More pictures have hit online over the past week. Here is my catch-all entry to show off the new team this year.

All the images we'll grow familiar to, and some new ones as well. Herm in sweats, LJ high stepping, and LOADS of Sippio sightings.

Thanks again to Getty Images!

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Kcchiefs.com posted a fairly underwhelming interview with Derrick Johnson yesterday. I don't claim to be an expert in how to extract information from professional athletes, but as we saw on Hard Knocks last year, athletes are coached to be cordial and avoidant. So I would do everything I can to knock them off their guard, to get them to reveal actual nuggets of information rather than that candy-coated crap they're always feeding us.

It's an unofficial job of mine to read this crap, and it doesn't get any easier when the questions line up like this:

Q: How’s it going for you now that your in your third week of OTAs and you start mini- camp on Friday?

Q. What is like to not only have Gunther as your defensive coordinator, but also your linebackers coach?

Q: Sometimes you start out real strong then things trail off. Is this the year for you?

Q: That word consistency seems to be that word because Brodie (Croyle) used it as well about his play and that everybody has to consistent?

THAT LAST ITEM ISN'T EVEN A QUESTION. But it's got a question mark nonetheless.

It's been several years now since we've drafted Derrick Johnson, and there's not a lot I can tell you about his tenure that you don't already know. His play has alternated between brilliant and ordinary. The sky is blue.

But the continual talk about Derrick Johnson during his time as a Chief has been that he's "developing." This was an adjective I'd hoped we'd stop using after his second year, but coming into his fourth year, we're still hearing it. And oddly enough, it's appropriate. The guy is still developing, because even after 2007, easily his best to date, there is still a lot of things this guy can do.

Ever since his rookie year ended, I've been the guy saying "DJ's going to explode!!!1 this year" every single offseason, only to be proven wrong.

Well this year, he truly is going to explode. And I'm not just saying that to say it. I'm saying it because I truly believe, and will argue thusly, that Derrick Johnson will be a Pro Bowl linebacker in 2008. Quote it, buy it, print it. I'll offer three gigantic reasons why.

The first reason is that there is a lot of buzz out right now that DJ is finally making the move from strongside to weakside linebacker. This a move that is significant not only in the statistics he's going to accumulate, but in his ability to impact games. The strongside linebacker is typically responsible for more pass coverage and less freedom to roam than the weakside is -- largely to account for the tight end. The strongside linebacker typically rushes the backfield where the most blockers are, and has to attack the QB in his line of vision.

DJ has been nearly elite in pass coverage, and locked down on tight ends all year -- few tight ends had big games on the Chiefs. But DJ's specialty is getting behind the line of scrimmage and getting to the QB. The weakside allows DJ to do it without entering the QB's line of vision, and it doesn't weigh him down with coverage assignments nearly as much as the strongside would. This allows DJ to create more havoc.

The second reason DJ will make the Pro Bowl is more negative for the Chiefs as a team: he is surrounded with the weakest linebacker talent that he's seen in his years as a Chief (as hard as we strive on AP for continuity, this is a point where Chris and I disagree). Donnie Edwards is another year older at a position that doesn't age particularly well, and Donnie may be playing at middle linebacker anyway to cover for Napoleon Harris, who's performance has been so underwhelming, offenses are apparently gameplanning to attack him. DeMorrio Williams is a question mark more than anything, and from there it's a cluster of UDFAs and castoffs, all of them promising but none of them proven.

It's an adage that's seen across all levels of football: surround a linebacker with better and better players, and his numbers and the sheer amount of plays he can make will decrease. If you surround a linebacker with elite talent, there's less Superman plays he has to make to keep his team competitive. What you're seeing in 2008 is a weak lineup that backs up a defensive line that's riddled with questions itself, and DJ will be provided every opportunity to statistically erupt.

The third and last reason that DJ will be a Pro Bowler in 2008 is that he's already played like one last year. I believe that DJ was a Top 5 strongside linebacker last year. But every OLB that made the AFC Pro Bowl squad came from a 3-4 defense, which provides their OLBs to rush the QB with abandon and put up huge numbers.

So with all of the above reasons, a little friendly exposure from the media, and some luck, I fearlessly predict that DJ will become the first Chiefs linebacker to make the Pro Bowl since our own patron saint, Derrick Thomas.

Who's with me?

I was listening to Mike & Mike in the Morning this morning and they were laughing at hockey fans, who all seem to wear jerseys to hockey matches. They laughed at the idea that wearing a jersey with another player's name on the back who may very likely be younger than you is a fashion faux pa.

I'm not real sure when M&M became concerned with fashion statements, but they just feel like jerseys are something you wear when you're a kid, then you become an adult and they are no longer "cool."

They then answered a bunch of mail from viewers and scoffed at them as they suggested that wearing jerseys are a perfectly acceptable form of attire.

I personally think M&M got a little snobby here. Anybody agree?

I don't know how many of you out there are draftniks, but I highly recommend converting. I can remember becoming engaged in the Draft season as soon as the Jets game concluded in 2007.

There hasn't been a very strong undercurrent of interest in the Draft during the Vermeil years in Kansas City, and for good reason: draft picks were bargaining chips more than they were opportunities to bring in talent.

But of the many things you could charge Herm Edwards with, the one that's certain is that his administration has made the NFL Draft fun again for Kansas City Chiefs fans. Its now rewarding to be familiar with 250+ potential Draftees because you can be assured now that the coaching staff is studying the same people you are. The Draft hasn't been the Chiefs' only source of the youth movement during the Herm Edwards era, but it has been the backbone of it.

Dallas Morning News' Rick Gosselin, who's the veritable King of the Draftniks, has duly pimped the Chiefs youth movement in today's paper, calling the Chiefs "one of the more intriguing off-season stories in 2008." As a guy who's expertise is on the Draft, it makes sense that he loves what the Chiefs are trying to build:

The Chiefs have been ancient by NFL standards this decade. From 2000 to '06, the average age of the Kansas City roster was 27-plus years. From 2002 to '07, the average age of the starting lineup was 28-plus years.

Dick Vermeil was the head coach of the Chiefs most of the decade. He preferred older players. Veterans don't make the mistakes that beat themselves. As long as the Chiefs were a viable playoff contender, general manager Carl Peterson bought into Vermeil's philosophy.

Now Vermeil is gone, the Chiefs are no longer contenders and Peterson is embracing the philosophy of his next head coach, Herman Edwards: Go young.

Edwards earned his coaching wings as an assistant on Tony Dungy's staff at Tampa Bay. Dungy is the Godfather of the draft 'em/play 'em philosophy. The best way to make a young player better is to put him on the field.

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As OTAs start wrapping up soon, minicamp and River Falls on the way, we know now that 95% of the Day One roster is buried in the masses of 90-plus bodies that have shown up to OTAs in record attendance this year. This team, as young and promising and inexperienced and volatile as it is, is almost built for 2008.

But it is not completely built. As teams around the league start cutting players, the Chiefs are likely to duplicate what they did last year and scoop up a few of them (QB Tyler Thigpen, LBs Pat Thomas and Johnny Baldwin, CB Rashard Barksdale). It is impossible at this point to know who those players are.

There are a number of free agents available now, however (as Ty Law would love to remind you). Are any of those worth taking a look at, particularly at positions of need? Perhaps.

I realize that all these players have question marks. But this is a team of questions, taking a season to explore numerous options to see what's in store for the future. You've got to look for talent everywhere, and that includes the Pit of the Damned that is free agency in June.

List of players after the jump. Except for Chris Henry, who's more talented than all of them but I just absolutely hate the guy.

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