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• You want Larry Johnson running angry again this year? Well he just broke up with his long time girlfriend.


• And we do need a nickname for Glenn Dorsey. We failed greatly last year when choosing a nickname for Brodie Croyle. For some reason, I was pretty set on B. Dazzle. Looking back on it, that name is freakin' terrible.


• Jared Allen, by the numbers.


• Wow. Looks like Wachovia banned AP and Arrowhead Addict from their work servers. This trick may work but I'm not sure. It's a worth a try. Go here to Google Translate, enter in www.arrowheadpride.com and translate it into English. It may work, may not. Good luck you Wachovia employees reading this from home and then going in to work.


• I'm not surprised at all that Mr. Wendler worked in a Star Trek mention in his latest article out of WPI.


• Got a kick out of this headline from The Falcoholic - Someone Is Actually Willing To Pay Us For Joe Horn.


• Another good read from Stampede Blue this time - David Terrell, Koren Robinson, Rod Gardner, Santana Moss, Freddie Mitchell or Reggie Wayne?.


• Blogging the Boys is running down the top ten Cowboy moments of 2007. You think we can give that a stab here? Do we have ten plays we'd like to remember from 2007? Seriously.


• That screen shot at the top is from Madden 2009, which ships in August. For me, it doesn't get any better than Joe Montana Sports Talk Football for Sega Genesis. The announcer on kick offs was the best - "It's up, it's high and it's good." I remember sitting there at age 11 thinking technology had a long, long way to go.

DJ's post from yesterday still has a lot of good discussion going on. SI.com is now featuring our front page stuff on its Chiefs section which means, if you write something great and I bump it up to the front page, your post will be sitting there with the KCChiefs.com content and the Kansas City Star content. For example, right now, DJ's headline is linked on the SI.com homepage at the bottom right under the Chiefs news.

Pretty cool, huh? All the more motivation for me and you to knock it out of the park with each post. Keep up the good work everyone.

I'm almost positive that this Bob Gretz article from the mothership is in response to this one from Jon at MVN but judge for yourself. First, Jon's point about the Chiefs signing first round picks:

Ryan Sims’ Dad made a pretty glaring accusation a few months ago that Carl Peterson has a history of low-balling first round picks. He claims that at the NFL Draft, many NFL teams warned him about Peterson’s ways. While so many were quick to brush this off and claim that because Sims was fat and lousy as a player, he has no credibility. I, on the other hand, became concerned as to whether there is any truth to his comment. Quietly, Peterson has racked up a very lousy recent track record of bringing first round picks to camp on time. Dwayne Bowe was a holdout. Tamba Hali made it to camp literally hours before camp started. Derrick Johnson was a holdout (albeit, a short one). Ryan Sims was a holdout. John Tait was a holdout. Sylvester Morris was a holdout. The only recent player to make it to camp in plenty of time was Larry Johnson.

And here's part of what Gretz wrote and was posted this morning:

Based on what they write and what they say, who could possibly think otherwise that the Chiefs drag their feet and are extra tough in negotiations, especially when it comes to their earliest selections.

The truth, however, is something quite different. Over the most recent five-year period of signing first-round picks (2003-07), the Chiefs rank in the middle of the league when it comes to getting their first choice signed. They are neither the team that is the earliest of signers or the latest. They aren’t even close to being the team that suffers the most first round holdouts.

Gretz uses the end of July as his measure of what a hold out is because if a player gets into camp by August, he's only missing a few days of practice. I think that's a valid measure.

I think they're both right (Ha, way to take a stand I know). While Gretz is correct that at least recently the Kansas City Chiefs have done a decent job of getting picks signed in a timely fashion, Jon is also correct to point that Carl Peterson does indeed have a bad reputation when it comes to contract negotiations. What's missing from Gretz's article is other contract negotiations, not necessarily rookie ones. Jon ends with a valid point:

There seems to be a huge divide between the players and the front office. Kyle Turley ranted on Sirius NFL Radio shortly after his retirement about the front office’s tactics. Greg Wesley accused the Chiefs of lying to him about their intention to release him. Trent Green was clearly not happy about the way he was let loose (and long-revered Chief Will Shields chimed in on Sirius NFL Radio that he concurred). The Chiefs are having a hard enough time attracting marquee talent in Kansas City; they can’t afford to lose players because they can’t put up with the management.

And there's the point to be made about Carl Peterson that Gretz doesn't mention. It's not about just the rookie contracts. It's about resigning players without BS. That, is something that Carl Peterson can't claim to have done successfully and is really the whole point of this debate.

Let us know your thoughts in the comment section, where I'll flesh out my thoughts throughout the day.

From yesterday's Q&A on the mothership.

Branden Albert's ankle sounds like it's going to be okay and that Albert is almost guaranteed to be our starting left tackle this year.

"Still sore. If we had to play he could play. There are certain guys who probably could play if we had a game but we’re going to be careful now. He’s shown us enough that he can play tackle for us."

After today's practice in St. Joe, MO, the team will be "off" until late July. The rookies will stick around for a bit after today though.

