The first team to emerge as a landing spot for former Kansas City Chiefs head coach Todd Haley was the one he almost won a Super Bowl with, the Arizona Cardinals. Now it appears the two have agreed a second run together isn’t best for either party.

Haley’s quarterback in that Super Bowl, Kurt Warner, talked to Arizona Sports 620 about why things didn’t work out this time around.

“I felt it would be tough for Todd to come back in a capacity that was less than an offensive coordinator with what’s he’s done and being a head coach and what he did here as a coordinator and just the way he likes to coach and what he brings to the table,” Warner said.

Considering the issues Haley had giving up any sort of control over the offense while in Kansas City, Warner points out the way things are currently constructed in Arizona, it just wouldn’t be an ideal situation for decision making.

“It would be difficult to be in that hierarchy where you really feel like you know what you should do in this situation or what you should call or what plays you should design and to know that there are still two people above you that can kind of veto you — is a difficult thing to do.”

A similar situation unfolded with the New York Jets, where Haley was in discussions to work under new offensive coordinator Tony Sparano. He and the Jets mutually decided last week a match couldn’t be made.

There are still three head coaching jobs open, so there’s a chance Haley could land a coordinator gig, but time is running out. If he’s unwilling to be a quarterbacks coach, the former Chiefs head coach could sit out next season and hope a better situation becomes available in 2013.

Since being fired by the Kansas City Chiefs, former head coach Todd Haley has kept a low profile.  He appeared on the ESPN show “Audibles” but otherwise has not been seen or heard from nor has his name been publicly mentioned for any jobs around the NFL.

It would appear the Arizona Cardinals are looking to change that.

So enamored with what Haley brings to the table, Arizona head coach Ken Whisenhunt is expected to talk with Haley about a job despite the team already having an offensive coordinator, according to The Arizona Republic.

Haley was able to get the Chiefs job after leading the Cardinals offense to the verge of winning a Super Bowl and was credited with developing Larry Fitzgerald into one of the wide receivers in the NFL.

Mike Miller is currently the Arizona offensive coordinator and Russ Grimm is the assistant head coach but had previously been the “run game coordinator” and is said to still be involved heavily on the offensive game plan.  Finding a way to fit Haley into that mix would be very interesting.

A return to the desert would make a ton of sense.  He has talked often about his fondness for Whisenhunt and if Haley was able to turn around the Cardinals offense (again) he’ll quickly be a hot coaching name around the league again.

Now comes word from Adam Schefter that Fitzgerald will be an unrestricted free agent after this season if he and the team do not come to an agreement on an extension.  Normally a player that talented would be slapped with the franchise tag, but Fitzgerald’s contract includes a “no-franchise-tag” clause.

As we talked about back in May, the Cardinals acquisition of Kevin Kolb from the Philadelphia Eagles would likely help keep Fitzgerald in Arizona.  However, the longer the two sides go without agreeing to a new deal increases the likelihood that the All-Pro receiver will walk.

And if he walks, odds are it will be right to Kansas City.

Things look full outside right now with Dwayne Bowe, Jonathan Baldwin and Steve Breaston, but there is always room for someone as good as Fitzgerald.  Not only is he better than any of those three, but with Bowe looking towards for a new contract after a breakout 2010 season, the Chiefs could decide that it’s worth the little extra money to bring in one of Haley’s favorite players instead of retaining Bowe.

As usual, Kansas City will have plenty of cap room to put together a competitive offer for Fitzgerald.  Clark Hunt and Scott Pioli have yet to find another team’s free agent worth opening up the check book, but we can all agree that Haley would do everything in his power to change that for Fitzgerald.

Once the NFL lockout finally comes to an end, one of the first things expected to happen is a trade of Kevin Kolb from the Philadelphia Eagles.  While the market for quality starting quarterbacks is always strong, it’s widely expected that the Arizona Cardinals — after passing on a chance to draft Blaine Gabbert — are the front runner for Kolb’s services.

