Scott Pioli interview: 'We can't be 1-5'

Scott Pioli recently sat down with Mitch Holthus, "The Voice of the Chiefs", during the bye week for a quick interview (just over four minutes) about where the Chiefs are at and what Pioli's perspective is on the team's 1-5 mark.

We'll leave you to draw your own conclusions and you can watch the video instead of reading it. But for those who want to get the quotes from Pioli, I've transcribed Pioli's answers below:

On starting training camp with excitement and where the Chiefs go from here:

We talked about it in training camp, and I know when you left St. Joe excited, I said, 'Mitch, be excited, be cautiously optimistic because things on paper are great and then you gotta go out and play games.'

Obviously we're disappointed at 1-5. We didn't expect to be here. No one expected to be here, but that's where we are. So you ask what we do, well, you come to work every day, we need to work out butts off and do our jobs better than we're doing them, starting with me, Mitch.

Obviously as the general manager, I'm in charge of the football operation. We can't be 1-5. We have to keep coming to work. We have to keep finding ways to win football games, finding ways to get players to play.

If we've gotta find other players to play, we'll find other players to play. This is a results business, and I'm at the top of the food chain on this. We're 1-5 and I'm in charge and we all gotta get our acts together, starting with me.

On what Pioli has learned from difficult times throughout his career that can help him turn around the Chiefs:

Someone told me this a long time ago when I was playing and was getting ready to get started in the coaching part. He said, 'You're never as good as they say. You're never as bad as they say. You're never as smart as they say, and you're never as dumb as they say.' You have to understand that that's what this game is.

What you can't compromise is hard work and staying focused. There's going to be noise in both directions. When you have great success, there's going to be all this noise and people are telling you that you're smarter than you are. You can't feed into that. They tell you you're better than you are, and you can't feed into that.

Then when you're losing, you're being told what an idiot you are and things aren't going well, and you also have to understand and realize that's noise. You get a plan, you know the plan, you work the plan and you understand some things are going to go your way, and some things aren't going to go your way.

Stay focused. Be a leader, and don't deviate from what you believe is right. Also, don't be so ignorant to think you have all of the answers, because there are things that clearly I've got to tweak, we've got to tweak. It's a very delicate balance between sticking to the core of your beliefs, but understand certain things have to be changed.

On what he would say to the fans at this point:

The passion that the fans have for this team is the passion I came here with. I still have it. It's four years later. I understand the criticism, but you know what? It comes with the territory. I knew what I was signing up for, but that's the reason I wanted to come here. That passion comes with good and bad.

I've been asked recently, 'Would you still come here?' Heck yeah. I'm proud to be a Chief. I'm gonna work as hard as I can and have the people around me working as hard as they can until we get the job done.

The process of working to get the roster at 5-1 instead of 1-5:

It's ongoing. We are going to be a better football team at some point. We're going to be better, we need to be a better football team. And when we are, it won't stop there either. This game is about players. You gotta have good players. You gotta have good players that are the right kind of guys. That is a core philosophy.

We're gonna build this team with good players who are the right people. We're going to win, and when we win, it's going to be the right way with the right kind of people. I'm going to continue to do that. Now we have to start winning. Now we have to start winning, and again, ultimately that's on me.