Daboll gets Chiefs’ offense moving

[KcMizzou]

Posted on Fri, Aug. 10, 2012
Babb | Daboll gets Chiefs’ offense moving
By KENT BABB
The Kansas City Star

There he goes again, perpetual motion, patting Dexter McCluster on the side and then lifting his microphone to say something to Matt Cassel and then starting the second half with some words of encouragement, surely, to a replacement line judge.

Brian Daboll doesn’t sit still for long, and maybe that’s understandable. This is an important season not only for the Chiefs but also for Daboll, their first-year offensive coordinator. Both the man and the team have in recent years been pictures of inconsistency, of perpetual movement; Daboll is the Chiefs’ sixth coordinator in six years, and the Chiefs are Daboll’s third employer since 2010.

Now they’ve found each other, and maybe the motion can stop.

On Friday night the Chiefs played their first preseason game, a 27-17 win against the Arizona Cardinals at Arrowhead Stadium. It was a game that meant almost nothing, but there are hints of optimism and concern even in a game like that. Maybe nobody deserved the hope he earned Friday like Daboll.

His calls weren’t reckless and unexplainable. They weren’t boring and conservative. When the first-team offense participated, the Chiefs made magic — two series of brilliance. By the time you read this, Twitter and message boards and blogs already will be firing posts that ask things like this: Did you see Matt Cassel on Friday night? What about Dexter McCluster and Peyton Hillis?

The Chiefs’ starting offense was two for two against the Cardinals, scoring touchdowns on each of its possessions. Cassel completed five of six passes. McCluster had three catches for 45 yards. Hillis averaged 10.3 yards per carry. The man behind all that, along with a brief but impressive showing of variation and timing, seemed to know how to take advantage of a mediocre defense — something that has, in recent seasons, appeared more complicated than it should’ve been. Remember last year’s preseason opener? The Chiefs scored zero points against a defense that went on to allow the most points in the league.

The tricky part is to withhold excitement or any kind of movement that Daboll and all those players belong in the Hall of Honor after two possessions of the preseason opener. Really, is there an event that offers more fool’s gold in all of professional sports? One-week legends are made in games like this, and expectations are lifted and inflated until they pop, and anyway, is there any other reason why people in Kansas City still know the names of Casey Printers and Bobby Sippio?

But what’s interesting about the early part of Friday’s performance is that the people who will enter the season with the most pressure, answered the bell the first time they heard it. Cassel has been knocked in the mouth, criticized and booed in his home city. McCluster has been mostly given up on, forgotten in advance because he’s a player without a position, a man without a country. Hillis rushed for 1,177 yards in 2010, but otherwise he has mostly played like the seventh-round pick he was in the ’08 draft.

Maybe nobody, though, begins this season facing as much pressure and as many raised eyebrows as Daboll. He wasn’t particularly successful in Cleveland or Miami, and when the Chiefs hired him in February, the overriding sentiment in town was: Really? This is the best Romeo Crennel and the Chiefs can do?

It was difficult then to learn much about Daboll or his offense because he has never sat still long enough to get a fair read. He had a reputation in previous stops as surly and combative; reporters expected dry, thoughtless answers, and players learned two years ago of his short temper when he blasted Browns quarterback Colt McCoy so loudly that teammates could hear Daboll screeching through McCoy’s helmet speaker.

By the time Chiefs’ training camp started in St. Joseph, Daboll had the look of a man who knew something needed to change. The life of a nomad is good for no man, let alone one who coaches football. Success is often attained through consistency, and Daboll simply hasn’t had that luxury the last three seasons — let go when his head coach (Eric Mangini in Cleveland, Tony Sparano in Miami) was fired.

These last two weeks, Daboll ran around the practice field like a teenager on a sugar rush, wearing a bright yellow shirt and a bucket hat with the bill flipped up. He smiled after practices and joked with journalists, behaving like a man who’d like to stay and sit a while.

“I love what I do,” Daboll said after a practice early in camp. Daboll didn’t speak to reporters after the game.

Maybe none of it means anything. Training camp, that meaningless victory Friday night at Arrowhead — who’s to say they’re not mirages? Cassel hasn’t read a defense like that since his Pro Bowl season two years ago. Including practices, McCluster hasn’t seemed this dependable since college. And Hillis hasn’t broken a run like his 28-yarder Friday night since the ninth week of the 2010 season.

“He was getting into a rhythm,” Crennel said of Daboll. “He knew what he wanted to call. He knew what the opponent was giving us, and he knew what he needed to do to take advantage of that.”

