While Romeo Crennel won't label Kyle Orton the team's new long-term starter for the Kansas City Chiefs, it's clear that he's willing to ride out the rest of the regular season with him. Given Sunday's first performance for the Chiefs which included 23 first downs and 299 passing yards, it's clear that Crennel's confidence is well-founded. The Chiefs interim head coach said that after Orton's work in the 19-14 win over the Packers showed him enough to go with him moving forward.
"For the next few weeks I’m going to be pretty confident. If we win these next few games with him and he continues to play like he did today, then you might have to say that. You see what kind of production a player has and then you make a determination whether that production will continue and if you want that type of player on your team. So if he continues to do what he did today, then I would say, ‘Yes.’"
Crennel came right out when he was announced as the interim head coach with his intentions at quarterback, rather than leaving things as a mystery like his predecessor Todd Haley.
"I would like to think that it helped," he said about the clarity of announcing Orton would start. "Like I mentioned earlier in the week I’ve been through a quarterback situation before where the players didn’t know who the quarterback was going to be until the last minute. So I wanted to clear the air and get it out there so they wouldn’t get asked questions about it, they wouldn’t have to wonder about it. They would know who they guy was going to be and give them an opportunity to learn his cadence and his voice and how he operated. Adapting to that was beneficial to us because as it turned out he took all the reps in practice."