that team is have 3 interceptions and 71 tackles for a team that is fighting for a playoff spot in the same division as the Colts and the Titans.  But he was not good enough to play on this Chiefs team.  So Pollard would still be on the team if Herm were still coach.  Two more players who would still be on this team would be Turk McBride and Alfonso Boone.  Now Turk McBride isn’t lighting the world on fire but he is playing in the league.  And Alfonso Boone is starting for a playoff bound and one of the hottest teams in the league, the San Diego Chargers. 

So that makes it where the Herm Edwards Chiefs would still have Tony Gonzalez, Bernard Pollard, Alfonso Boone, Turk McBride, Jeff Garcia, Eugene Monroe, and James Laurinaitis.  And the team would be playing a 4-3 instead of a 3-4.  Also, that means the Herm Edwards Chiefs wouldn’t have Matt Cassel, Mike Vrabel, Mike Brown, Lance Long, Leonard Pope, Sean Ryan, Ryan O’Callaghan, Ike Ndukwe, and Andy Alleman.  Something else that would have happened if Herm were still the coach is that Derrick Johnson would have been starting at LB from the beginning of the season and relegated to being a 3^rd down linebacker.  Also, Gunther Cunningham would not have been retained as defensive cooridinator and that would have vastly improved the play on that side of the ball.  Herm and Gunther were pulling in opposite directions and were not on the same page on what defensive philosophy to employ.  Some of the players were left clueless on what their assignments were during the course of a game.  Now that we looked at how the defense would have been on the Herm Chiefs, could the same be said about the offensive side of the ball?  We all know Chan Gailey would have still been the offensive coordinator of the team.  I guarantee he would not have been fired a week before the regular season began.  So now you have continuity on the offensive coaching staff. 

Something else Herm would not have done would be demand the entire team to cut as much weight as they did.  Todd Haley made all the players lose a certain amount of weight before training camp.  And look what that brought the team.  It got Dwayne Bowe suspended for four games.  If the Bowe Show did use a diuretic to simply cut weight and not to mask steroid use, then he would have played every game for the Chiefs this year.  The same can be said for Branden Albert and his struggles this season.  Soren asked Todd Haley at training camp why he thought it was important for the OL to be at a lighter weight and the benefits of such.  Haley said that a lot of bigger linemen tend to rely on their weight in the 4^th quarter and lose technique and he wanted them to be quicker and rely on technique more than anything.  I say who cares how they block in the 4^th quarter as long as they can get it done when it counts - but hey that’s just me.  So Branden Albert is told to lose weight and is now playing worse than he did last year.  Let me remind you he missed a lot of training camp last year with an injury and stepped into the starting line up at New England and played well then and for the rest of the season.  He was being talked about as a potential cornerstone for the team, maybe a Pro-Bowler at some point in the future.  Now when you ask people about Albert they moan and groan and say maybe he would be better at right tackle or even move him to guard where he played in college.  I have heard excuses that it could be a sophomore slump.  I lean toward the idea that the biggest jump a player makes in his career is from rookie year to sophomore.  And all he has done is regress.  Would this happen under the coaching of Herm and Chan?  Did Chan know what he had in Albert and how to scheme around the deficiencies he has and how to make him be productive?  The current coaching staff has not been able to do that at all. 

So let’s recap on this a bit.  The Herm Chiefs would have Jeff Garcia scrambling around and throwing passes to Tony G and Dwayne Bowe, Monroe and Albert at tackles and Jamaal Charles in the backfield.  There’d be a 4-3 defensive with Dorsey and Edwards in the middle and Hali and McBride on the ends (in a perfect world Chris Canty would be signed).  Linebackers would be Derrick Johnson, James Laurinaities, and maybe Andy Studebaker would start, or God forbid they would have signed one in free agency.  The secondary would be Flowers, Carr, Pollard, and Page with McGraw and Morgan, and Leggett being backups.  Not too bad of a team, if you ask me.  There has been one person who I have not mentioned yet on whether or not he would have still been on the team and that is Larry Johnson.  Herm came to town and gave Larry the keys to the car and didn’t think twice.  So that made me think he might have kept him around.  But, he also deactivated him last season and seemed to be souring on him a lot.  So I am going to say the Herm Chiefs cut LJ pretty early and we get to see what Jamaal Charles has from the start of the season instead of farting around with having him deactivated one week and returning all the kicks the next.  Once again, I’d say it’s a pretty good-looking team on paper.  Which now launches me into one of the biggest factors in retaining Herm Edwards for one more year…

What if Herm was here one more year and won with this team?  And not just won like going 6-10, but like won 8 or 9 games?  ****, what if the ball bounced all the right ways, the opposite of last year, and they win 10 games and take the division?  What do you do then?  Can you fire a coach who took a 2-12 team and won the division?  It could happen and did for many teams last year (Miami, Atlanta, and Baltimore.)  So now your grand plan of letting Herm take the bullet for a crappy team and firing him to get your Super Bowl winning coach have now gone down the toilet quicker than Lindsay Lohan’s sex appeal.  Now Herm wins the AFC west and loses in the divisional round of the playoffs, all while being in the last year of his contract because you did not extend him before the year.  Now you extend his contract for 2-3 years at more than $5 million a year (he gets a raise for making playoffs and winning a game.) Then the team falls apart much like Herm’s Jets did his final year there.  Now you have to fire him after going 3-13 and winning the division and there are not any Super Bowl winning head coaches to hire out there this time. 

Do I think the Chiefs and Pioli should have kept Herm?  No, not at all.  I think once you lose or question whether or not he can lead you/win you a championship, once that doubt creeps in your mind for more than just a few fleeting moments then you have to make the move.  So I am with Pioli on that one.  But waiting as long as he did to fire Herm then hire a new coach is what really bit him in the ***.  If he knew what his move was all along why didn’t he make his move and make it quickly?  So who is better?  The 2008 Herm Edwards Chiefs or the 2009 Todd Haley Chiefs?  The more intriguing question is - how good would the 2009 Herm Edwards Chiefs have been?

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