An analysis of franchise momentum: The Chiefs' Dow Jones Average.

[Rain Man]

Many of us speak of the dark days of the 1970s and 1980s and warn you young bucks that it could be worse.

Well, it's pretty bad, and I started wondering just where we stand relative to the Dark Ages. So I developed an algorithm.

Here's how it works. Starting with Day 1 of the franchise, I looked at every regular and post-season game in our history. Each week I did the following:

A win is worth 1 point and a loss is worth -1 point.
I then add it to 99 percent of the score of the previous week.

In this way, it creates a long tail showing the momentum of the franchise, because a win or loss shows up the next week at 99%, the following week at 99% of that, and so on. So it more or less traces a path of the long-term goodwill or badwill built up by the franchise over time as every single game in history continues to ripple through the Chiefs' space-time continuum.

I made a couple of adjustments, too. I made a playoff game worth 3 points for a win and -3 for a loss, and I also added or subtracted 1 point at the end of each regular season depending on whether or not we made the playoffs. These points get tossed in with the rest of the scores.

The Chiefs Dow Jones can thus be positive or negative, with a positive number indicating more good times than bad, and negative representing, of course, times like now where we are killing our pack animals for food and the dead are carted away in wheelbarrows.

What I found is shown in the accompanying graph. The numbers don't really mean anything but are more of an abstract measure. Some key elements of the timeline include:

1. After some early positive and negative fluctuations, the Chiefs found themselves with a positive Dow of 0.08 in Week 2 of the 1962 season, after a 26-16 win over the Raiders to go 2-0. The Dow would remain positive for the next 15 years after that win. Go, Lenny!

2. With significant assistance from the AFL championship win in 1962, the Chiefs Dow Jones passed +10.0 for the first time in Week 1 of the 1963 season as the Chiefs blasted the Broncos 59-7. However, by Week 5 the Chiefs were 2-2-1, having just lost to the Buffalo Bills 35-26, and they wouldn't see the 10.0 point mark again until a 32-24 win over the Jets in Week 12 of the 1966 season, on their way to the loss in Super Bowl I. So the 1962 championship more or less created the little spike you see in the early days.

3. The Chiefs' star rose rapidly after that, with with the Dow surpassing +20 on Week 12 of the 1968 season. A 24-10 win over the Houston Oilers put the Chiefs at 10-2, and they went on to a 12-2 record but a humiliating playoff loss.

4. 1969 was of course a banner season. After ending 1968 with an index of 19.49, the Chiefs blew through the season with an 11-3 record and three postseason wins, including Super Bowl IV. We ended the season at a then-record Dow of +33.48.

5. We actually beat the Dow record briefly in 1970, though as you can see from the graph, we were topping out and struggling to stay at that level. At the end of Week 12 of the 1970 season the Dow stood at 33.61. We were 7-3-2 at that point, having just beaten the pushover Denver Broncos 16-0 and with the Super Bowl win still fresh. However, losses to Oakland and San Diego the following two weeks kept us out of the playoffs.

6. The team was still strong, though. I'm girding myself for neg rep from milkman, but the high water for the Kansas City Chiefs franchise actually occurred not upon the Super Bowl win, but rather at the end of Week 14 in 1971, as we prepared for a playoff game. The Dow at this point was at 33.63 and the Chiefs were a powerful team of winning veterans. We were 10-3-1 and had just beaten the Buffalo Bills and their young running back O.J. Simpson by a score of 22-9. While we'd missed the playoffs the previous year, we'd made it the two years before that and of course still had the Super Bowl in recent memory.

Of course, we would have our beating hearts ripped out and eaten the following week on Christmas Day, starting a horrific multi-decade decline that is the curse of Garo Yepremian.

7. From that high point of 33.63, we began a terrible, terrible decline, both long and rapid. A 23-16 loss to the Bengals in Week 5 of 1972 dropped us below 30 for good, and a 14-7 loss to the Chargers in Week 9 of 1974 dropped us below 20 points for the first time since Week 3 of the 1969 season. A 28-20 loss to Oakland to end the 1975 season dropped the index below 10.0.

8. In Week 4 of 1977 the Dow actually fell below zero, meaning that the franchise's cumulative memory was now negative. On that day, the Chiefs fell to 0-4 with, ironically, a 23-7 loss to the Broncos.