"They’ll continue to condition. The coaches won’t be around. [Strength and Conditioning coach] Cedric [Smith] will have them. They’ll do all that and they have to go [visit] the [Pro Football] Hall of Fame. They’ll have the weights. We have some other things planned for them."

Does anyone else get the feeling that Damon Huard will be on this team forever? For-ever.

"You need a guy who can go in who, if something should happen, can manage the game. It was tough on him last year and we were OK early. Then we couldn’t run the ball and struggled some. If you can’t run the ball it makes it tough on any quarterback."

Come on KC Media. You know Herm doesn't take kindly to the expression that the Kansas City Chiefs "squeaked" into the playoffs in 2006.

"If you look at us when we got in the playoffs, in my opinion, you knew what kind of team you had. You knew what these guys accomplished to get in. We squeaked in but we won enough games at the end. We won the last game that we needed to win."

Hermism alert!

"We’ve got a young crop of players who are very good and in two drafts prior to that two crops who are good. You’re talking about going from one of the oldest teams to one of the youngest teams in football. That’s good for us and I think the fans will enjoy watching this team play."

It seems like everything he says nowadays could be considered a Hermism. Or I'm going crazy. One of the two.

Finally, Herm leaves us with a rather shaky statement about getting the Chiefs draft picks signed and in training camp on time.

"They have to make the decision. Their agents do the negotiations but they have to understand that at the end of the day I play football and I’ve got to make sure he gets it done. I’m pretty sure they’ll get there."

Oddly enough, as the Chiefs practice for the final time before training camp, we'll be ramping up our posts here at AP. This is the most boring time for Chiefs news and NFL news in general so we're going to flip the script and do our best to make the next 57 days as interesting as possible. I can't promise excitement - that comes with exciting news - but I can promise interesting discussion. And that's where you come in just as much as me.

Sorry about the downtime earlier this morning. Everything should be good now.

With the news that the Falcons signed quarterback and #3 overall pick Matt Ryan to the tune (Why does that phrase exist in connection with signing contracts?) of $74 million, with $34 million in guarantees, that naturally makes us Kansas City Chiefs fans curious as to what our own top five draft pick will garner.

Take a look at the table below, which lists the last five top defensive tackle picks and their contract information. It also lists the contract information for the previous five #5 overall picks. Remember - it's all about the guaranteed money. Also, keep in mind that these aren't exact numbers. There is no comprehensive list (The USA Today contract database is a great resource but doesn't list full contract amounts) that I can find, so I relied mainly on newspaper reports for my contract information.

Year	Rd	Sel #	Player	School	Team	~Maximum Value	Guarantees
2007	1	10	Amobi Okoye	Louisville	Houston Texans	$17.6 million	$12.785 million
2006	1	12	Haloti Ngata	Oregon	Baltimore Ravens	$14 million	$9.3 million
2005	1	16	Travis Johnson	Florida State	Houston Texans	$10.2 million	$7.77 million
2004	1	14	Tommie Harris	Oklahoma	Chicago Bears	$9.8 million	$6.9 million
2003	1	4	Dewayne Robertson	Kentucky	New York Jets	$54 million	$13 million
***	***	***	***	***	***	***	***
2007	1	5	OT Levi Brown	Penn State	Arizona Cardinals	$62 million	$18 million
2006	1	5	OLB AJ Hawk	Ohio State	Green Bay Packers	$37.5 million	$16 milion
2005	1	5	RB Cadillac Williams	Auburn	Tampa Bay Buccaneers	$31 million	$15.1 million
2004	1	5	S Sean Taylor	Miami	Washington Redskins	$40 million	$13 million
2003	1	5	CB Terence Newman	K-State	Dallas Cowboys	$33.4 million	$13 million

As a baseline, we know Glenn Dorsey will get at least $13 million in guarantees because that's how much 2006's first-taken defensive tackle Amobi Okoye, who was the #10 overall pick no less.

Dorsey's guaranteed money probably lies somewhere around $18 million or so, which is about in line with last year's #5 pick OT Levi Brown. Offensive tackles are going to garner more than a defensive tackle, so, while adjusting for the inevitable increase, I think $18 million guaranteed is a good guess.

Dorsey's agent, Joel Segal (who also represents Kansas City safety Bernard Pollard) of the agency Worldwide Football Inc., is a major NFL agent with a large client list of mid to upper level players. Segal's other clients include Reggie Bush, Michael Vick (I guess he still counts), Alex Brown, Jerry Porter, Will Smith and TJ Duckett as a few examples.

Reggie Bush did sign at the eleventh hour (literally even I think) in late July 2006, so Segal's last major client cut it close to a training camp holdout.

What do you think Glenn Dorsey's contract details will be and do you think he'll be in camp on time?

Poll

Will Glenn Dorsey make it to training camp on time?

• Yes
• No

  476 votes | Results

Poll

Which Chiefs' draft pick is going to be a bust?

• Glenn Dorsey
• Branden Albert
• Brandon Flowers
• Jamaal Charles
• No one!

  554 votes | Results