Monk_Ironman
05-01-2005, 01:10 PM
Look out, Cunningham got his men
If you know Gunther Cunningham at all, you already know what last year did to him. You don't need quotes to understand.
In his seven years in Kansas City as a defensive coordinator, then head coach, then coordinator again, Cunningham has never veiled his emotions. He has ranted and cried and babbled and inspired his team to play some great football. He coached dominant Chiefs defenses. He was head coach when Derrick Thomas died. He was hired, and he was fired. Always, his emotions were out there. You never needed an interpreter or mind reader to know what was bubbling inside him.
You know Gunther.
So, you don't need him to tell you that last year was the worst coaching year of his life. You don't need him to explain why. The Chiefs defense was all sorts of lousy two seasons ago, especially at the end of the year, and the Chiefs brought Cunningham back to save the day. He wasn't given new players to help him. No, instead, he was given a quest — he was Sir Galahad charged with pulling swords from stones and pulling big plays from the NFL's most porous defense.
Friends told him he couldn't do it; a coach needs players.
But Gunther said he would do it. “Failure is not an option,” he growled whenever someone asked how he could turn a bad defense into a good defense using the exact same players. He wanted to make it work so badly, he put together a defensive plan about twice as big as the 9/11 Commission Report. He came at the players with a feverish intensity pulled straight out of the Patton playbook.
There was one problem. Gunther's friends were right.
Not to get too technical, the defense had a lot of guys who could not play.
Of course, that's me talking. Gunther Cunningham would never say that. In fact, he didn't say much of anything, at least publicly. All last season, he privately banged his head against the wall and worked with his coaches to come up with a defensive shell game that might somehow stop offenses without the use of consistent defensive linemen, linebackers who could tackle, safeties who would hit or corners who could cover. It would have been a neat trick. Lance Burton would have been impressed.
He couldn't pull it off, of course. Gunther's not that good. Houdini was not that good.
So, no, you don't need Cunningham to tell you how lousy he felt, how lousy everyone felt when the Chiefs gave up 30 points week after week after week. You don't need him to explain how some weeks he would watch game film, and he wanted to throw up. And those were the good weeks. The bad weeks, he would sit in his office at 2 a.m. watching video of his defense giving up plays, and he would be trying to come up with something, anything. And he would realize that he was 58 years old, and he had spent his whole life putting his heart into football, he had spent much of his life trying to get Kansas City a football winner, and his defense couldn't stop anybody. And maybe for an instant he would think about hopping on a sailboat and just going wherever the wind took him.
You don't need him to tell you this:
“It was a very, very, very hard season,” he says in a weary voice.
When the season ended, Gunther Cunningham had a talk with Chiefs general manager Carl Peterson. These are two men who have been through a whole lot together — Peterson hired Cunningham, fired Cunningham, brought back Cunningham. They talked about a lot of things, and then at some point, Peterson asked Cunningham what he wanted, what he needed, to stop people. Cunningham gave him a list of players.
Peterson looked at the list. He said: “OK. Let's get it done.”
And the Chiefs went out and signed those players.
“I'm going to get emotional about this,” Cunningham says, and, yes, his voice chokes, and tears well up in his eyes. You know Gunther. “I know some people don't want to give Carl Peterson credit for anything. But I love that man, I'm telling you. He saved my life. We're going to turn back the clock now. We're going to make it fun for Kansas City fans to watch our defense play. It will be just like the old days.”
***
When you break it down, there were really only two problems with the Chiefs defense last season. They couldn't stop the run. And they couldn't stop the pass. If you want to measure bad defense, it's good to look at the old “yard per play” statistic. The Chiefs gave up 6.3 yards per play last season, by far the highest total in the NFL, nearly a half-yard more than the second-worst defense in football, the Tennessee Titans.
In other words, this is not a small remodeling job.
“Defense comes down to making plays,” Cunningham says. “You can't hide in this league. If you can't play, other teams will find you. If you have a weakness, other teams will exploit it. Football is not about excuses. You make the tackle or you don't. You get to the ball or you don't. Winners make plays. Losers talk about how close they were.”
This was the game plan — find playmakers. And Cunningham knew the Chiefs needed more than one or two playmakers; this team needed a full makeover. Cunningham wanted to begin with a linebacker who could run, make tackles and blitz the quarterback. Cunningham believes in a defense built around linebackers. He wanted Pittsburgh's Kendrell Bell, a 6-foot-1, 257-pound freight engine who has had some injury problems but has been a dominating force when healthy.
And the Chiefs signed Kendrell Bell.
“So much of defense is intimidation,” Cunningham says. “When we had those great defenses in the 1990s, with Derrick Thomas, Neil Smith, Dale Carter, James Hasty, we probably won some games just by walking on the field. We need some of that again. And man, when Kendrell Bell comes on the blitz, everybody knows it.”
Next, Cunningham wanted a shutdown corner, someone who would allow him to again play the sort of straight-up, man-to-man, in-your-face defense the Chiefs played in the 1990s. He gave Peterson a list of corners — Ty Law, Samari Rolle, Fred Smoot, etc. — and he would have been happy with any of them. But No. 1 on his list was Miami's Patrick Surtain, who has more interceptions the last five years than any cornerback in the NFL.