At the end of last season, most of the talk surrounding the struggling Cardinals was about the future of Larry Fitzgerald.  The All-Pro wide receiver is entering the final year of a $40 million contract and made it clear he doesn’t plan on spending his prime watching the playoffs from home.  If Arizona planned on a lengthy rebuilding effort, it would mean the end of Fitzgerald playing in the desert.  To make sure they didn’t lose him for nothing at the end of 2011, the Cardinals no doubt would move him before the start of the season.

Though any market for Fitzgerald would also have no shortage of suitors, a reunion with Todd Haley — his former offensive coordinator — sure did seem like a perfect match.  The Chiefs don’t bring to the table the multiple picks in 2012 like the New England Patriots, but they do own all of their own selection and are armed with a boatload of available cash to spend.  With Fitzgerald being able to use a contract extension as his tool to direct a trade, Kansas City had to feel good about their chances if he were to become available.

If Kolb goes West to the Cardinals, any hope the Chiefs — or any other team — had of acquiring Fitzgerald would go out the window.  No team is going to go all in with a new quarterback and then turn around and ship off his best weapon.  Kolb joining the Cardinals is a sure sign to Fitzgerald they are committed to winning now and a new deal for the receiver won’t be far behind.

When the dust settles, maybe Kolb ends up in Washington, Seattle or some other darkhorse team and Haley can once again draw up plays for the league’s best wide receiver.  However, with the safe money still on Arizona, the Chiefs will go forward with their own star receiver in Dwayne Bowe and first-round pick Jonathan Baldwin, a player that isn’t Fitzgerald but does own a unique set of skills.

Shortly after the season, word started to spread that the Arizona Cardinals and WR Larry Fitzgerald were on the verge of a new long-term contract.  While that is still possible, according to NESN the Pro Bowler could be had around the league.

For the right price, Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald could be available in a trade, according to league sources, but that doesn’t mean the Cards are actively trying to unload him.

In fact, no one polled for this story had any direct knowledge of whether the Cardinals have had any legitimate discussions about trading their star receiver, so take that for what it’s worth.

We know how much Scott Pioli values draft picks, but we also know how fond Todd Haley is of Fitzgerald.  It also happens to be the perfect fit since the Kansas City Chiefs currently have little depth behind Dwayne Bowe at wide receiver.

Fitzgerald has never hidden how important Haley was to his career taking off in the league.  He also worked out with Bowe this past offseason and had nothing but good things to say, meaning the two shouldn’t have any trouble working together.

If I were running the team — thankfully for everyone involved, I’m not — I would quickly suggest to Arizona that the right price is a first and fourth-round pick this year and a third-round selection in 2012 in order to bring one of the best wide receivers to Kansas City. It would finally allow the Chiefs passing attack to somewhat resemble the one that got Haley hired in the first place.

The Cardinals drew first blood with a 36-yard field goal, but the Chiefs were able to put up 21 unanswered points and never looked back.  Arizona scored a TD as time expired that made the score look closer than you would think.

Unlike last week when Chiefs QB Matt Cassel did most of his damage after the game was out of hand, against the Cardinals he led a perfectly balanced attack from start to finish.  Kansas City had 352 yards of total offense, including 159 rushing from Thomas Jones and Jamaal Charles.

The downside to the victory was that the already banged up Chiefs lost left tackle Branden Albert and CB Brandon Flowers to injuries.  While we wait to get a rundown on the severity of those injuries, we can recognize the best players on offense, defense and special teams.

Offense: Dwayne Bowe

Is there a more consistent or exciting player on the Chiefs than Bowe right now?  I bet you didn’t think we’d be saying that after week 11 with Kansas City leading the AFC West.

What we have seen since Bowe dropped that potential game-winning touchdown against the Colts in week 5 is one of the best wide receivers in the NFL.  Doubt it?  Over the 6 games since losing in Indianapolis, Bowe has 36 catches, 563 yards and an amazing 10 touchdowns.  Catching at least one score in 6 consecutive games is a new franchise record.

The most important part of this stretch isn’t so much the stats as it is the way Bowe has picked them up.  Playing with a quarterback in Matt Cassel that doesn’t have the arm to make a ton of plays down the field, the Chiefs receivers have to be able to create yards after the catch and that’s exactly what Bowe has been doing every single week.

