I was perusing Pro Football Talk yesterday (Nice new digs, Florio) and came across an item regarding the Chiefs official announcement of the Colin Brown signing. If you read Arrowhead Pride regularly, you knew about this signing on June 23rd. But the Chiefs didn't make it official until June 30th. A bit strange, no?
Florio suggested that this might be the next move in the new regime's chess game with the media in the dissemination of any and all information coming from the team.
Our best guess is that this is simply another example of the Chiefs, under new G.M. Scott Pioli, believing that no news is good news for the team's overall interests, and that every announcement and other disclosure should be delayed as long as possible.
By the looks of the first reported and official signing dates given in this morning's post, Florio's statement appears to be accurate. News broke of the pending contractual agreement of 7th round pick Ryan Succop and 5th round pick Colin Brown about a week before any sort of official announcement from the Chiefs.
But...
These two instances appear to be the exception, not the rule. In large part thus far this offseason, the Chiefs have announced free acquisitions themselves or the same day other media outlets reported it.
Take a look at this chart after the jump. I've compiled a list of the official announcements of player signings from the mothership and compared it to the first time it was reported by other media outlets. The result? The Chiefs sure can keep these signings quiet.
Player | First Reported | Official Announcement | Difference |
Mike Vrabel | February 27th | February 28th | 1 |
Matt Cassel | February 28th | February 28th | 0 |
C.J. Jones |
March 5th* |
March 5th | 0 |
Jon McGraw |
March 6th* |
March 6th | 0 |
Darrell Robertson |
March 6th* |
March 6th | 0 |
Travis Daniels | March 10th* | March 10th | 0 |
Corey Mays | March 13th* | March 13th | 0 |
Engram/Beisel/Copper | March 17th* | March 17th | 0 |
Mike Goff | March 25th | March 26th | 1 |
Rodney Wright | April 7th* | April 7th | 0 |
Tanner Purdum | April 7th* | April 7th | 0 |
Zach Thomas | April 11th | April 13th | 2 |
Sean Ryan | April 21st* | April 21st | 0 |
Tony Curtis | April 24th* | April 24th | 0 |
Rudy Niswanger | April 24th* | April 24th | 0 |
Eric Ghiaciuc | April 30th* | April 30th | 0 |
Mike Brown | June 24th | June 25th | 1 |
* Denotes first reports came from the team
Pretty much nothing is leaking out of One Arrowhead Drive nowadays. Agents and players are obviously keeping their mouths shut.
Surprised? We're not.