Brady Quinn and the quarterback play was one reason the Chiefs went 2-14. (US Presswire) |
This season was as ugly as it looked to the outside world. Maybe uglier. Fans wore black to home games. They flew banners over Arrowhead Stadium in an effort to get the coach and general manager fired. The Chiefs finished 2-14 and looking back, it's hard to explain how they won even two games.
Offense: F
Offensive coordinator Brian Daboll will have a tough time finding a job as an offensive coordinator again. Same goes for Matt Cassel as a starting quarterback. And Brady Quinn. If we're pointing fingers, those three would be a good place to start. The Chiefs averaged a league-low 13.2 points per game. They had more than twice as many turnovers (37) as touchdowns (17). The only thing they did right was run the football -- Jamaal Charles was fourth in the league -- but that wasn't enough to get points on the board. When it came time to finish a drive or extend it, too often Cassel or Quinn just couldn't get the job done.
Defense: D
The defense was not the worst in the league. It ranked 25th in points allowed and 20th in total defense. The offense was so bad that the defense had a lot of pressure to be perfect. There were a handful of games where the defense was good enough to give an average offense a chance to win the game. There were also a few bright spots. Linebackers Derrick Johnson and Tamba Hali made the Pro Bowl. OLB Justin Houston, who led the team with 10 sacks, had a solid season. S Eric Berry made the Pro Bowl. It's hard to say he was deserving, but he played better late in the year. The effort was not always the greatest and too often the defense dug itself a hole early in games, which is why it's tough to give it a passing grade.
Special teams: C
This is one area where the Chiefs were (mostly) up to NFL standards. P Dustin Colquitt would have set an NFL record for punts inside the 20 -- he had 45 -- if Arizona's Dave Zastudil had not bested him this season with 46 punts inside the 20. K Ryan Succop made 28 of 34 field goals, which is not awful, but was costly to a team that struggled so much to score. Succop missed a field goal in three of the last four games and four of his misses came on kicks of 39 yards or less. That's unacceptable in the NFL.
Coaching: F
Romeo Crennel was hired because the Chiefs played with great effort for him at the end of the 2011 season. Crennel was their guy. They wanted to play for him. But at some point along the way this year, that changed, and Crennel was searching throughout the season to find a solution. He fired himself as defensive coordinator. He changed quarterbacks. He went as far as putting up inspirational signs in the locker room -- like "Eliminate bad football" -- but none of it worked. The Chiefs were a bad, mismanaged football team and they had 14 losses to show for it.
Cumulative GPA: 0.75
Follow Chiefs reporter C.J. Moore on Twitter @CBSChiefs and @cjmoore4.