Calling All Oysters!

Ah literature!  The proof that there truly is nothing new under the sun.  This, my friends, is why studying history is so important.  Literature quite often contains lessons of the past, put forth for those who are wise enough to read and learn!  I know that most Chiefs fans will point their noses at the sky at this one, but the symbolism is so pure here that it simply cannot be ignored.  Read on kiddies and be amazed.

Have you ever heard of the name Lewis Carroll?  He was the author who wrote Alice in Wonderland and it's sequel; Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There.  If you've never read them, you should give it a whirl.  If you did, you'd find that Mr. Carroll foresaw exactly what is happening to our beleaguered Chiefs right now.  Actually it's an old story of how to hoodwink an audience that you want to take advantage of that's been used for time immemorial, but this rendition was so appropriate I just had to stick with Carroll's version.  I know you won't believe it, but stick with me and you will see.

The boys pictured above are Tweedledee and Tweedledum.  They are characters from Through the Looking Glass, that Alice meets in the woods.  During her time with them they recite her a poem.  It's this poem that I believe is a harbinger of what is happening right now to my beloved Chiefs (and more importantly to Chiefs fans).  Particularly concerning how Andy Reid and Jon Dorsey are engaging in a deception on Chiefs fans.  Oh, this is simply too delicious!

If you take a moment and read through the poem, you'll discover that the Walrus and the Carpenter (a better Doreidos analogy simply could not be made up!) do nothing more than deceive a dozen oysters for their own sinister reasons--namely to consume said oysters after the deception is used to get those succulent little fellows on dry land.  What was the deception?  Why, a seemingly innocent offer of a nice conversation (on dry land of course) wherein the young oysters might learn something new.  Notice how the 'old' oyster shook his head no...he knew what was up but the younger oysters wouldn't listen, they just had to follow the Walrus to their demise.

Do you see the link to the Chiefs here folks?  Andy Reid is the Walrus and Jon Dorsey the Carpenter.  Together they are trying very hard to pull this same deception on Chief Oysters--YOU!  Will you be like the old Oyster and refuse to be eaten or will you become one in the figurative dozen in Chiefs nation to follow onto the shore only to meet yet another demise of this team that we love to follow?

It's pretty clear to me which way most of you have been headed based on the ridiculous comments being posted on prominent Chiefs homer websites that give Reid a pass for his poor game management, but there is always hope that the fan base may finally be turning a corner concerning their blindness to Andy Reid's record.  Go back to bed little oysters.  Your deliverance is not yet come.  Ol' Aiken is even going to regale you with some facts to help you wake from the zombie dream.  Settle in, buckle up and prepare!  The refutation of the Walrus's words is about to begin.

'The time has come,' the Walrus said,
  'To talk of many things:
Of shoes -- and ships -- and sealing wax --
  Of cabbages -- and kings --
And why the sea is boiling hot --
  And whether pigs have wings.'

It had been hoped by many (myself included) that Andy Reid would have learned his lessons in Philly and changed his stripes.  What a stupid thing to hope for.  Reid is exactly the same HC today that he was for fourteen seasons in Philly, and he's proving it each and every day he continues in his role in KC.  Last nights loss to the lowly Raiders is just another brick in the wall of this truth, but many fans refuse to see.  Unfortunately, that merely portends continued failure for the Chiefs.  Look out you Oysters, here comes the Walrus!!

This shit right here really hurts.

http://deadspin.com/why-your-team-sucks-2013-kansas-city-chiefs-1172555831

Does this ring any bells???

Why your team sucks: It's a measure of how far the Chiefs have fallen that the combination of Reid and Smith represents a COLOSSAL upgrade for the franchise. With Andy Reid as your coach and Alex Smith as your QB, you know damn well that you aren't ever going to win a Super Bowl. But you won't completely suck, and that's about all the Chiefs can ask for at this point. If they win 11 games, get bounced after one round due to a horrendous clock management error and no one dies, they'll have basically had their finest season of the new century.

That's pretty cruel, albeit perceptive.  Chief oysters should be soaking up this information.  As you know the Chiefs did indeed win 11 games and get bounced after one round in the most embarrassing playoff loss in franchise history.  I wonder where this guy keeps his crystal ball?

