The business of football is to win games, plain and simple. But when you have your normal up's and down's through the wild adventure that is the NFL off-season it's hard to keep yourself grounded sometimes. And if you're a fan of the Kansas City Chiefs right now you'd be hard-pressed to find a way to be truly excited about the hiring of Brian Daboll as offensive coordinator. It's probably not fair to Daboll that this room he just walked into will carry the awkwardness of "Animal Houses" music-stops, everyone look at this guy-type-of-feel. Because he won't have the red carpet laid out for him and it's going to be an uphill battle for him from the start. We'll just lay it on the table right now.
If the Chiefs front office wants fans to get excited about next season they have a helluva sales job on their hands. It's true that excitement doesn't win games, but it does sell tickets and the decision to keep Crennel and then hire a guy who hasn't led an offense to better than 22nd in the league in his three stints as an offensive coordinator screams 'gamble' to me. I believe the widely used definition of insanity is to "do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result'. Can't that be applied to an offensive coordinator that hasn't had success anywhere? While Romeo Crennel and to an extent, Scott Pioli, are banking their own futures on the hope that Daboll can lead an offense to do something he hasn't yet proved he can lead them to do.
I can't think of a more uninspiring start of an off-season than the Chiefs have had up to this point. First, we get to deal with candy-wrapper-gate and "Arrowhead anxiety", then it's the lack of contract extensions for Dwayne Bowe and Brandon Carr, then it's going with Romeo Crennel as head coach, which in all actuality was probably the right move, but still wasn't a sexy hire, and now this. Bringing in a guy who might end up being a great hire, but trying to sell fans on a guy that 90% of fans haven't even heard of, all the while ignoring the elephant in the room that is the recent PR disaster that you've dealt with. Fans aren't that dumb and at the end of the season you might be able to sit back and say you made the right decision. But that's a hell of a gamble when fans are already restless.
That shouldn't keep Pioli and Crennel from doing what they think is best for the team though. When they start thinking about what will generate excitement and not what they feel is best for the team, it's time for them to go anyways. The point is that fans do have a way of speaking their mind and there's one person that will be able to hear their message loud and clear, and he carries more weight than them both. When are season ticket dues again?