The Patriot Way?

One thing you can always count on in football: when a team starts winning, every other team will start copying it.

Hence, the New England Patriots have been sending coaches and front office personnel to seemingly every other team in the league. I guess these teams hope that somehow the Bill Belichick magic will arrive with the new hires.

Well, it hasn't.

The high profile assistant coaches that have left the Patriots haven't brought any kind of Patriot magic to the new teams.

Romeo Crennel? Only one season where he even sniffed the playoffs in Cleveland and has been fired.

Eric Mangini? The Man-Genius had a sparkling debut with the Jets and then proceeded to slowly lose his grip. He was fired and has replaced Crennel in Cleveland. (Side note: Does Cleveland EVER learn it's lesson? I mean Bill Belichick himself failed with the Browns before hitting it big in New England. The Patriot way clearly doesn't work at the Mistake by the Lake.)

Charlie Weiss? The super offensive brain was supposed to turn Notre Dame back into a champ. Still waiting on that one.

That doesn't stop other teams from trying to bottle up that New England magic. This year, two AFC West teams are rolling the dice that they can turn into the Patriots west.

Kansas City took the front office route, hiring Patriots vice president of player personnel Scott Pioli to be the Chiefs general manager. Pioli wasted no time in imposing his diktat. He hired his own staff and traded for Patriots linebacker Mike Vrabel and backup quarterback Matt Cassel. The point was clear: Kansas City was going to become New England.

Meanwhile, Denver hired Pats offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, who, at 32 years old, was younger than some of the Broncos players. McDaniels was to create a new atmosphere for a team that had spent over a decade with the same head coach.

So far, so bad. The Chiefs have an offensive line looks like a pile of swiss cheese and in the Chiefs last pre-season game, that sieve of a line got Cassel hurt as he tried to avoid what seemed like 12 different defenders coming at him. So now Kansas City has a franchise quarterback with a sprained knee and seemingly no way of actually playing offense. The Chiefs now just fired offensive coordinator Chan Gaily two weeks before the season, so times are desperate in the heartland.

The Cheifs, however, are a glowing star next to what has become of the Denver Broncos. Within months of arriving, new head coach Josh McDaniels managed to piss off Jay Cutler, his star quarterback, to the point where Cutler forced probably the biggest quarterback trade of the modern era.

Meanwhile, as All-Pro crybaby Cutler left town for Chicago, the Broncos got Not-Pro Kyle Orton in return. If the pre-season is any indication, Orton can't seem to actually throw the ball more than ten yards down the field. Last night he injured his finger...AGAINST CHICAGO. So the Bears come to Denver, beat the Broncos in front of a crazy Denver crowd just desperate for victory over their former quarterback and also injure the Broncos starting quarterback. Backup quarterback Chris Simms is also hurt, so now there are no known players able to take snaps for Denver.

Not that it matters because All-Pro receiver Brandon Marshall was suspended for the entire pre-season because he's a jerk. He's not happy with his money situation and his way of dealing with it is to stand around during practice and punt balls away from the staff and act surly all day. He deserved his suspension, but that doesn't help the Broncos on the field.

Two teams that tried to incorporate the Patriot way. Two teams that now have no quarterback for the near future and no offense. Apparently the Patriot way needs to come with instructions because no one knows how to do it outside of New England.