"Romeo Crennel appears to be the right guy at the right time to be promoted as head coach of the Chiefs.

But here's a sobering detail for all those around Kansas City and inside the Chiefs' locker room who are pulling for Crennel to get the job: Promoting assistant coaches from within to the head-coaching job seldom works.

Since the NFL merger in 1970, 61 assistant coaches have been promoted to head coach and only five — 8 percent — led their teams to Super Bowl victories.

Those five former assistants were the Baltimore Colts' Don McCafferty (1970), the Raiders' John Madden (1976) and Tom Flores (1980, '83), the Giants' Bill Parcells (1986, '90) and the 49ers' George Seifert (1989, '94).

Certainly, it's difficult winning a Super Bowl under any circumstances, but of those 61 promoted assistants, only 11 — 18 percent — managed winning records with the programs they inherited."