Now old Drew (the author of this uncanny prediction) comes back for this season:

http://deadspin.com/why-your-team-sucks-2014-kansas-city-chiefs-1622150776/all

The Chiefs passed the ball TWENTY-FIVE times in the second half in that game against the Colts. Whyyyyyyyyy??? Why would you do that? This team was averaging 4.7 yards per carry that game. Knile Davis was DESTROYING the Colts. And yet here is Andy Reid, who can never help himself, calling eight million passes and extending the game by 50 hours. Jesus. It's like the polar inverse of Martyball. Every year, fans scream at Andy Reid to run the ball more when his team is running well and he never listens. Why does he hate running the ball? Does it remind him of exercise? By the way, Jamaal Charles got a new contract this offseason. Which means it will be twice as infuriating when Andy Reid doesn't run him enough.

Yes my little oysters Chiefs fans, this is exactly what you can expect from Andy Reid.  Ships and shoes and ceiling wax indeed.  He WILL find a way to lose the most important game of the year no matter when it comes around, and in so doing he will have you convinced that he is the greatest thing since the sliced bread that the Carpenter was preparing to eat with his oysters, but that sneaky Walrus scarfed them all up before the Carpenter was done slicing!  Oh, the possibilities of hidden meanings there!!!  I hate to use Deadspin articles to make the point, but it's the only way to shock some of you into reality.

I know it's still unpopular to recognize the Walrus and the Carpenter for what they are, but hey, just give it a little more time.  I am pleased that at least some of you are expressing your concerns in this regard.  For those who still refuse to see, read on.  If you really wanna know what the Walrus represents, take a look at his stats.  His STATS?!?  Yes, his stats.  The very thing that soooo many fans hang their hat on to prove that Reid is the answer, actually implode the entire argument.  Let me show you what I'm talking about.

Not running the ball enough is an age old complaint about Andy Reid.  It actually got to comic book proportions in Philly.  His pigheadedness (not to be confused with walrusheadedness) in this part of his philosophy is undeniable.  It's the reason that he loses the most important game he plays every season.  Currently, it would seem, Reid has taken to running Charles more and more.  Great, right?  Wrong.  Reid is running the best RB in the league into the ground because he is so poor at finding WR talent, not to mention how poor his choice of QB has been.  The Chiefs have not scored a TD this season with a WR?  My friends this is totally unacceptable.  The run game is PART of the solution, not the whole thing.  Reid is merely trying to cover the fact that no matter WHO he fielded as WR, Alex Smith couldn't get them the ball anyway.  It's so clear, if  you will truly just look at the problem without the Chiefs-colored glasses.

There are other reasons as well, such as idiotic game management, lack of concern for retaining competent offensive linemen and other poor personnel choices.  Add all these up and you get what is possibly the most addictive recipe for kool aid that football fans have ever had.  His brand of zombie elixir is extremely potent because it so effectively masks the train wreck ending that is on the way, one must enter a 12 step program to recover when waking from the haze the hemlock provides.

The proof is, as they say, in the pudding.  Let's compare the Walrus to his peers for all the proof we'll ever need.  I have spent some time comparing Reid's statistics concerning playoff game appearances with other Head Coaches in an effort to see how he stacks up versus the competition.  The news just ain't good.

Believe it or not, Andy Reid is currently tied with Dan Reeves for the 9th spot in NFL history in total number of playoff games, with 20 such contests under his belt.  There are 10 coaches who have 20 or more playoff games in their history so I thought it would be a good study to compare Reid's accomplishments to the other nine Playoff Titans.  The results are a big part of the reason that I believe Reid is a pretender rather than a producer.

 

Coach	Playoff Games	Wins	Losses	Percent	Years to SB Win
Tom Landry	36	20	16	.556	12
Don Shula	36	19	17	.528	10
Bill Belichick*	28	19	9	.679	7
Joe Gibbs	24	17	7	.708	2
Chuck Noll	24	16	8	.667	6
Mike Holmgren	24	13	11	.542	5
Bud Grant	22	10	12	.455	--
Bill Cowher	21	12	9	.571	14
Dan Reeves	20	11	9	.550	--
Andy Reid*	20	10	10	.500	--

*Denotes Active Coaches

*Years to Super Bowl Win means tenure on the team that Super Bowl was won on.