9. The fall did not stop there. In Week 6 of 1978 we fell to an index below -10 with a loss to the Buccaneers, and the low point of that era occurred with a loss to San Diego in Week 4 of 1980, when our index fell to -18.64.

10. Marv Levy stabilized the franchise a bit, temporarily pulling the index above -10.0, and then Mackovic came in. He didn't do quite as well as Marv as the Chiefs started sliding again, but his playoff spot in 1986 got the index to -10.28 before the playoff loss.

11. Mackovic was fired, and Gansz came in and started digging. An ugly loss to Seattle in Week 2 of 1988 took the index below -20.0 for the first time ever. By the time he left, the index was at a then-record -23.35 as 1988 drew to a close.

12. In 1989 a holy trinity came to town: Carl Peterson, Marty Schottenheimer, and Derrick Thomas. It took a few games to catch fire, though, and the low point of the Chiefs franchise occurred when a 21-17 loss to the Bengals took the index to an all-time pre-Pioli low of -24.41. However, things began looking up, and by the end of 1989 the index had risen to -19.74.

13. Bam, bam, bam. Faster than Derrick Thomas beating a left tackle, the Chiefs' fortunes rose. As they headed into a heartbreaking playoff loss to the Dolphins in 1990, the index was up to -10.14. In Week 7 of 1993, a young Will Shields and an old Joe Montana had resurrected the franchise, getting above 0 for the first time since 1977 with a 17-14 win over the Chargers as part of a 5-1 start to the season. Two playoff wins would push the index to 9.30.

14. In Week 8 of 1995, a 21-7 win over the Broncos would push the index above 10 for the first time since 1975.

15. The high water mark of the Peterson/Schottenheimer/Thomas era was the end of Week 16 of the 1997 season, when the index stood at 19.07. However, the theft of the playoffs the next week by a salary-cap-cheating team signalled the fall of Rome and its helmet-haired emperor.

16. In Week 1 of the 1999 season, coach Gunther Cunningham lost to the Bears and their "high-fangled trickery" and the index fell below 10.0. The index was at 5.43 when Gunther got his walking e-mails.

17. Dick Vermeil took over a team in crisis, and the index actually fell below zero three times in his early years, Week 13 of 2001 and Weeks 3 and 17 of 2002 as he struggled to stay above zero. However, he then assembled the greatest offensive show in Kansas City history and things looked up.

18. The high point of the Vermeil era was a 9.29 index at the end of the 2003 regular season, just before we entered the puntless game in Indianapolis. When Vermeil left, the index was back down to 4.98.

19. Enter Herm. He actually managed to increase the index for 16 weeks, rising to 7.16 before the embarrassing playoff loss to Indianapolis that dropped his first-year index to 4.08. From there on out it was downhill, with the index dropping below zero in Week 13 of 2007 after a 24-10 loss to the Chargers. A 30-27 loss to the Buccaneers in Week 9 of 2008 dropped the index below -10.0, and when Herm's work was finally done in 2008 the index stood at a frightful -16.60.

20. Haley arrived, and muddled about a bit. He got us as high as -14.45 the week before his playoff game, but then a bad 2011 dropped his cumulative reign into negative growth, as he was fired at an index of -18.04.

The Crennel era began with a little positive momentum, but then the bottom dropped out. Down, down, down in that burning ring of fire. Then further down. And further. As the 2012 season came to a close, the week 15 loss to the Raiders took the franchise to its lowest index in history. Then the Colts game dragged it down further. And finally, the Broncos game took us even further into uncharted territory. As of today, the Chiefs' index is at the lowest point in franchise history, at an astonishing level of -26.09.

[Mile High Mania]

Ok... I downloaded your spreadsheet, I'm going to need an hour or so for nothing but copy/paste... I'll do what I can to get this one (Denver) to you by Monday.

[StcChief]

The Dungver,Faiders,Sandyeggo spreadsheet would be interesting

[dallaschiefsfan]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

I think based on this we should call the Herm era the Era of Lost Hope.

So true. Didn't need a spreadsheet to tell me this, though. Herm!!!

[Hydrae]

Originally Posted by StcChief

The Dungver,Faiders,Sandyeggo spreadsheet would be interesting

I would be interested also to see the Patriots. They were so bad for so long it will be interesting how far up the last decade pushed them on these charts.

