After his team was blown out by the Lions and fell to 0-2 on Sunday, Chiefs coach Todd Haley sounded slightly less inspiring than Knute Rockne in his postgame comments.
“The season will not be canceled, as far as I know,” Haley said.
The way the Chiefs are playing, they look like they don’t realize the season has even started. They were humiliated, 48-3, by the Lions, a week after being humiliated, 41-7, by the Bills. If the Big 12 is looking for some new teams, maybe the Chiefs should join, because they’re unable to compete in the league they’re playing in now.
Piling on Haley almost seems cruel at the moment, but the Chiefs look like a very badly coached team right now. A good example of how bad the Chiefs’ coaching is came in the third quarter of Sunday’s loss, when the Lions had third-and-goal at the 1-yard line. Everyone at Ford Field knew that the Lions would want to have Matthew Stafford throw a quick pass to Calvin Johnson in the end zone, and yet the Chiefs chose to single cover Johnson. Sure enough, Stafford hit Johnson right in the hands -- but Johnson dropped the ball, and the Chiefs dodged a bullet.
But here’s where the Chiefs’ coaching got really bad: Now it was fourth-and-goal, and everyone at Ford Field knew for sure that what the Lions would want is a Stafford-to-Johnson pass. So did the Chiefs realize that they had just dodged a bullet and couldn’t count on Johnson dropping another pass? Nope. The Chiefs single-covered Johnson again, Stafford threw to him again, and this time Johnson held on for the score.
That’s just one blatant example of how the Chiefs looked like a poorly coached team on Sunday; we’d be here all day if we tried to list every example. The bottom line is that Haley is right: The season won’t be canceled, and the Chiefs still have 14 more games to play.
But Haley may not have 14 more games to coach.