Denny Medley-US PRESSWIRE

Any and every member of Raider Nation has experienced it. Some fan of one of our rivals gets all in your face during the offseason about some mundane move their franchise has made reminding you of why their organization is run so much better than Oakland.

Heard it when San Diego took Norv Turner off of Oakland’s scrap heap. Heard a lot of the same smack all over again when Denver hired Josh McDaniels. And there was no end in sight for all the rhetoric Chiefs fans were spewing when Scott Pioli took over and brought Matt Cassel with him from New England.

In each instance I just laughed at all the hype. Some fans get too caught up in offseason nonsense while others are just looking for any excuse to downgrade the Raiders by propping up their team.

I get it…kind of.

You see for me I’ve always put my faith in what we see on the field. Anybody that talks up offseason trades, drafts and signings in the NFL has clearly never watched the NFL.

None of that crap matters until we see a full body of work.

Which brings me to the point of this whole I-told-ya-so rant I’m on.

The Matt Cassel era is pretty much over in Kansas City. In the week leading up to the next installment of Raiders-Chiefs Romeo Crennel has made it official by announcing Brady Quinn as his starter…on Monday.

No need to wait and see if Cassel is good to go after suffering a concussion two weeks previous. No need to take a look at his performance in practice. Crennel has seen all he needs of Cassel and Quinn’s two-INT performance in his first start was apparently good enough that the Chiefs will in all likelihood sever all ties with Cassel come the conclusion of the season.

So where is all that Arrowhead arrogance about how Pioli was going to bring his winning ways to the Chiefs? What happened to all the talk of Cassel being the best QB the franchise has seen since…I don’t know…Trent Green? Steve Bono? Elvis Grbac? Rich Gannon even? Steve DeBerg anybody? I can keep going if you’d like…Dave Krieg? Todd freaking Blackledge???

Far be it for me as a Raider fan to talk too much smack about a quarterback carousel though.  Al Davis knows we’ve had more spins on that ride than the Kardashian family has had trips to the clinic because of a burning sensation. Difference being that I didn’t go heckle some Chiefs fans when the Raiders signed Kerry Collins.  Or go brag about how Reggie McKenzie was going to build a dynasty. Nope, I just gave my opinion on the matter always deferring to the obligatory “let’s wait and see how this plays out” line when it came time to conclude any futures conversations.

So the next time some fan of an AFC West rival gives you the offseason business just say one word…Cassel. That experiment ended worse than…well…McDaniels in Denver or Turner in SD.

Thanks for the fun times though, you Chief fans who insisted my team was going to suck in five years while yours was on its way to dynasty land. What you fools didn’t realize is Pioli said two words not one when he was hired. You heard dynasty. What he really said was die nasty.

I recently wrote an article predicting whom I thought would represent the AFC West in the playoffs this coming year (unfortunately, it’s the Chargers), but surprisingly to me, it wasn’t that prediction, nor the prediction that Manning would have struggles, but that the Chiefs suck that angered most. This was shocking to me, because I didn’t even realize that this was a debate. The Chiefs do suck.

So, I am going to write a few more points why the Chiefs will be in the basement of the AFC West for the second straight year (remember folks, they finished last in the West last year), and, why we need not worry about the Chiefs.

Most teams build year to year, and one can usually see progress coming as gradual steps in improvement are taken step by step. This logic would mean that the team likely to win the West this year will be one that showed signs of optimism last year. Well Chiefs fans, that’s where your aspirations die out. Allow me to show you:

In 2011, the Chiefs were a dismal, dismal team. Their offense sucked almost as much as it blew. Here are some stats for you:

-The team ranked #27 in total yards per game. 27^th! They averaged 311 yards an outing. And guess what the Tebow led Broncos averaged? You guessed it: more (317). Needless to say the Raiders quite handedly out gained the Chiefs per session (380), so did the Chargers (393), and when the Chiefs are compared to the elite – the Saints averaged 467 per game.