[TigerPig]

Originally Posted by Hydrae

I would be interested also to see the Patriots. They were so bad for so long it will be interesting how far up the last decade pushed them on these charts.

I bet Indy is higher than NE right now...

[cdcox]

Update! Update!

[bowener]

Originally Posted by cdcox

Update! Update!

Where?

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by bowener

Where?

Just keep applauding till Rain Man comes out for an encore.

Update! Update!

[bowener]

Originally Posted by cdcox

Just keep applauding till Rain Man comes out for an encore.

Update! Update!

Where?

[Rain Man]

You asked for it, you got it. The funny thing is, I was just thinking about this a week or so ago and hoping I could find the file.

The Chiefs' stock index currently stands at -17.26. This is a notable increase from -22.42 at the end of 2009, which was one loss from being in the bottom ten indexes in Chiefs history (all of which had occurred between Week 9 of 1988 and Week 10 of 1989).

When Todd Haley took over the team, the index was at -16.60, so Todd is currently still negative for his career, but that'll happen when you go 4-12 your first year. In looking at the graph, you can see that we have apparently hit a floor in the market, so I would recommend buying Chiefs stock as a long-term buy.

Here's a graph of how the various Chiefs coaches have fared. We can see that only three coaches have produced a positive change in the index: Schottenheimer with an enormous gain, Stram with a strong gain, and Mackovic eked out a minor gain.

Herm presided over the largest drop in franchise history, at almost 22 points. Wiggin was somewhat equivalent, dropping 18 points in fewer games. (Bettis is an outlier considering he coached only 7 games.) Interestingly, though, Wiggin (and Bettis) took over a team that was already in free fall - Stram's teams had dropped 14 points between the Christmas 1971 game and Stram's departure. Wiggin and Bettis merely continued that trend until Levy began pulling out of the dive and Mackovic got the nose turned upward again. The Gansz thing was a failed experiment, producing equivalent results to Herm, more or less, before the Space Shuttle Schottenheimer launched.

As of this point, we can view coaches quite clearly in one of three camps:

Successes - Schottenheimer, Stram
Mediocres - Vermeil, Mackovic, Levy, Cunningham (though Cunningham is pushing the bottom edge)
Disasters - Wiggin, Bettis, Gansz, Edwards

Haley has proven (to date) that he's not in the first camp, and he's arcing upward.

	               Start	         Finish	        Games	PPG	Change
Stram  	               0	         16.4706	218	0.08	         16.5
Wiggin           	16.4706	      -1.4429	     35	         -0.51	        -17.9
Bettis	                 -1.4429	-7.2554	       7	-0.83	         -5.8
Levy	                 -7.2554	-13.9729	73	-0.09	         -6.7
Mackovic            	-13.9729	-13.1761	65	0.01	          0.8
Gansz	                -13.1761	-23.3491	31	-0.33 	          -10.2
Schottenheimer    	-23.3491	10.5904	    170	      0.20     	         33.9
Cunningham	         10.5904	5.4264	     32	         -0.16	         -5.2
Vermeil              	5.4264	       4.9787	     81	         -0.01	         -0.4
Edwards	               4.9787	    -16.5967	     49	        -0.44	        -21.6
Haley	              -16.5967	    -17.2639	     27	         -0.02	         -0.7

And you want to hear something else interesting? Haley has produced the second-best start to a coaching career in Chiefs' history when you consider index change. While he's still slightly negative, every coach except Marty was more negative, even Hank Stram.

Index Changes in First 27 Games

Schottenheimer = +8.5
Haley = -0.7
Mackovic = -2.0
Cunningham = -2.8
Stram = -3.0
Edwards = -3.2
Bettis = -5.8 (7 games only)
Vermeil = -6.3
Gansz = -8.0
Levy = -8.8
Wiggin = -12.8

[cdcox]

Thanks!

One more question. When we win the SB this season, will we still be in negative territory? I would hate to be all pumped about winning the SB, but have a negative Dow index put a big damper on everything.

[Rain Man]

Here's another interesting analysis.

I looked at each coach's first 27 games and last 27 games, and how the index changed. (I used 27 games because that's how many games Todd has coached.)

If you compare a coach's first 27 games to those of his predecessor, you can tell if his regime represented a step up from the previous regime (setting aside some uncontrollable factors like retirements).

