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If not now for Ricky Stanzi with the Chiefs, when?
Going-nowhere Chiefs stil haven't given Stanzi the reins
You’re 2-12 and you have a second-year quarterback who cost you a fifth-round draft pick in 2011. You haven’t let him take a snap in a regular-season game, ever.
You’re the Kansas City Chiefs, and you might as well throw former Hawkeye Ricky Stanzi to the wolves, er, Indianapolis Colts, on Sunday.
Brady Quinn replaced the ineffective Matt Cassel as the Chiefs’ QB last month, and Quinn hasn’t reminded Kansas Citians of Len Dawson or Joe Montana, or even Trent Green or Elvis Grbac. He hurt a rib Sunday. Is Stanzi’s time at hand?
Ricky Stanzi, in a preseason game, obviously (AP photo)
“There’s a possibility,” Crennel said in this Kansas City Star post. “Like I said last week, there’s a possibility, and I mentioned injuries as one of the reasons. We’ll see what Brady looks like, and then we’ll make some decisions and go from there.”
A vote of confidence, that isn’t. Then again, Quinn wasn’t knocked out of Sunday’s game, a 15-0 loss at Oakland. That’s right, the Chiefs got shut out by the Oakland Raiders.
Stanzi has a four-year contract worth $2.2 million. But he has done nothing but watch Cassel, Tyler Palko, Kyle Orton and Quinn start and/or finish games in these last two seasons. Palko is out of the league. Orton is Tony Romo’s backup in Dallas, and has thrown just 10 passes all season for the Cowboys.
Kansas City has seven straight scoreless quarters with Quinn quarterbacking. Could things get worse with Stanzi? What’s worse than zero?
Clearly, the organization isn’t as high on him as it had been at the time it drafted and then signed him, or he’d have seen some light of day by now.
The Chiefs could get the No. 1 pick in 2013. Too bad for them there’s no Andrew Luck available his time around. The Indianapolis Colts get two elite quarterbacks, Peyton Manning followed by Luck. The Chiefs just keep plugging in one journeyman after another, year after year.
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Mike,
This should sound familiar to you and all Hawkeye fans. Did you see a backup quarterback play at Iowa this year? I am of the Steve Spurrier belief that if the cog running the wheel is not working, try another cog. How could it hurt? How many good players do you know who walked on or were given a chance when nobody thought they could play, then ended up being a starter and a good or even great player. Give Stanzi a chance and see what happens. Not just a series, but a whole game. Like you said, what could be worse at this point in the season.
I enjoyed seeing Stanzi play at Iowa. He made lots of winning plays for the team – but a majority were in his sophomore and early junior seasons. By his 3rd season, he over-analyzed to the point of doing almost nothing, commonly known as “paralysis by analysis”. Yes, his stats improved and he became “safer” with the ball; of course, the number of winning plays he made greatly decreased and our normally-static offense became incapable of doing anything effectively when it counted most.
He then got drafted by an exec who’s a buddy of KF – a guy that’s 60-40 against returning next year after poor drafs, injuries and two poor coaching hires. Rick was a pretty good college QB at times for the Hawks, but if he were ever going to make it in the league it surely would have been done by now.
Still blaming Kirk Ferentz for everything, Mike (Miller)? Yet again, you’ve proven that you DON’T know what you’re talking about.
The situation with Ricky Stanzi in Kansas City–is a direct indictment of the ineptitude of the current ownership and management of the Chief’s organization.
Stanzi was drafted when Todd Haley was still the coach of Kansas City in 2011. Haley had just lead Kansas City to an AFC West title in 2010.
However, the NFL lockout occurred just after Stanzi was drafted–just like virtually every other rookie that year–Stanzi did not have the benefit of a training camp, OTA’s and other off-season activities to learn the Kansas City offense, work with coaches, etc. So, essentially, Stanzi’s 2011 season was spent doing the things that would have been done in the offseason..
2011 saw Kansas City be decimated by injuries on both sides of the ball–and their team performance suffered as a result. Haley was fired even before the season was over–which many NFL observers felt was a foolish and rash decision considering that Kansas City was a year removed from an AFC West title.
Then Kansas City made its 2nd foolish decision by elevating Romeo Crennel to head coach from defensive coordinator.
Apparently, Clark Hunt–the Chiefs President and CEO–failed to learn from Crennel’s disastrous run as a head coach in Cleveland–and went ahead and hired him to “turn around” Kansas City.
Crennel then went and signed Brady Quinn–who was Crennel’s QB in Cleveland to be the backup to Matt Cassel instead of Stanzi. This move was again..panned by most NFL observers because Quinn had proven that he was at best–a barely competent QB.
Crennel has stubbornly stuck with Quinn the past few weeks–even though his performance has been poor at best.
The Chiefs drafted Stanzi with plans for him to be the “QB of the future” to succeed Cassel. The only thing that they’ve managed to do is to waste his talents sitting on the sideline.
Odds are that Crennel will be fired after the season–so, Stanzi will likely have his 3rd head coach in 3 years with the Chiefs. The question will be, will a new coach allow Stanzi an opportunity to prove himself out on the field….
Todd:
First off – great catch on my heavily veiled inference about Ferentzian QB’s = you’ve REALLY been paying attention.
Secondly, I didn’t say anything untrue about Scott Pioli either.
Thirdly, Stanzi DID play in the preseason quite a bit this year. It failed to impress all but the most desperate of Chief fans. If fans thought he was better at ALL than Quinn/Cassel, they would have been lighting up the phone lines, online blogs, etc. for weeks now. That has NOT happened. He may absolutely be the long-term answer to the Chiefs QB issues; however, based on watching him his senior season under pressure, I don’t think that’s going to happen (though it would be AWESOME if he proved me wrong and you right = I HONESTLY mean that!).
Finally, you LOVE to “point out” that I don’t know anything about football, coaching, etc. yet your obliviousness to reality in this situation is glaring. I like Stanzi too as a QB – much more as a playmaker WITH MISTAKES – than as the game manager with “good numbers” (though Iowa mostly has ranked in the bottom half of the B1G since Ferentz took over and RARELY showed any consistency to take over games or even respond at critical times). Take a look at Iowa’s record with his playmaking vs. when he managed games.
You defend the stats except for the most important ones: wins and losses. Those wins and losses come back at the main constant, the big chief, the fearful leader of the program for the past 14 seasons. While it’s clear that your pretty satisfied with mediocre to average with a brief “great” period, many of us are not. You are OK with the repeated game management errors and ensuing losses; others are not. You are clearly OK with the status quo, assuming that things will always be around 7-5/8-4. If the past two seasons haven’t opened your eyes to a POTENTIALLY more drastic, if not devastating, picture for the rest of the Ferentzian reign then nothing will. Either way, we’re just Hawks fans with differing views on the past, present and future of the program. (One good thing about our discussions: our extended “conversations” create more comments/clicks for Mr. Hlas and helps him to get his annual “online blogging” bonus!)
Agree and disagree. The clutch stanzi vanished in 2010 but his numbers were overall superior. I didn’t think he had an nfl arm at any point though. That said no reason he shouldn’t have gotten shot. Of course the same could have been said ruduck.
Seems like coaches (pro and college) seem to stick with the guy they know as opposed to taking a chance on an unknown quality. Seems like our country was built on guy (gals) taking chances so for gosh sake LET STANZI HAVE A CHANCE KC!! What’s the worst that can happen, lose. The problem is college or pro coaches know every “chance” they take can cost them their job.