Daboll and many of his players have baggage and moments in time they’d like to forget. Friday won’t be remembered in the long term, but for at least this next week, it’ll be discussed and picked apart, before it’s go time again. Nothing will be certain, though, about the Chiefs’ new coordinator, his scheme or the players who’ll make it work until the games start counting.

But Daboll and his offense earned some trust with that abbreviated showing at Arrowhead Stadium. If nothing else, Friday will make the skeptics stop and watch, to pay attention to the man who rarely stops moving, to see what Daboll has in mind next.

http://www.kansascity.com/2012/08/10...se-moving.html

[Dr. Johnny Fever]

My apologies to everyone posting in this thread for Chiefs Football reasons and wading through Dane and my fight. Go Chiefs.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by Dave

None taken...

I know 95% of his post are attention-whoring.

Admittedly, I get caught up in it.

It will be entertaining to watch him flip in about 3 months.

I give him 3 weeks.

[Discuss Thrower]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

I give him 3 weeks.

That first five weeks of the reg season tho...

[crazycoffey]

Originally Posted by notorious

*




Rock it like DD tits on a stripper pole.

.
On board mod, can you change my name to CrazyDelusionaryHomer?

[crazycoffey]

Originally Posted by SNR

People had their periods when Daboll was hired because he had a shitty record of coordinating successful offenses in Cleveland and Miami.

I wasn't too excited because it was just another lazy-ass pick by this regime. Another "Nobody wants to work for the Chiefs because we have trust issues. Let's just pick another former Patriot staff member and be safe." But it appears this guy really knows what he's doing. I like what he can do for us.

Consider me officially a fan of Brian Daboll.

Me too! Did we just become best friends?

[crazycoffey]

Originally Posted by Dave

None taken...

I know 95% of his post are attention-whoring.

Admittedly, I get caught up in it.

It will be entertaining to watch him flip in about 3 weeks.

Fyp

[lcarus]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

He's been "Beer Me", "Noonan" and other names. He left for long periods of time, usually because he was drunk and embarrassed himself. He has a tendency to get far too personal on a football forum and 95% of his posts are unrelated to the Chiefs. He's like Hootie, except without any interesting stories, takes, etc.

Hope this helps.

Yeah a lot of people have changed names at times. Hes gotten banned a couple times for silly reasons usually including alcohol, but hell we've all done or said shit because of alcohol. God knows I have. Not on a forum lol, but its all the same. And yeah most of his posts aren't Chiefs related but thats one of the things I love about this place. People like to talk about anything. As long as I know he roots for the Chiefs I don't mind. He's a real nice dude as far as I can tell. So you all should just get along.

Ok I'm done bein a peacemaker. The people who try to break up fights usually end up getting raped in a crossfire lol

[Red Beans]

Originally Posted by Pawnmower

Stanzi - The Goth Years

[Pasta Little Brioni]

Well golly gee some of us recognized what he did calling plays the 2nd half of the year in Miami. But, but, but Patriot Way, Tree,...

[Hoover]

The Chiefs looked lightyears ahead of where they have been at this point in past years.

I liked Daboll's play calling because he never called on players to do something that was out of their skill set.

[ChiefMojo]

Not only did he not ask them to do something out of their comfort zone or ability but he allowed the QB's to actually attempt to check off to a better play!

One of my big knocks (among many) on Haley was he was so dead set on the QB's to run the play HE called. Who cares if the play was sniffed out before the snap or if it was a bad play call in general, you ran it anyways. I think some of Cassel's issues came from the fact he wasn't allowed to check into a play he was more comfortable with or had doubt with.

[Quesadilla Joe]

Why do the Chiefs always rely on trickery to move the ball? It's like they never play anybody straight up. They will line up in an I, motion the full back out, and then run some kind of reverse to McCluster.... It pisses me off.

[notorious]

Originally Posted by Cassel>Manning

Why do the Chiefs always rely on trickery to move the ball? It's like they never play anybody straight up. They will line up in an I, motion the full back out, and then run some kind of reverse to McCluster.... It pisses me off.

That was Daboll's first game as the OC.



If that is trickery, your head probably explodes on a HB option.

[Marcellus]

Originally Posted by Cassel>Manning

Why do the Chiefs always rely on trickery to move the ball? It's like they never play anybody straight up. They will line up in an I, motion the full back out, and then run some kind of reverse to McCluster.... It pisses me off.

I was going to ask if you remembered who your QB last season was and if watched your offense last year but then I remembered you don't watch most of the games.

[Quesadilla Joe]

I mean even when the Chiefs run a QB sneak they don't do it conventionally. They line up in a power set, and then motion everybody out wide and then run a QB sneak. It seems kinda cheesy.

(Yes Denver had a Tebow offense last year but that was different)