If you compare a coach's last 27 games to his first 27 games, you can see whether he had the team on the right track. A positive difference means he was on the right track, and a negative means he was dragging them down.

1st 27 games Last 27 games
Stram -2.99 -9.51
Wiggin -11.77 -16.74
Bettis x -15.63
Levy -8.79 -0.85
Mackovic -2.02 1.17
Gansz -9.25 -8.69
Schottenheimer 8.55 -0.90
Cunningham -2.82 -5.64
Vermeil -6.30 2.00
Edwards -3.24 -19.52
Haley -0.67 x

We can see that Hank Stram started out mediocre with a clean slate, but the team was in freefall in his final years. (Obviously he had some great years in the middle, though.)

Wiggin took a team in freefall and made it worse immediately (his 1st 27 were worse than Stram's last 27), and made it even worse as time went on. Wiggin was obviously unsuccessful, but not as bad as his record would indicate given what Stram had been doing at the bitter end.

Bettis didn't coach 27 games, but obviously the freefall continued.

Levy's immediate impact was to slow down the fall, indicating that he was a better coach than his predecessor(s) of Wiggin and Bettis. In fact, his last 27 games were almost at breakeven. He was pretty clearly moving the team in the right direction.

Mackovic was initially a minor step back from Levy, but his final 27 games were better than his first 27 games, so he was a positive.

Gansz then took a team that was trending positive and totally cratered it from start to finish. He was obviously a horrific hire. Arguments can be made for both him and Herm as the worst coaching hire in Chiefs history.

Marty then took a team that was in a meteoric nose dive and IMMEDIATELY turned them significantly positive. That was an amazing turnaround. But by the time he left they were trending slightly negative. His time had come.

Cunningham did worse with the talent than Marty did, and he was getting worse by the time he left. The team was sliding negative strongly.

Vermeil actually did worse than Cunningham starting out. However, his last 27 games were notably better than his first 27, and were back in the black.

Herm took a team that was trending positively and immediately turned it negative. He then proceeded to absolutely destroy the team in a manner not seen since Caligula named a horse to the Roman Senate.

Haley took over a team that was positively subterranean and, while still slightly negative, has immediately stopped the dive.

If you compare each coach's 1st 27 games to his predecessor's last 27 games, here are the changes you get:

Haley = +18.85
Schottenheimer = +17.24
Levy = +6.84
Vermeil = -0.66
Mackovic = -1.17
Cunningham = -1.92
Wiggin = -2.26
Stram = -2.99
Edwards = -5.24
Gansz = -10.42

I'm not sure if this means anything, other than whether a coach was better than the coach before him. While one can argue that Haley's turnaround is on par with Schottenheimer's turnaround in 1989, I think the real indication is that Schottenheimer and Haley are both good coaches who took over for horrendous coaches.

The more you look at it, the Schottenheimer and Haley situations are very, very similar. At this point, it looks like Haley may have just had a slower Year One but has otherwise done just what Marty did in the Great Miracle of 1989 and 1990.

Before Schottenheimer took over, the previous coach's last two seasons were 4-12 and 4-12. Schottenheimer immediately took the team to 8-8 his first year, and then 11-5 the second year. He did this with a new GM at the helm.

Before Haley took over, the previous coach's last two seasons were 4-12 and 2-14. Haley's first year was another 4-12, and right now he's on pace for a 10-6 or 11-5 second year. He did this with a new GM at the helm.

Kind of eerie, isn't it?

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by cdcox

Thanks!

One more question. When we win the SB this season, will we still be in negative territory? I would hate to be all pumped about winning the SB, but have a negative Dow index put a big damper on everything.

Winning the rest of our games, getting a first-round bye, and then winning the Super Bowl would still put us slightly negative at -1.3 points. However, winning the rest of our games, playing an extra first-round game, and then winning the Super Bowl would put us at a positive 1.7 points. Winning an extra playoff game is worth a lot. However, if we lose one regular season game and then win out (without a first-round bye) we'd still be at -0.2.

Nonetheless, that would be a pretty spectacular stock increase, so I'd be happy with it.

[T-post Tom]

This is like algebra...my head hurts. BTW, I love lamp.

[-King-]

Ok...I'm stupid...by why do you do this: " I then add it to 99 percent of the score of the previous week."?