Will Pioli, Haley and Cassel be the "Perfect Storm" for the Kansas City Chiefs?

Is a Perfect Storm circling over Kansas City? Well, if you are a Chiefs’ fan, you are hoping that the storm not only hovers, but makes landfall as well.
In the upcoming season, Kansas City will experience a triple force: a new general manager, a new head coach, and a new franchise quarterback. For many experts, a change in one of these positions sends up a red flag, but we at PossessionPoints.com , think that this triple whammy may spark the beginning of a new and dynamic Chiefs’ team.

It is true that only Matt Cassel has actual experience in his new job. As starting quarterback for the New England Patriots, Cassel proved his physical and mental prowess when he stepped in for Tom Brady last season.

Scott Pioli has a great deal of experience in the front offices around the league including stints in Cleveland, Baltimore and New York, but this is his first GM position. With that said, Pioli was a key factor in building the Patriots into the dominating force that ruled the NFL in recent years.

Although new to head coaching, Todd Haley has paid his dues in the coaching world holding positions with the Bears, Jets, Cowboys and Cardinals. Haley was instrumental in all teams making the playoffs while he was with them. His most recent success came as offensive coordinator for the Cardinals who, as we all know, got to the Super Bowl.

Why do we bring this all up? Because we love historical parallels, and we try to learn from them. In 2008, the Dolphins also made the risky triple change when they brought in Bill Parcells as head of football operations, Tony Sparano as head coach, and Chad Pennington as starting QB.

When we did our Preseason Preview issue for the 2008 season, we adjusted our estimated performance of the Dolphins up by 10 percent which is generous for us, but not outlandish. The result of this 10 percent was that we still expected Miami to have another losing record.

However, in our 2008 Preseason Preview we also said; “Actually, the computer does give hope if the Dolphins can improve their performance 15 percent more on offense and defense. If we up their improvement to 25 percent in each category, their projected record actually vaults all the way to 10-6. Could the Dolphins be a team -- we color “Red” -- that makes the playoffs?”

We didn’t expect the Dolphins would improve on both offense and defense by 25 percent. That is an exceptional improvement. Truth be told, Miami improved by 30 percent on offense and 28% on defense, and as you know they went 11-5 and made the playoffs. In hindsight, maybe we should not have been so stingy with our upwards adjustment. We didn’t take the arrival of their “perfect storm” as seriously as we should have.

The parallels between the 2008 Dolphins and 2009 Chiefs do not end with their personnel changes. For example, there is the non-football coincidence in that Bill Parcells is Scott Pioli’s father-in-law. (Can you imagine the holiday dinners in that family? We’re guessing football is a big part of that table conversation.) Although this is an unscientific statement to make, we think that some of Bill Parcells’ magic has to rub off on Pioli.

There are other more technical parallels as well. The 2007 Dolphins ranked 20th in PossessionPoints offense with a 79 (the higher the number the better). The 2008 Chiefs ranked 24th in PossessionPoints offense with an 83. This is very close statistically.

The 2007 Dolphins ranked 32nd in PossessionPoints defense with a 122 (the lower the number the better) while the 2008 Chiefs ranked 29th in PossessionPoints defense with a122.

To give you an idea of the significance of the number range, the 2007 Patriots were the best PossessionPoints offense in the last two seasons with a value of 163 (about double the Dolphins / Chiefs number), so both teams would need to improve by 100 percent to get to the Pats’ level. The 2008 Ravens were the best defense in the last two seasons with a value of 54 which is less than half of the value posted by the Dolphins and Chiefs in 2007 and 2008.

Well, no one owns the crystal ball that says for sure that the Chiefs will transform themselves into a playoff team just as the Dolphins did. However, history can and often does repeat itself, and that perfect storm that landed in Miami in 2008, could very well be making its way to Kansas City this year.