After the terrible play of the Offensive Line, I've had a few conversations with several friends and fans. I was at the Seahawks game and actually talked about a few things with a guy sitting a row in front of me. Both of us shared the opinion that we COULD make changes to the OL without bringing anyone in that might actually help.

Now, we're both of the opinion that we NEED to bring someone in, but that doesnt mean someone is available. So my thoughts on the OL after the jump..

First, lets talk about some of the guys background.

Branden Albert is our LT. His natural position however is LG.

Brian Waters is our LG. He can play any interior position.

Rudy Niswanger is our C. Hes a bit out of place considering he is very tall for a C.

Mike Goff is our RG. He can play C or RG.

Finally Damien McIntosh and Barry Richardson are the RT's. Unfortunately, not much can be done for this position

On the bench we have Herb Taylor, who hasnt done much this camp (that I know of) but played well at LT last season for Brandon Albert, and has been practicing at LG also.

Now, there are a couple of different setups that I have thought of. I think we should have been testing different positions a long time ago considering we have guys who can play multiple positions on the OL. I know that you shouldnt mess with something that is not broken. We know the left side of our OL is fairly solid. But what if we could make some changes that would add consistancy to the rest of the OL? We might be able to go from a good let side, terrible right side to average on each side, which MIGHT take some pressure off the QB. If it doesnt go well in practice, then just dont do it. But its worth checking out, IMO.

Lineup #1

Herb Taylor, Branden Albert, Mike Goff, Brian Waters, Damien McIntosh/Barry Richardson

Lineup #2

Branden Albert, Herb Taylor, Mike Goff, Brian Waters, D-Mac/Richardson.

Lineup #3

Branden Albert, Brian Waters, Mike Goff, Rudy Niswanger, D-Mac/Richardson

Personally, I like Lineup #3 because it keeps Albert and Waters together. Goff is tall like Niswanger but is also heavier and maybe stronger. He may be able to keep from being shoved into the backfield all the time. Niswanger is a good fit, physically, at RG. Can he play there? I dont know. I think that was his original position. Brian Waters can also supposebly play C, but I dont know if Id want him playing there. It would depend on who takes the LG spot and how well they play.

The last thing I want to address..and I'm sick of hearing about..is how "stupid" Pioli and Haley are for not doing more to upgrade the OL. Seriously, its getting on my nerves. None of us know if we tried to do more. Its obvious that we TRIED to upgrade the OL by adding Goff. How were we supposed to know that Goff wasnt going to live up to what we thought we would be? We obviously needed more than Goff but whos to say we didnt try? We might have tried to get a FA C or RT to come in and they didnt want to play for a 6-26 team. Maybe we wanted to draft OL in the 3rd round and didnt think any that were available were good enough. Maybe we tried to trade for OL and couldnt find a trade partner. My point is, NONE of us know what Pioli TRIED to do. So why are we blaming this on him? Maybe we should blame the guys who didnt want to come to KC. Hell, I dont think I'd want to go to a 6-26 team either. Think about it.

These FA's dont know everything about every team. They know the Chiefs were bad last year. They DONT know what we did in the offseason to improve. But all that improving isnt going to matter, because our OL cant protect the QB, we can't convert 3rd downs, we put the defense back on the field constantly, theyre going to get tired and we're going to get killed. Unfortunately, I have gone from extremely optimistic (7 wins minimum) to extremely worried. At this point, Id be THRILLED if we could win 5-6 games.

Anyway. Thats my 2 cents.