And the Chiefs traded for Patrick Surtain.
“Some people say Patrick Surtain is a gambler,” Cunningham says. “Well, if he's a gambler, then he's winning an awful lot of money. There are, in my mind, two kinds of defensive players. There are guys trying to play defense. And there are guys trying to win football games. Patrick Surtain is trying to win football games.”
He wanted a safety, someone who could get his hands on the ball. It's no secret that the Chiefs' biggest disappointment last season was the play of safeties Jerome Woods (who was the one defender to make the Pro Bowl in 2003) and Greg Wesley. The Chiefs had hoped to build their defense around those two young players — both signed huge six-year contract extensions in 2004 — and both took giant steps backward.
So the Chiefs signed Sammy Knight, who has 35 interceptions and nine forced fumbles in his eight-year career.
And finally, Cunningham really wanted Tennessee defensive end Carlos Hall. That was personal. Cunningham had watched Hall practice when he was coaching for the Titans. Hall has had an up-and-down career, but Cunningham sees a little bit of greatness in him.
“I see something special there,” Cunningham says. “I don't want to say too much about that. But I see something.”
So the Chiefs added four players and then drafted Texas linebacker Derrick Johnson, the consensus best linebacker in college football last year. So that's five likely starters this season — it's like a whole new defense.
And now that the players are in, you can see the joy on Cunningham's face.
“We have a whole lot of work to do, getting all these guys to play together and getting them all to understand what we're trying to do,” he says. “But I can tell you this: With this group, it will start looking like Chiefs football again. Everybody in this division — the Raiders, the Broncos, the Chargers, all of them — knows what I'm talking about. They've seen the players we got. They know. We're back.”
***
You know Gunther Cunningham. You know how emotional he is. You know that every day he looks out on the empty Arrowhead Stadium, and he imagines it filled with fans, all wearing red. He hears the echoes. He sees the Chiefs defense out there destroying offenses, like old times. He says he has the players to do that now.
And it gets him choked up.
“What this organization did — what Carl, all of our people, did — it's like a miracle. I'm telling you. As a coach, you can want players, but you know, realistically, that it's hard with the salary cap to get them. Well, we got them.
“Now, it's our job to make them into a great defense. We can do that. We will do that. I've got people coming up to me all the time, and they say: ‘Gun, when will it be like the old days? When will we start seeing the Chiefs defense again?' ”
Cunningham smiles again and swallows hard. You know Gunther.
“I just tell them to get ready,” he says. “It's coming. Get ready for the ride of your life.”
If you know Gunther Cunningham at all, you already know what last year did to him. You don't need quotes to understand.
In his seven years in Kansas City as a defensive coordinator, then head coach, then coordinator again, Cunningham has never veiled his emotions. He has ranted and cried and babbled and inspired his team to play some great football. He coached dominant Chiefs defenses. He was head coach when Derrick Thomas died. He was hired, and he was fired. Always, his emotions were out there. You never needed an interpreter or mind reader to know what was bubbling inside him.
You know Gunther.
So, you don't need him to tell you that last year was the worst coaching year of his life. You don't need him to explain why. The Chiefs defense was all sorts of lousy two seasons ago, especially at the end of the year, and the Chiefs brought Cunningham back to save the day. He wasn't given new players to help him. No, instead, he was given a quest — he was Sir Galahad charged with pulling swords from stones and pulling big plays from the NFL's most porous defense.
Friends told him he couldn't do it; a coach needs players.
But Gunther said he would do it. “Failure is not an option,” he growled whenever someone asked how he could turn a bad defense into a good defense using the exact same players. He wanted to make it work so badly, he put together a defensive plan about twice as big as the 9/11 Commission Report. He came at the players with a feverish intensity pulled straight out of the Patton playbook.
There was one problem. Gunther's friends were right.
Not to get too technical, the defense had a lot of guys who could not play.
Of course, that's me talking. Gunther Cunningham would never say that. In fact, he didn't say much of anything, at least publicly. All last season, he privately banged his head against the wall and worked with his coaches to come up with a defensive shell game that might somehow stop offenses without the use of consistent defensive linemen, linebackers who could tackle, safeties who would hit or corners who could cover. It would have been a neat trick. Lance Burton would have been impressed.
He couldn't pull it off, of course. Gunther's not that good. Houdini was not that good.
So, no, you don't need Cunningham to tell you how lousy he felt, how lousy everyone felt when the Chiefs gave up 30 points week after week after week. You don't need him to explain how some weeks he would watch game film, and he wanted to throw up. And those were the good weeks. The bad weeks, he would sit in his office at 2 a.m. watching video of his defense giving up plays, and he would be trying to come up with something, anything. And he would realize that he was 58 years old, and he had spent his whole life putting his heart into football, he had spent much of his life trying to get Kansas City a football winner, and his defense couldn't stop anybody. And maybe for an instant he would think about hopping on a sailboat and just going wherever the wind took him.
You don't need him to tell you this:
“It was a very, very, very hard season,” he says in a weary voice.