-The Matt Cassel led “aerial attack” ranked 25^th in the league. Here is a list of the QB’s Matt out threw (brace yourself, it’s not very impressive): Curtis Painter, Christian Ponder, Alex Smith, Sam Bradford, Tim Tebow, and the pretty box in Jax.

-The Chiefs were in the 75^th percentile of interceptions thrown during the year at 18. Bravo, Matt. Bravo!

-Matt threw five more balls to the other team than he threw to his team in the painted area at the end of the field.

-The Chiefs were in the middle of the pack when it came to sacks last year as M. Cassel was sacked 34 times on the season.

-A couple of highlights from the year: losses to Miami (who was dreadful during the year), AT HOME might I add – 31 to 3. The team also lost to the Bills at home 41 to 7, and to the Patriots 34 to 3.

-The Chiefs averaged 13 points per game. Ha! You can’t even win a baseball game with that! And, 13 points reflects not only the average per game for the entire season, but it too was the average the team scored when Romeo coached in those three games at the end of the season. What makes you think the same won’t happen next year?

Ok, say Chief fans… “our offense sucks, but our defense is stellar.” To them I say, hardly not. Their defense ranked #11 last year in both yards allowed per game and points allowed per game. #11. Don’t get me wrong, that’s good. But great? Hardly. Especially if they are counting on that to carry that dismal offense.

So now I hear Chief fans clamoring to the fact that they were in the playoffs only two seasons ago. Their once-in-a-blue-moon trip to the postseason in 2010 apparently has led these fans to delusional ideas. But, let’s talk a little bit about that 2010 team. For starters, that team lucked out BIG time as the Chargers stumbled early in one of their trademark slow starts that year. The Bolts got hot late, but were unable to catch up with the Chiefs (missed ‘em by 1 game). But I tell you this, had those two teams met at the end of the year for the right to represent the West, we would not have seen those awful red paints in the post season.

So in 2010 the Chiefs finished 10-6 and went to the playoffs. But here are some interesting stats people forget:

-4 of their 10 wins were by 7 points or less. One missed field goal here, or a penalty there, and the Chiefs would have missed the playoffs.

-The Chiefs enjoyed a VERY, VERY favorable schedule that year as in 2009 they finished (once again) dead last in the AFC West. That meant that they had the easiest strength of schedule in the division in 2010.

-The Chiefs offense has been pretty bad for quite some time. In 2010 they scored 10 points or less 7 times. I tell you what, are they playing football or cricket over there in KC?

-Finally, when the team unrightfully  made the playoffs that year, they got DESTROYED by the Ravens (30 to 7). It was clear they didn’t belong there.

Alright so now I have discussed the team and their recent history. Pretty solid argument if I do say so myself, with plenty of reasons to not believe in KC in 2012. If those aren’t enough though, let’s discuss a few of the broken pieces of the KC puzzle:

The GM – Scott Pioli

What has this guy done? Many Chiefs fan will say he just orchestrated the greatest off season in KC history, but time will tell on that one. Plus, I didn’t see too many teams running to give Kevin Boss or the overly priced Stanford Routt a contract (that’s why the Raiders got rid of them).

Ok, so what has this guy done? Well, he was part of a dynasty in Boston (a dynasty built off of cheating, video taping, and terrible tuck rule calls, but that’s for another day). What has he done since? Not much. And, I would even go so far to ask, what did he really do in New England? Matt Cassel, who is mediocre, has proved one thing in New England – plug in pretty much anyone, and the ship still runs smoothly. Couldn’t the same be true here for what Pioli did in New England? Just saying.

After coming to KC, Pioli’s first move was hiring a head coach. He, himself, chose Todd Haley. And, Chiefs and Raider fans can come together on this one and all agree that that was a terrible hire. Who is to say he hasn’t screwed up again with Romeo? And while we are on this Romeo subject, have Chiefs fans forgot that there were a lot of rumors swirling around late last year that Chiefs were trying to get Josh McDaniels. That didn’t work out, and perhaps the Chiefs were bummed out and had to settle with Romeo. Just saying, but the Chiefs may have gotten their backup choice as head coach.