Defense: Brandon Flowers

As has been the case all year, the Chiefs didn’t put Flowers exclusively on the other team’s best receiver, but that didn’t stop him from holding down Larry Fitzgerald when he did get the chance.

Fitzgerald finished the day with 6 catches for 90 yards and a score, but of those numbers, 3 catches, 43 yards and the touchdown all came on the final drive of the game after Flowers had already exited the game with a hamstring injury.

The Chiefs defense, Flowers included, still has word to do if they want to take that next step but if the season ended right now it would be a travesty if he were not heading to the Pro Bowl.

Special Teams: Dustin Colquitt

Don’t look now, but Kansas City might have their secret weapon back.

It’s not so much that Colquitt has been bad this season, but he has not been one of the best in the league, something that we have grown accustomed to during his time with the Chiefs.

On Sunday, Colquitt was bad with a couple of monster punts of 59 and 64 yards.  Unfortunately both were touchbacks, though one should have been downed just outside the goal line but the coverage was mangled by Donald Washington.

Colquitt had a season high average of 52.8 yards with one punt fair caught inside the 10 to go along with the one Washington misplayed inside the 5.

Even though they have played their worst football of the season these last two weeks, the Chiefs are still leading the division.  With the Oakland Raiders heading to Pittsburgh to take on the Steelers and the Denver Broncos facing the San Diego Chargers, Kansas City has a chance to re-establish themselves as the favorites in the AFC West.

Here are the three players from each team that you will need to keep your eyes on.

Chiefs

Offense: Jamaal Charles

Once again, Kansas City will go as far as the running game takes it.  That means Charles needs to get going early and often for his first big game in three weeks, which was the last time the Chiefs won a game.

Even though the Chiefs still own the league’s No. 1 ranked rushing attack with 165 yards a game, Charles has only been able to muster 94 yards on 24 carries during the Chiefs two-game losing streak.  The Cardinals are the 28th worst defense in the NFL against the run, which should give Charles plenty of room to run.

Defense: Derrick Johnson

There isn’t much that Johnson hasn’t done for the Chiefs defense this year and he’s facing an offense that could set him up for his best game of the season.  Johnson is second on the team with 10 passes defensed and has twice as many as every non-DB on the team combined.

Last week, Seattle’s Aaron Curry terrorized Derek Anderson and the Cardinals with a game-high 8 tackles and 2 sacks, which is a good starting point for what Johnson should be able to accomplish Sunday.  After all, against a clicking offense last week, Johnson had 12 tackles and 2 passes defensed.

Special Teams: Javier Arenas

The Chiefs need to play better football across the board, though it could be argued that no unit has struggled for as long as special teams.  And the leading culprit is Arenas who after a fast start has struggled on kick and punt returns.  True, he had a 72-yard punt return for a touchdown nullified by a penalty but it’s never a good sign when a flagged play is your biggest highlight in a month.

Arenas currently ranks 16th in the league among punt returners with at least 10 returns and a very disappointing 21st on kick returns among players with at least 20 returns.  There is a light at the end of the tunnel.  The Cardinals coverage units aren’t much better than the rest of the squad and allowed Leon Washington to break off a 48 yard punt return last week.

Cardinals

Offense: Larry Fitzgerald

No one in the NFL knows what makes Fitzgerald tick more than Chiefs head coach Todd Haley, his former offensive coordinator in Arizona.  If there is anyone that can find a way to get the struggling Kansas City secondary to slow down one of the league’s best receivers it should be Haley.

Fitzgerald has had to work with two different less than stellar quarterbacks on a bad team and has still caught 49 passes for 601 yards and 4 touchdowns.  He is coming off two of his best games of the season as he hauled in 14 passes for 198 yards, but was kept out of the end zone, certainly something he will be looking to remedy Sunday in Kansas City.

Defense: Joey Porter

Last week’s Player To Watch, Mario Haggan, had 6 tackles and 3 sacks against the Chiefs which has to have Porter licking his chops.  He disappeared last week — along with the rest of the Arizona defense — but had 4 sacks in the previous three games.

