Kansas City Chiefs Aren't Alone With '09 Draft Pick Struggles

Assuming, of course, that the needs of a team coming off an 11-5 season and 4 recent Super Bowl appearances are different than those of a team that is coming off a 2-14 season and that hasn’t been to the Super Bowl in over 30 years.

In addition to that, as you pointed out, Pioli was hired by the Chiefs early in the preseason. So while he certainly had his scouts in place during the regular season at New England, he was also dealing, at the time, with the day-to-day issues of the season, which, considering that they were dealing with the loss of the their first ballot hall of fame quarterback, was possibly a bit more eventful than usual. But when the off-season rolled around and it was time to focus more heavily on prepping for the draft, Pioli went through all of the important off-season scouting events (the Senior Bowl, the Combine, etc.) with Carl Peterson’s leftover guys.

Now this certainly isn’t a problem that would be unique to Scott Pioli, as just about any new GM would have these issues (though they might inherit better personnel, depending on the situation), but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a factor.

Now add in some of the extra factors: the strength of the 2009 draft class as a whole (sub-par), the fact that we didn’t have a second round pick (traded to the Pats for 2 starters), and where our picks stand in relation to other draft classes (we seem to be right around the league average in terms of retention of 09 picks). Finally, factor in the truism that everyone throws around but always completely ignores about the fact that it takes 5 years to truly be able to judge a draft.

Going on to previously ignore my last paragraph’s advice, let’s now look at our 2009 draft class:

We got Tyson Jackson with our round 1 pick – a starter who admittedly looked iffy in his rookie season but seemed to be showing real improvement in week 1 of his second year before getting injured. The jury is still out on him. Pick 2 was traded to New England for Matt Cassel and Mike Vrabel. It’s up to the individual, I suppose, to decide whether to include them in the draft, but we did get two starters out of the pick. Alex Magee and Donald Washington are admittedly underachievers to this point, but still have time to get on track. I don’t know if that’ll ever happen. But someone like Washington making a huge jump between year 2 and year 3 certainly isn’t unheard of. Colin Brown and Quinton Lawrence have both been cut (Lawrence several times) and are unlikely to pan out. Pioli hit a home run in the 7th with Ryan Succop, and secured another starter out of the UDFA pool in Jovan Belcher.

My point is this – it’s too soon to condemn Pioli for the draft, in part because there were several extenuating circumstances surrounding it, and in part because it’s too soon to judge. But if Tyson Jackson, Ryan Succop, and Jovan Belcher turn into quality starters (not to mention Matt Cassel, as well as Mike Vrabel, who is busy turning Andy Studebaker into a quality starter), and if either Donald Washington or Alex Magee develops into quality depth, I’m not sure how bad Pioli’s 09 draft really looks.

Wow, that was way too long.

TL;DR – I think Pioli does have an at least somewhat valid excuse for having a less than amazing 2009 draft, and I’m not yet convinced it was really all that bad to begin with.

to have him in the dime package on the final two plays of the game.

This is no easy win whatsoever. We could very much lose this game.

I don’t give us much chance of winning either.

He just said if cassel can’t do any better than last week then our chances go down a shit ton.

Do you REALLY disagree with that?