The Kansas City Chiefs finished the 2009 season with some pretty poor defensive statistics across the board. 29th in points, 30th in yards, 22nd in passing yards and 31st in rushing yards.
Overall, not very good and not an upgrade from the 2008 offseason that finished with similar numbers.
According to Pro Football Weekly, Clancy Pendergast ranks in the middle of the pack as far as defensive coordinators go. PFW ranked all 32 defensive coordinators and stuck Pendergast smack dab in the middle - 16th.
They also sought out the opinion of unnamed pro personnel evaluators on each coordinator. The opinion of one anonymous pro personnel man is that talent, not Clancy Pendergast, is the biggest problem in Kansas City.
"They have had a rough time — but a lot of it has had to do with transitioning '40' personnel to a '30' system and playing with a lot of young talent. It's been a transition year. They struggled last season, and the product on the field has not gotten much better. I would chalk up a lot of it to not having the personnel in place yet."
Interesting comments and debatable, too, I think. Without knowing who the talent evaluator is it's hard to determine how much to put into this.
Regardless of this opinion, I think Todd Haley's expectations from the defense are much higher and, with the reports that a Romeo Crennel hire is expected to happen sometime this offseason, I don't think this will be enough to save Pendergast's job.