Chiefs GM Pioli Says Players, Coaching Staff Improved Preparation

Kansas City Chiefs GM Scott Pioli was asked Wednesday night on the Chiefs Fan Forum what the team had done well in 2009, or where they had improved.

He named three: Preparation, accountability and work habits.

The Chiefs, Pioli says, got better as the season went on in terms of work habits and preparing your body for the grind. There is a slight improvement that supports this as the Chiefs won just one game in the first half of the season but three in the second half.

"We harped on preparation and what you’re trying to do with players is prepare them, teach them how to prepare," he said. "This team, when we got here, didn’t seem like a group of people that really knew how to prepare and they embraced it. They embraced it in the off-season program; they embraced it when we got into training camp."

And all that work in the training camp for the offense was washed away with the installation of Todd Haley's offense. So, according to Pioli, the work habits and preparation are there and that should be more visible to fans in the 2010 season when the team has a full offseason and training camp of the right preparation.

"One of the things that we saw a lot of as time went on was an increased amount of time that players were spending in the facility at night, in the mornings, between meetings, after meetings," he said. "We’re a very young football team and they needed some leadership and some of the players that we brought in here, they had a strong work ethic, they just didn’t know what the right work habits were."