The Kansas City offensive line could have backups playing at both guard positions, but even if the first team all line up to start the game they will be far from 100% thanks to those injuries to Brian Waters and Ryan Lilja.  Add in the game Barry Richardson had last week at right tackle against the Broncos and Porter is in perfect position to haunt Matt Cassel.

Special Teams: Andre Roberts

The Cardinals have one of the NFL’s best return men in LaRod Stephens-Howling, but he hasn’t practiced all week after suffering a hamstring injury against Seattle.  Stephens-Howling is listed as questionable and if he does suit up he isn’t likely to have his usual explosiveness.  That injury makes Roberts needing to step up against the Chiefs less-than-stellar coverage units.

Before deciding which way to go with this game, ButUS put a few trends together for you to consider.

• Arizona has played seven of its last eight games OVER the total
• Arizona has covered two of its last eight games
• Arizona has played five of its last seven road games OVER the total
• Arizona has lost five of its last six road games SU
• Kansas City has played four of its last five games OVER the total
• Kansas City has won four of its last five home games SU
• Kansas City has covered eight of its last 25 home games
• Kansas City has lost 19 of its last 25 home games SU

Besides the Chiefs desperately needing this game, all the signs point to this being one that the points won’t play a role and Vegas would seem to agree.  There were lines that opened as low as 7 for this game and that number has been bumped to 8 even with less than encouraging injury news for Kansas City.

Arizona is a mess with plenty of their own injury troubles, not to mention a lack of any sort of quarterback.  There are plenty of Chiefs fans that like to bag on Matt Cassel, but I can promise you the Cardinals offense would love to have him behind center to bring some stability to a position that has been as confusing as it has been ineffective.

Short of the line jumping another couple of points between now and kickoff, the Chiefs — warts and all — seem like a safe bet on Sunday.

Kansas City is seeking to make the Cardinals the first franchise the club has posted a perfect 4-0 record against at Arrowhead in regular season play.  The Chiefs are also 3-0 at Arrowhead vs. Atlanta and Washington.  The Chiefs have outscored the Cardinals by an average of 40.3 to 12.7 in those games, scoring 34 or more points in all three of those contests, including a 49-0 win (12/1/02).  KC has tallied 150.0 rushing ypg in those games, while allowing 91.0 rushing ypg and forcing 15 turnovers.

It would be something if the Chiefs managed to put up 34 points for a fourth consecutive time against the Cardinals at home.  Kansas City has only scored that many points this year once (Week 7 against Jacksonville) and twice (Week 15 vs. Cleveland, 17 vs. Denver) last season.

Luckily for the Chiefs offense, Arizona has the 27th and 28th ranked run and pass defense, respectively.  Ken Whisenhunt’s Cardinals have surrendered at least 34 points four times already this season and are fresh off being cut up to the tune of 36 by the Seahawks.  Seattle, by the way, had not scored 34 all season and only hit 30 points once, the opening weekend of the year.

The Chiefs are currently favored to win by 7.5 points.

As bad as things seem around Kansas City right now following two-straight losses within the division, it’s much much worse out West for the Cardinals.  After a big win over the Saints in week 5 to move Arizona to 3-2, they have dropped four straight including a 36-18 loss at home last week to the Seahawks.

Last week the Chiefs were the slightest of favorites at -1, but as we saw no spread was going to factor into that matchup.

Thanks to falling behind by 35 points early, Kansas City was unable to utilize their league-leading rushing attack even though they were facing the worst run defense in the NFL.  This week the Chiefs will have their choice of deficiencies to attack as the Cardinals currently rank in the bottom of the league in rushing and passing both on offense and defense.

Head coach Todd Haley will no doubt welcome the fans back to Arrowhead by getting Jamaal Charles and Thomas Jones back on track.  Charles was held to 41 yards on 14 carries and Jones only managed 3 yards on 4 carries.

Vegas could have trouble getting action on the favorites at that number, bringing the line down, though I fully expect Kansas City to come out on fire against Arizona.  The team has been knocked down and are facing the perfect team to bounce back against.