Keyshawn Defends Chiefs Coach Haley

I get that there are still Cassel skeptics, but I’m not one of them. We’ve seen what he does when he’s given time. He makes plays. He’s given us at least 3 clutch performances that either won the game for us (PIT), took us into over time (PIT, DAL), or gave us the lead and relied on the defense to finish the game (OAK). He’s shown the characteristics required to be a leader. Physical and mental toughness shows in his ability to peel himself off the ground after being sacked or hit time after time. He doesn’t let turnovers get to him. I like how he’s not throwing a lot of picks, and when he does turn the ball over (like against PIT) he doesn’t let it phase him. He bounces back.

I never expected Cassel to be a Brady or a Manning. The most we can legitimately hope for is a Trent Green, IMO. Look what he did in NE with a good overall team around him. He helped that team reach an 11-5 season. I like the guy. He’s been a constant leader in this crap season.

Cassel won’t be a flop, but he won’t be crazy great either. I expect a top 10 (probably around 7-10) once he has legitimate tools around him.

I agree that Herm Edwards was too soft. Players didn’t respect him and they didn’t play for him. Thing is that putting a guy who gets in everyone’s grill and screams doesn’t automatically make that person a good football coach either. There’s a lot more to head coaching then personality…there’s the ability to build and manage a coaching staff, to effectively delegate authority, to manage a team on gameday, to make effective use of both “carrots” and “sticks” when motivating players to perform. Haley, from what I’ve seen, is pretty weak at all of those things.

A lot of times, when a team fails under one type of leader, the knee-jerk response is to go and find a guy with a completely different personality to run the team in order to “shake things up”. This is often a mistake, because it’s often just superficial change and unless it’s accompanied by improved coaching ability it doesn’t usually lead to any improvement in the team’s performance or direction. So when I see people laud Haley as an improvement because he’s a “disciplinarian”, I usually just think “If he’s so effective, then where’s the improvement in performance?” So far I haven’t seen anything to indicate that as a coach he’s any better than Herm Edwards was.

And if he shows results, I’ll eventually hop off the bandwagon. But I don’t think he’ll ever show results. I don’t think he realizes just how bad of a job he’s actually doing.

I think it’s very fair to say that the media wants to stir the shit because they think they need to in order to sell papers. So, what are they going to show us? Haley yelling or whatever. They have no incentive to show the other side. Of him encouraging players or coaching players, which you can occasionally see during the games when the tv accidentally shows it. The rest of this kind of behavior would occur in practice or locker room where the access doesn’t exist. So, can I prove he does these things? No. Nor can you prove otherwise. But, I am quite certain that he does these things. He could not be successful if he didn’t. And, he has been successful as position coach and coordinator and I think he will be here as well.

I don’t expect anyone else to hop on the bandwagon this early. But honestly, I just see a guy that doesn’t do a lot of his job very well, who seems way in over his head, and who I doubt players are going to care about winning for and I think KC could do better.