One last thing on Pioli, he is a slime ball. He is Belicheat reincarnated in the front office. Look how he treated Haley! We’ll never know the whole story there, but Pioli did some messed up things (just google why Haley grew out a beard during the year).

The Coach

A lot has been said by me about Romeo, so I won’t go too in depth here. I’ll just go over the highlights: he wasn’t the Chiefs first choice, his coaching record sucks, and the offense they ran under his reign as HC last year averaged 13 points per game.

The Quarterback

Matt Cassel didn’t even start in college, and there are what, 200 colleges to play for? What makes you think he’s really good enough to be a quality starter for one of the 32 teams in the NFL?

Finally, do you think the Chiefs could be “cursed?” Let’s consider this:

-Have lost an NFL worst 7 straight post season games

-Haven’t won a Championship in over 40 years

-Wear ugly red pants

-Play in the mid-west.

Alright, those are my points. The conclusion here is of course, we need not worry about the Chiefs.

Cary Edmondson-US PRESSWIRE

The last time the Oakland Raiders went into a season without having a reliable backup plan at QB they wound up paying a relative fortune for the services of Carson Palmer. Currently the jury is still on out Palmer. There is no doubt that seeing Palmer struggle to adjust coming fresh off his couch was nothing like the pain of having to sit through the agony that was Kyle Boller. But a .500 record just wasn’t worth two high-round draft picks plus another massive contract that aided in the recent cap cleansing. Oakland could have missed the playoffs just as easily with Mr. Prejean calling signals.

I’m not one to play the I-told-ya-so card but I did call the Boller situation long before the lockout was resolved last year. Now comes word that Reggie McKenzie is saying the job of playing clipboard holder behind Carson Palmer is a “low priority”.

Déjà vu all over again.

Hue Jackson got credit for being bold enough to swing for the fences in his move to acquire Palmer. A closed mouth doesn’t get fed. You can’t talk all the Super Bowl talk but then claim you’ve got cramps when its time to walk that walk.

Still, it is hard to ignore the fact that Jackson helped put himself in the precarious position of paying a holdout’s ransom for Palmer by assuming Jason Campbell was going to remain healthy for the entire season. The book on Boller was closed long ago. The only reason he became the Raiders’ backup was because Trent Edwards stunk it up enough in the preseason that Boller became the Khloe Kardashian of Oakland’s second options – the best of what’s left.

Now here we are again doing the same dance, this time with Palmer in the Campbell roll.

No matter what, until Palmer can help deliver a winning record to the Raiders he won’t be viewed as any better than Campbell in my book. JC was playing the best ball of his career prior to his injury and during his short time as a Raider he helped get this franchise out of the punch line factory of late night television. Palmer did some very impressive things last year. He made plays that only a handful of guys in the game have the skill to make. He also made some boneheaded errors you’d never see Campbell even commit while playing a game of Madden.

But this is not meant to rip Palmer. I’m riding shotgun with him any day over Matt Cassel and Cry Baby Philip. That new dude in Denver gets the nod on reputation alone but we’ll see how he holds up in the coming year.

In some ways Campbell’s injury only helped to accelerate what was going to be happening this offseason. Campbell was in a contract year, chances are the Raiders were going to be a .500 club at best considering the horrid defense and we’d be discussing starting QBs over backups instead.

However that is an argument McKenzie cannot hang his hat on. Maybe he’s content to rebuild for now. In that case then feel free to wait around until all that’s left on the scrap heap are J.T. O’Sullivan and Nate Longshore.

Given the constant injury issues of Darren McFadden and those of Palmer in the past the hopes of this franchise are only as good as the weekly injury report. Unless Terrelle Pryor was doing amazing things with the scout team that Coach Jackson kept secret from the media then McKenzie is setting himself up for failure by gambling on Palmer to be injury free for an entire season.