****[Update 7/10/15---With Belichick's playoff run and Super Bowl win from last season, his numbers have now improved to 31 Games played, 22 Wins, 9 Losses for an amazing .710 win %.  It also moves him into a tie with Chuck Noll for most Super Bowl wins at four.  Andy who?]****

****[Update 01/19/16---With Andy's two playoff games this season with the Chiefs, he is now 11-11.  IMHO, the Chiefs shouldn't have been in the playoffs anyway because that 11 win streak was at the hands of several teams with injuries that kept them from playing at their normal level.  To be sure, the Chiefs did win 11 in a row but that has little to do with the quality of the team when you consider the competition.]****

****[Update 04/29/18---So here we are in what will be YEAR 6 of the Andy Reid mistake.  I didn't update after the Steeler playoff game loss in 2016 because it was just more of the same crappy Reid losing big game garbage.  In a game against the Steelers where the KC defense kept Pitt from scoring a TD, we had to have our hearts ripped out again by a damn kicker in a playoff game like we did in 1995 loss to the colts.  This time however, field goals was ALL Pitt could muster and it was still enough to win.  Oh, and a big THANK YOU to DOREIDOS for Eric Fisher.  Without his holding call on the final 2 pt. conversion attempt (that was successful and would have tied the game btw) that called the play back and lead to an unconverted attempt, the Chiefs couldn't have lost this playoff game with out the normal Reid pomp and circumstance.  There's that Dorsey Draft working hard for you!

THEN, a year later, just to carve in granite the fact that the Andy Reid Circus will never close, our wonderful leader takes us for another barn burner of a loss against no other than a Tennessee Titans team that was having trouble punching their way out of a paper bag.  In typical Reid fashion, the Chiefs outscore the lowly Titans 21-3 in the first half, only to watch their lead (and the Walrus's steely gaze) slowly dither and finally die as they were unable to score a single point in the second half and lose another playoff game under Reid's very watchful but clueless eye.  Final score?  22-21.  Ah, what mojo we will have next year, right?  Bullshit doesn't begin to describe how I feel about that.

So, what happens now sportsfans?  Reid has successfully shown his ass in two consecutive losing playoff games.  Losing by a grand total of 3 points in two games in one of the most masterful showings of ineptitude that may have ever been displayed on NFL lawns. You'd think that an owner would want to make a change, right?  Well buddy, that is exactly what 'ol Clark did.  In a flurry of absolutely mystical machinations, he did exactly what Aiken predicted would happen four long years ago.  He fired his GM!  Yep, Reid's cover worked like a charm.  Reid keeps his chair and 'Dorse' heads to Cleveland, where all things football go to die.  Clark loves butts in seats---btw Chiefs drones, keep those $$$ pouring in won't you?  It's a joke folks, and it's on YOU. The next Reid cover man has been installed in the front office by the name of Veech.  Mahommes will do just fine as the next player excuse as to why the Chiefs can't get over the hump, when in fact, Reid's mismanagement of our Draft (oh wait, that was DORSE, yeah that's right) is the culprit that just cost the Chiefs ANY first round pick in this years Draft that just ended.  That's right folks, Reid's pursuit of the Holy Grail since running after Alex Smith with hundred dollar bills hanging out of his pockets in San Francisco finally screwed any hope of new blood in this seasons draft.  Are ya feelin' happy yet??  It just never stops.

With these two playoff losses, Reid is now at 11-13 with 24 playoff appearances.  That's .458 for those keeping score.  For those of you 'but it's a dry heat' believers, just save it.  You'll find no quarter here.  Reid is now tied for third in total playoff game appearances and .003 from being DEAD LAST in the top 10 (of most playoff appearances) in win percentage.  He and Bud Grant are the only two below .500 on this list and one of only three (Dan Reeves added in) without a Super Bowl Championship.  Reid is 1-4 in playoff games in 5 years in KC.  The sad part is that there is still a fair contingent of 'fans' who will defend this with the idea that, "at least we made the playoffs".  My counter is, "who cares?".  It is my fervent belief that Chubby Red does not have what it takes to win a Super Bowl.  That being the case, why in the world would I keep him just to put butts in seats and drive the bottom line.  The answer is that I wouldn't but Clark has and will as long as he keeps his grimy paws in the fans pocket.  If they would stop supporting his lechery (and Reid's BBQ habit), he would be forced to make a change.  Would that it were so.  Here's to a Reidless Kansas City Chiefs!]**** 

Because Reid has had 20 playoff appearances, he gets included with some pretty heady company I'll admit.  But is that really enough to make one confident that he can hoist the Lombardi?  I don't think so and here is why.

