After the inevitable firing of Kansas City Chiefs head coach Todd Haley, we now turn our attention to the coaching search for the next leader of men in Kansas City. While most of the national attention over the past 24 hours has been on Haley's time in Kansas City, a lot of the local attention has been in-part, on general manager Scott Pioli. Don't forget that it was Scott Pioli who brought in Haley in his first big move after being hired as the general manager of the Chiefs after coming over from the New England Patriots. While general managers will generally get a little more time than coaches to show their worth when first being hired, it's not like Pioli doesn't have a lot riding on his next coaching hire. And it's for that reason that I think the Chiefs are in a bad spot with Scott Pioli right now.
I think that the Chiefs next head coach will be hired for reasons based upon Pioli's survival instinct, and knowing that if it doesn't work out with this next coach, it's him that could be next to go. For that reason I think Pioli will most assuredly go with someone that he is familiar with and someone that he can trust to fall in line with his decisions as general manager. Only two people come to mind when eliminating anyone without ties to Pioli and could be available, and neither of these guys will carry a wave of excitement with them to Kansas City.
Romeo Crennel and Josh McDaniels.
In my opinion the most important thing in hiring the next head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs is that they keep Romeo Crennel as their defensive coordinator, if it's not Crennel himself that's head coach. For this reason you would think that the next coach would be an offensive-minded guy. It wouldn't have to be but if not, they'll need to bring an offensive guy with them because Bill Muir won't be retained as offensive coordinator.
If there wasn't so much pressure to win now for Pioli I would love to see the Chiefs bring back Marty Schottenheimer. Call me sentimental because I, like many of you, grew up in a Chiefs-dominated childhood that saw Marty lead the Chiefs to nine winning seasons in ten years between '89-'98. While six of those ten seasons had the Chiefs win 10+ games. I associate Marty with the Chiefs-winning football games and despite his poor playoff record, he had those teams in position to consistently be in the playoffs. Which any Chiefs fan would take right now.
Bring along current Jets offensive coordnator Brian Schottenheimer to work with his dad and run the offense and we have one big, happy family. Only problem is there are no ties to Pioli with Marty and there is just too much pressure to not miss on this hire. He won't go outside the box on this with so much at stake for him professionally.
So while many Chiefs fans are wanting that home run hire of Marty Schottenheimer, Jeff Fisher or Bill Cowher, it's just not going to happen. Instead get used to the idea of Josh McDaniels, Romeo Crennel, Tony Sparano or Eric Mangini. He'll go with someone familiar to him and that's a shame because I think the outside-the-box hire of Marty Schottenheimer would do wonders for the Chiefs and for the city. But Pioli's survival instinct will kick in and I can't say I blame him.