Kansas City Chiefs GM Scott Pioli stopped by Sirius NFL Radio during Monday's practice in River Falls, WI. With Vic Carucci and Gil Brandt, Pioli talks about his experience since taking the Chiefs job, developing the defensive line and a few of the lesser known rookies.
You can listen to the interview at the mothership. Below I picked out a handful of of the questions and posted them.
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How much of a surprise was it all of the things that come up as you take the position of general manager?
That's a great question. You prepare for the job and part of what you do in the preparation for a general manager job is you look at the roster, the coaching staff and all of the football aspects. Deep down inside you know there are things that affect the football operation but you can't see or touch until you're immersed in the situation.
No matter how prepared you are for any job in life, I'm convinced you can be as prepared as you want to be and there are things that are unknown that you have to deal with that impact the job. And that's the case here.
It's not just rebuilding the roster. It's changing the culture of a lot of things of the football operation itself and things that affect the football operation.
Talking about the defensive line and Tyson Jackson:
There are a lot of things that need to change here and that we're going to change to bring us to where we want to get to. We have to be realistic about our expectations. We have to understand players aren't going to come into the league right now and make such a dynamic impact, particularly along the defensive line.
In New England we drafted three pretty good defensive lineman in the first round in Richard Seymour, Ty Warren and Vince Wilfork. All of those players, including Richard Seymour who was the sixth pick overall, that first year of an NFL defensive lineman, you really don't see a lot of them. Then there's been times where NFL defensive linemen who have dynamic first seasons then they kind of fade away.
Tyson's going to be a good player. I'm certain he's going to be a good player because of his make up, work ethic, and how he approaches the game. Most importantly, he's going to help us build our defense the way we want to build our defense.
I don't know if anyone has jumped out because right now it seems as a whole the entire rookie group, they seem or appear to be overwhelmed, whether that be mentally or physically.
It's a little early yet. There's no one that jumps out at me that I can say boy this guys looks like he's going to be this. Even with some of the younger players.
There are a couple of young players that other people may no tbe familliar with. Quinten Lawrence is doing a pretty good job. Jovan Belcher, rookie free agent out of Maine. Again, I'm not saying these are the types of players that are going to jump and storm onto the screen but they're guys who were afterthoughts for a lot of people who have a real serious shot at making our roster.
On Ryan Succop
This year's a unique season. There's no NFL Europe this year so we don't have the extra roster spots so we can't get the bonus exemptions and can't have as many people in camp. We're going into camp with one long snapper, one kicker and one punter.
We've literally only got 80 spots so you've gotta pick and choose and be selective since they're so much competition at other spots.
We made it clear to Ryan that he was'nt getting this job and wasn't going to be the only kicker in camp because he's won the job. He's actually gotta understand it's pressure. Because he's the only guy and if he can't do the job we're going to quickly find somebody else.
At these specials positions, there are always a number of NFL punters, kickers and long snappers that are NFL quality that are sitting out on the street not doing anything and there's a good chance they'll be playing somewhere.
Ryan's acutely aware that he's going to do it or he'll have some company.
On Dwayne Bowe:
Dwayne obviously had a slow start to camp. When we started camp, coaches had him as the No. 1 wide receiver. And at this point he's third on the depth chart.
He did do a nice job the other night. What we're trying to impress upon our players and this team here, is that this team is going to try to win championships. The way you win championships is not necessarily with the most talented players, it's collectively a group of players working as a team and doing things the right way all the time. That's what we're going to have.
We've had the opportunity is, and this is the beauty of practice in that the fans can see that one opportunity, the fans don't always see when a player, whether it's a receiver or a lineman, whether it's busted coverages, whether it's running the right or wrong route, whether they make the right adjustment in coverages. The reason we have practices is not only to teach, but it's to evaluate and we evaluate players during practice.
And we want players doing the right things at the right time. What goes into the evaluation of creating who the starters are or aren't, it's a big picture thing not just how they play on Sunday.
On Ashley Lelie:
We're not sure what kind of impact he's going to make. Again, he's another player competing for a position here. We released Jeff Webb as part of that to make a roster spot. We felt we needed to create more competition.
We need to get better at the wide receiver position. We need to get better players and better competiton at every roster spot. Honestly, if we stay here at the same roster that went 2-14 last year and 4-12 the year before, it's going to be a long season for everyone.
Our job here is to continually bring players into compete for jobs and compete for positions. It's not just the top 22 roster spots but 35-53 need to be strong.
Ashley Lelie is another player. He's one of ten at the wide receiver position who's figthing. Whether we keep five or six we don't know. That back end wide receiver is also competing with back end corners and safeties for the special teams spot.