I’ve been wondering this myself for quite a while. Excuse my ignorance but could someone give a brief explanation of what the CEO, GM, and Prez do?

What exactly would make Marty such a great GM? If he was in a position of power like that what’s to say that he wouldn’t carry over some of his “Martyball” tendencies to the job? And if he did would that be a good thing or not?

I wouldn’t mind keeping Carl on at all if he’s in a position that doesn’t deal with the players (choice on cuts/acquisitions, contract negotiations). Seems like he’s got a great business mind, just a crappy football mind.

I don’t mind Herm as the head coach. We could probably do better (someone more a little more aggressive maybe) but I love his youth movement and talent evaluation for the most part. If Hermie wasn’t head coach I’d love to keep him on in some personnel related way (along with Billy K).

Even with my non-hatred of Herm, I’d be ecstatic to hear that Cowher was the new head coach.

I think those four men, positioned correctly within the organization, could be a powerful and dangerous force to the league. THAT would be a front office to be proud of!

Finally, what’s the latest on Cowher and Marty? Chiefs fans always bring up these two but do either one of them even want to return to football? If so, in what capacity? And for us?

First, I’m going to go on record as saying that I do not believe Marty Schottenheimer would be a good general manager. A good coach, sure…a decent judge of player talent, absolutely…but does anyone else remember the latter years of the Schottenheimer era, when he was basically given free reign and it blew up in the team’s face. Or how about his exit from San Diego…he lost all of his assistants, which wasn’t his fault, and he was looking to replace them with relatives and cronies…including his brother Kurt who’s done nothing to demonstrate that he was ever anything more than a capable special teams coach (but Marty wanted to make him defensive coordinator). If we brought back Marty as a coach, I’d be fine with it…he’s a top-notch leader out there. But as a GM I suspect we’d see the worst of Marty because the job requires him to do things that he’s not worst at…selecting the people who run the team based on merit rather than on whether they like him.

As for keeping Carl, I don’t know the guy personally of course so I could be wrong, but he’s always struck me as the classic Type-A personality. And Type-A personalities don’t tend to do well with demotion or losing power. The guy’s been in charge for 20 years, and when we hire a new GM the last thing we need is the old GM there hanging over his shoulder (which is exactly how it will be perceived by the people the team interviews…meaning we’ll be handicapped in our search for the best candidate). If Peterson’s out, he should be out. That’s not meant to humiliate Peterson, that’s meant to tell the new GM that it’s his team to run, not Carl’s by proxy.

As for Cowher, I don’t buy that he’s coming here if he’s back in the NFL. Frankly, I suspect with the way that the Steelers struggled last year, if there’s anyplace that Cowher ends up it’ll be Pittsburgh again to replace Tomlin unless he advances far into the playoffs this year. Assuming he wants to come back at all. So far, he seems to be happy not sitting on the sideline anymore.

But as a GM I suspect we’d see the worst of Marty because the job requires him to do things that he’s not best at

I favor Peterson remaining in the fold somehow but there is not really a reason…anyone could do the CEO and Prez job that has the proper credentials….there is nothing about him that is all that important in that job…so it is kinda pointless…and too risky that he returns to control personnel decisions…

Marty himself I think has stated that he is not meant to a GM…I read I think in the book about Ernie Accorsi “GM” that when they were together in Cleveland that they had both decided he was not meant for that type of job…

Cowher has certainly not ruled out a return and I see it very very unlikely that he would return to the Steelers…In fact it was reported last year that he had said if he was to return he would want it to be to Cleveland or KC…I think he would be wonderful coach and all that…he has his group of coaches he would surely bring in and it might be a season or two, but he would get us changed over to a 3-4 surely and we would see something fresh in KC…..

… about keeping Carl around would weaken the new GM. However, I was in SD when the Marty / AJ Smith powerplay happened. It looked like Marty was forcing Smith’s hand when he insisted on hiring Kurt as the DC. (At least that was what the local media kept telling us) If you remember, that was right before he got fired.

And by the way, the best memory I have of last season was when I was at the Chiefs / Chargers game in San Diego, when Bowe hit that slant and scored the touchdown. That was a great day….