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Chiefs Expect Several Draft Picks To Contribute Now
by Alan Eskew
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| MAY, 2006: Nick Reid was the Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year. He is a 6-4, 240-pound linebacker, who led Kansas with 112 tackles and was third team All-America. He was passed over in the NFL draft, despite his college credentials. His 4.9 time in the 40 was considered slow by NFL standards. Scouts, also, did not believe he was athletic enough to play on Sundays. The Kansas City Chiefs picked up Reid as a free agent after the draft ended.  The Chiefs used their second-round pick on safety Bernard Pollard, who was suspended briefly early in his junior season after getting into a shouting match with his Purdue coach, Joe Tiller. “It was a misunderstanding,” Pollard said. Pollard opted to leave Purdue after his junior season “You’ve to live with those junior mistakes he’s going to make,” Chiefs coach Herm Edwards said. Most pre-draft analysis did not rank him in the top 100 players. Most draft-geeks thought the Chiefs reached too high for Pollard, believing he would still be on the board in the fourth round. Reed goes un-drafted and the Chiefs select Pollard in the second round. Go figure. If the Chiefs wanted a defensive end in the first round, the conventional wisdom was they would pick North Carolina State’s Manny Lawson, who has pass-rushing speed and 20-1/2 career sacks.
Instead, the Chiefs skipped over Lawson and went for Penn State defensive end Tamba Hali, who has lackluster 40-yard times and was not considered a first-round pick in most mock drafts. “Defense is not pretty,” Edwards said. “Defense is guys getting dirty and playing hard and playing with toughness and passion, and that’s what this guy does. When you turn the film on, you turn it off and you go, ‘Wow.’” Hali, who is 6-3, 275 and logged four sacks last season, was coached by Larry Johnson Sr., the father of the Chiefs running back, at Penn State. The Chiefs are expecting Hali and Pollard to make contributions as rookies. “That’s what we drafted them for,” Edwards said. General manager Carl Peterson’s first draft with the Chiefs was 1989 and he has never developed a young quarterback in his tenure. The last time they selected a quarterback in the first three rounds was Matt Blundin of Virginia, a second-round pick in 1992. He turned out to be a bust. The Chiefs, however, drafted Brodie Croyle, who passed for 2,234 yards and 13 touchdowns as a senior at Alabama, in the third round. He had a streak of 190 passes without an interception. Starting quarterback Trent Green turns 36 in July. His backups are Damon Huard and Casey Printers, who has been in the Canadian Football League, so it is past time for the Chiefs to cultivate their own quarterback. Croyle could be that guy. Forget the sports talk radio comparisons of Croyle to Tom Brady, who had engineered the New Patriots to three Super Bowls. That is unfair to Croyle. Lets see if he will develop amply to replace Green as a starter in a couple of years before mentioning him in the same sentence with Brady. Croyle will likely spend this season on the sidelines as the No. 3 quarterback, used only in an emergency. Defensive back Marcus Maxey, who did not start until his senior season at Miami, was the Chiefs’ fifth-round pick. The Chiefs did not own a fourth-round choice, but surrendered that to the New York Jets for hiring Edwards. Maxey will probably not make an immediate impact, but could be a nickel or dime back. The Chiefs still could use some help at cornerback. “I’m not a panic kind of guy,” Edwards said at the Chiefs being think at cornerback. “I don’t throw my hands up and say, ‘We should have got a corner.’” The Chiefs could use some help, too, at wide receiver, losing free agents Marc Boerigter and Chris Horn, although they do return starters Eddie Kennison, who at 33 may be slowing down, and Samie Parker. The Chiefs, however, waited until the sixth-round to nab a wide receiver, choosing Jeff Webb of San Diego State. Webb, 6-2, 211, has 4.4 speed and he averaged 7.18 catches a game as a senior. Marcus Edwards, son of the Chiefs head coach, was a college teammate of Webb. With another sixth-round pick, the Chiefs got Tre’ Stallings, a four-year starter at tackle at Mississippi, but will be probably be moved to guard. With their seventh-round pick, the Chiefs chose safety Jarrad Page from UCLA. This is the third time he has been drafted. Page, a center fielder for the Bruins baseball team, was drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers in 2002 and the Colorado Rockies in 2005. In three years, one will have a much better read on how the Chiefs really did in the 2006 draft. Maybe Reid, who was not drafted at all, will turn out to be the best of the lot. Or maybe the NFL scouts were correct in assessing Reid’s ability and he won’t even make it out of training camp, but will end up playing in Canada or for the Brigade. |
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