It is pretty amazing how there are so many Chiefs fans who think Glen Dorsey is a bust.  We go through this every time someone talks about the draft, the defense, or available FA.  And it is not just here.  It seems like I know an awful lot of people who have this perception.  Perhaps it's the idea that we traded Jared Allen and everyone expected to have a new piece plugged in with the same production.  Maybe it's just that since he was a high draft pick people have utterly ridiculous expectations.  We have to realize the entire season was a defensive debacle last year, with record breaking futility, for a whole lot of reasons.  Now I begin to worry that the same unreasonable expectations are going to be laid at Tyson Jackson's feet.  Not only do you have to pick someone with talent, you have to coach them and develop them as a player.  In the NFL that usually takes a couple of years.

Awhile back, Bob Gretz had a great article on his site about Dorsey and his production.  He had a couple of charts showing first year production of first round draft picks, and Dorsey showed up very well compared to that group.  I have used those stats quite a number of times in pointing out to people how they have the perception wrong.  But it got me thinking about how the stats look for DTs who have made All-Pro Status.  So naturally, being the geek that I am I started looking up what players had been voted All-Pro and what their stats were for the first two years of their careers.  And to be utterly geekish, I tracked this all the way back to 1990 when Saleaumua was the last Chief to make it.  I used Wikipedia for the names and Pro-football-reference.com for the stats.  I also decided to add in the Chiefs' draft choices over that time, just to give a frame of reference to the draft busts that we have made over the years.  Do note that on the Chiefs picks, I included both DT and DE just for fun.

Now...what do we learn from this preponderance of numbers? 

There have been 24 guys named All-Pro since '90, many of them with multiple seasons, so I think this is a very good group to compare against.  After all, I want Dorsey to not only be a good player, but a player people speak of in the same breath as guys on this list.  Looking at the first two seasons of each gives a reference point of 48 seasons.  I do question the stats on some of the guys from the early ‘90s....especially Ray Childress.  He was awesome but holy cow...135 and 170 is a LOT of tackles.

Of the 24, only 5 posted higher tackle totals than Dorsey in the first year.  14 posted higher first year sack total.   Only 3 started as many games as Dorsey.

Nearly all of these guys showed marked improvement from year one to year two.  By this measure, Dorsey should have an outstanding year this year.  Considering the amount of playing time Dorsey got last year he is ahead of most of the top players in terms of experience.

While Jared Allen was a sack machine, he did not post as many tackles first year as Dorsey.

This chart just shows numbers for All-Pro DTs and not DEs, but when viewed against these numbers it looks like Tamba Hali is a stud.  Let's not give up on him either.

The Chiefs have had a lot of draft picks that were either not very talented, or were not developed.

The most important thing to see from this chart is:

Glen Dorsey is NOT a bust!