Reid gets teams in the playoffs as often as nearly anyone, that cannot be denied. The problem is that seems to be his ceiling.  Of the seven coaches that are on this list and have Super Bowl wins, five did it with their first team as HC.  Only Belichick and Shula were on their second team when they won their first Super Bowl as HC and of those two, Shula won the NFL championship in 1968 before they played Super Bowl games.  That leaves Belichick as the only one out of the top 10 who won a Super Bowl with his second team and he has two Super Bowl championships as an assistant coach prior to his HC wins as well.

Reid had his shot and he blew it.  His time was when he was in Philly.  So many conditions were right for him to do it then if he was indeed going to get it done.  The average age of Super Bowl winning HCs is 48.  Reid's run to his one and only Super Bowl appearance began in 1999 and culminated in 2004, when Reid was 46.  As you can see by looking at the chart, Reid's winning % is next to last, and is the only one besides Bud Grant in this group that does not have a winning record in this regard.  In fact, the rest of the group are all at least 2 games over .500.  As playoff games go, Reid is a good ways from that point.

 
Even more telling is the fact that in terms of playoff game wins, Reid has fewer than anyone on this list except Grant.  If you look only at wins and include other great coaches who have fewer games than Reid, it gets even worse.  Reid's 10 wins (and that's what the oysters see as alluring from this Walrus) are fewer than Parcells and Levy's 11 wins despite the latter two having one less total playoff game played than Reid!  The comparison to Levy is pretty scary because Levy spent some time in KC as well. Evidence that the Chiefs never learn from past mistakes?  We report, you decide.

The final nail in the coffin though, is how insignificant Reid's wins look when compared to a couple other well known HCs who had far fewer total playoff games than Reid but got the same number of wins, thereby making their winning percent much higher.  George Seifert and Bill Walsh had 15 and 14 total playoff appearances respectively but both managed to win 10 of them.  Seifert's winning percentage was .667 and Walsh's was .714.  Sure makes Reid's .500 pale in comparison, don't you think?  You see how perspective helps define the truth of things?  It's not how many times you get an opportunity, it's what you do with the ones you get.  Perspective is what the young oysters lacked simply because they didn't have enough experience to realize what was being done to them.  It is my humble opinion, that far too many Chiefs fans are just too willing to accept Reid based on a record that seems to be something it is not.

Of the 15 coaches with 10 or more playoff wins, only Reid, Reeves and Levy have not won the whole enchilada at least once.  Actually, if you want to give Levy credit for his CFL days, he did win two Grey Cups there which really leaves only Reid and Reeves.  Reeves at least won two championships as a player for the Dallas Cowboys and has the current record for most Super Bowl appearances as a player or coach with NINE.  That's quite an accomplishment.

For all the hype about how good a coach he is based on all those playoff games, Reid has won ONE measly NFC championship and then went on to lose to the Pats in his ONLY Superbowl appearance. Of the 12 other coaches (excepting Reid, Reeves and Levy who we've already discussed) in this group, three have one championship (Grant, Cowher, Holmgren), four have two championships (Seifert, Parcells, Coughlin, Landry), four have three championships (Walsh, Gibbs, Belichick, Shula), and the Great One (Chuck Noll) has four championships.  Of the seven with Super Bowl wins, it took an average of eight years to get that win.  Reid is currently at 16 years total and already matched Cowher (the slowest to win one) at 14 seasons, except that Reid slept through the alarm and failed to get the win. Those 15 coaches with 10 or more playoff wins have generated 27 championships for an average per coach of 1.8 chanpionships (if you included Grey Cups it's almost 2 wins each), yet Reid is sitting on a goose egg the size of a Walrus calf.  Is any of this making any sense?

This loss to the Raiders is just another in a long line of the kind of inexplicable messes that Reid makes and then the adoring fan masses clean up because he's ANDY REID, King of Coaches.  What a bag of excrement.  Reid has figured out how to get a team to the playoffs but when the game is on the line, he freezes and has proven in the past far to inflexible to make the needed game changes on the fly to try and pull the win.  This is his tragic flaw and so far it shows no sign of changing.

Anyway, there you go all you Chiefs oysters!  Lewis Carroll saw it in a dream and it came out as a poem in a long ago story, but I have to believe the symbolism is just too much to discount.  The Walrus and the Carpenter are still on the prowl and they are still looking for new oysters to sate their constant hunger.  Don't be duped!!  See them for what they are and join me in taking up the mantra of REID AND SMITH MUST GO!  I can't wait to see what happens next.

Thanks for reading and GO CHIEFS.