When the season ended, Gunther Cunningham had a talk with Chiefs general manager Carl Peterson. These are two men who have been through a whole lot together — Peterson hired Cunningham, fired Cunningham, brought back Cunningham. They talked about a lot of things, and then at some point, Peterson asked Cunningham what he wanted, what he needed, to stop people. Cunningham gave him a list of players.
Peterson looked at the list. He said: “OK. Let's get it done.”
And the Chiefs went out and signed those players.
“I'm going to get emotional about this,” Cunningham says, and, yes, his voice chokes, and tears well up in his eyes. You know Gunther. “I know some people don't want to give Carl Peterson credit for anything. But I love that man, I'm telling you. He saved my life. We're going to turn back the clock now. We're going to make it fun for Kansas City fans to watch our defense play. It will be just like the old days.”
***
When you break it down, there were really only two problems with the Chiefs defense last season. They couldn't stop the run. And they couldn't stop the pass. If you want to measure bad defense, it's good to look at the old “yard per play” statistic. The Chiefs gave up 6.3 yards per play last season, by far the highest total in the NFL, nearly a half-yard more than the second-worst defense in football, the Tennessee Titans.
In other words, this is not a small remodeling job.
“Defense comes down to making plays,” Cunningham says. “You can't hide in this league. If you can't play, other teams will find you. If you have a weakness, other teams will exploit it. Football is not about excuses. You make the tackle or you don't. You get to the ball or you don't. Winners make plays. Losers talk about how close they were.”
This was the game plan — find playmakers. And Cunningham knew the Chiefs needed more than one or two playmakers; this team needed a full makeover. Cunningham wanted to begin with a linebacker who could run, make tackles and blitz the quarterback. Cunningham believes in a defense built around linebackers. He wanted Pittsburgh's Kendrell Bell, a 6-foot-1, 257-pound freight engine who has had some injury problems but has been a dominating force when healthy.
And the Chiefs signed Kendrell Bell.
“So much of defense is intimidation,” Cunningham says. “When we had those great defenses in the 1990s, with Derrick Thomas, Neil Smith, Dale Carter, James Hasty, we probably won some games just by walking on the field. We need some of that again. And man, when Kendrell Bell comes on the blitz, everybody knows it.”
Next, Cunningham wanted a shutdown corner, someone who would allow him to again play the sort of straight-up, man-to-man, in-your-face defense the Chiefs played in the 1990s. He gave Peterson a list of corners — Ty Law, Samari Rolle, Fred Smoot, etc. — and he would have been happy with any of them. But No. 1 on his list was Miami's Patrick Surtain, who has more interceptions the last five years than any cornerback in the NFL.
And the Chiefs traded for Patrick Surtain.
“Some people say Patrick Surtain is a gambler,” Cunningham says. “Well, if he's a gambler, then he's winning an awful lot of money. There are, in my mind, two kinds of defensive players. There are guys trying to play defense. And there are guys trying to win football games. Patrick Surtain is trying to win football games.”
He wanted a safety, someone who could get his hands on the ball. It's no secret that the Chiefs' biggest disappointment last season was the play of safeties Jerome Woods (who was the one defender to make the Pro Bowl in 2003) and Greg Wesley. The Chiefs had hoped to build their defense around those two young players — both signed huge six-year contract extensions in 2004 — and both took giant steps backward.
So the Chiefs signed Sammy Knight, who has 35 interceptions and nine forced fumbles in his eight-year career.
And finally, Cunningham really wanted Tennessee defensive end Carlos Hall. That was personal. Cunningham had watched Hall practice when he was coaching for the Titans. Hall has had an up-and-down career, but Cunningham sees a little bit of greatness in him.
“I see something special there,” Cunningham says. “I don't want to say too much about that. But I see something.”
So the Chiefs added four players and then drafted Texas linebacker Derrick Johnson, the consensus best linebacker in college football last year. So that's five likely starters this season — it's like a whole new defense.
And now that the players are in, you can see the joy on Cunningham's face.
“We have a whole lot of work to do, getting all these guys to play together and getting them all to understand what we're trying to do,” he says. “But I can tell you this: With this group, it will start looking like Chiefs football again. Everybody in this division — the Raiders, the Broncos, the Chargers, all of them — knows what I'm talking about. They've seen the players we got. They know. We're back.”
***
You know Gunther Cunningham. You know how emotional he is. You know that every day he looks out on the empty Arrowhead Stadium, and he imagines it filled with fans, all wearing red. He hears the echoes. He sees the Chiefs defense out there destroying offenses, like old times. He says he has the players to do that now.
And it gets him choked up.
“What this organization did — what Carl, all of our people, did — it's like a miracle. I'm telling you. As a coach, you can want players, but you know, realistically, that it's hard with the salary cap to get them. Well, we got them.
“Now, it's our job to make them into a great defense. We can do that. We will do that. I've got people coming up to me all the time, and they say: ‘Gun, when will it be like the old days? When will we start seeing the Chiefs defense again?' ”
Cunningham smiles again and swallows hard. You know Gunther.
“I just tell them to get ready,” he says. “It's coming. Get ready for the ride of your life.”