K.C. Chiefs Coaching: True TreeHuggers

K.C. Chiefs Coaching:

True TreeHuggers

Laddie Morse

If you’re at all like me you’re having trouble letting go of this past season and moving on to the subject of “next season.” In fact, there seems to be little to no solace in saying, “next season” we’ll be our season. However, with both the Atlanta Falcons and the New England Patriots becoming the focal point of this year’s Spectacle Bowl, it’s also easy to muse: the Chiefs could beat either of those teams. That’s mainly because the Chiefs have beaten both of those teams in recent memory: the Falcons, this season and the Pats, the season before last (a real K.C. drubbing when Mr. Brady was benched and bystanders asked if that would be the beginning of the end for Tom Terrific).

None of that matters now. K.C. is out of the playoffs and all of the Chiefs Cosmos had to watch a haughty Steelers team steal their thunder at home in front of an adoring Arrowhead aggregate. Now, such adoration has slipped into a trance-Siberian-hibernating-state… and the team appears to be all but forgotten… except for D.J. Alexander, who was named to the Pro Bowl on Special Teams, oh-by-the-way.

I was on my way to work yesterday morning when I heard Mike Golic and Mike Greenberg (listen to the 3rd one on this list) talking about the Patriots system… their way of doing things… and how it seemed almost unfair that they could do what they’re doing.

It’s not like I haven’t heard about “The Patriot Way” before, we all have but, I was intrigued by what they meant: unfair. One of the Mikes quoted Ron Jaworski who had determined from film study that prior to the Patriots game with the Steelers, they had used a sub-package of players and a particular offensive set (one back, four wide receivers), only 10 times all season long (10 times in 16 games)… however, during the Pittsburgh game, the Pats used that same player-personnel package and scheme… 19 times… and Tom Brady went 13 of 19 for 138 yards and a TD during that time. You never know what you’re going to see from week to week when facing them. So, they were reflecting that it seemed almost unfair because no other team in the NFL could… execute that kind of feat… pull off that kind of offensive transformation… or basically, get away with that.

Some of our own ArrowheadOne fans have pointed out the difficulties for rookies — especially QB and WRs — having to learn a complicated system like Andy Reid’s West Coast Offense — or his version thereof — and that makes it impossible for those players to come in and assimilate the playbook in the span of one whole season… much less by day one.

Sure, the Chiefs do something similar in that coach Reid will activate certain players one week but not the next because he intends to use those players and specific packages they will be needed in. The difference is… the difficulty of the system. The reality of any NFL game is… you only get one play per snap. The Patriots seem to have figured out a way to maximize the skills of certain players while playing in a specialized way… but in a system that’s not hard to grasp for those players.

Since the New England Patriots run the Erhardt-Perkins system, which is much more simple, it presents, available players across the league, an inviting opportunity to sign with the Pats… digest their system… buy into their philosophy… wait their turn to contribute… and greatly increase their odds of winning a championship right away. After all, the Patriots have been to 11 of the past 16 AFC Championship games: a .625 AFC championship appearance success rate. It’s also a game that bears the trophy named after the Chiefs founder Lamar Hunt. Coincidentally, the Erhardt-Perkins offensive  system was installed by Charlie Weis, for New England, who also served as the Chiefs offensive coordinator in 2010.

FYI: the AFC Championship game has been played since the year following the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl victory in January of 1970 but wasn’t named after Lamar Hunt until the 1982-83 season. The Chiefs have been a participant in that game once: following the 1993-94 season.

Casual fans of the NFL may hear about the Erhardt-Perkins system and ask, “Then why don’t the Chiefs just convert to that if it’s so much better?” Better? That’s the real question. Just because the New England Patriots have had so much success with it over the past 16 years doesn’t prove one system right and all others wrong (it more than likely proves that Tom Brady is the best QB to ever play the game although I still prefer Joe Montana and the West Coast offense). More importantly, it depends on which head coach in the NFL you ask and perhaps even more importantly than that, which coaching tree is that coach from? However, knowing a head coaches’ coaching tree is not everything you need to know about why a coach uses a certain philosophy. From an article called, “Dissecting the Coaching Trees in the NFL Today,” Scott Kacsmar writes for the BleacherReport,

“… in today’s quickly changing coaching climate, we are starting to see more coaches emerge with a college background or a history filled with working for multiple NFL coaches.

The latter is really nothing new. Having initially provided the coaching histories at Pro-Football-Reference a few years back, it was surprising how many different jobs many coaches have had to go through to reach the coveted position of head coach. Joining a few different coaching trees can help someone establish clout in the league.

That is why a NFL coaching tree is not like a family tree, which focuses on the origin of birth and how people are related. For a NFL coaching tree, it could be more about where that person crafted their philosophy or had their most success, which led directly to their hiring as a head coach.”

There is something that many aficionados call “The Bill Walsh Coaching Tree.” However, that coaching tree goes back even further to Sid Gilman (NFL coach, 1936-1977), whom Bill Walsh worked directly under. Under Walsh was a number of coaches, including Mike Holmgren. Holmgren had Andy Reid working as an assistant under him making Reid the man he is today… offensively. What is absolutely necessary to understand, and I can’t emphasize this enough, the tenants of the game that these men taught, and preach to this day, are the very basis for every approach they take. Asking them to switch from one offensive approach to a completely different system, is like asking a doctor of Psychology to suddenly perform like a doctor of Radiology (after all, they both look inside of you). Understanding that these two diametrically different offensive approaches both present successful ways to attack defenses, means a coach won’t likely be changing his colors overnight.

It makes a lot of sense. When you have success doing a thing… you have a tendency to stick to that thing.

To quote Aaron Rodgers after the Packers loss to the Atlanta Falcons, “We have to re-tool.” Yes, I think you’ll see a lot more of what you have seen in 2016… in 2017… with a bit of re-tooling. Don’t expect any huge changes. Knowing what we know about a coaches’ background, it’s not likely that you’ll find a coach… out of his tree. Even though you might think… he’s out of his tree.

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