"I don't want thugs and hoodlums on the team. I really don't. I don't want bad-character guys. I don't want problem children." -Bill Parcells, 12/27/2007
I thought of this quote from Bill Parcells as the Kansas City Chiefs were making their selections on day two of the 2010 NFL draft.
As you know, Chiefs GM Scott Pioli comes from the Parcells tree (and the family tree by marriage) and often credits him with much of what he's learned being an executive in the NFL.
So it wasn't a huge surprise for me to learn that the Chiefs five draft picks thus far were all team captains. All good character guys. All team-guys.
Jason Whitlock of the Kansas City Star noticed a similar theme.
McCluster was on the SEC’s "community service team." Arenas was selected as Alabama’s 2007 academic excellence award winner and in 2008 won Alabama’s "I like to practice" award. Asamoah was an academic All-American. Moeaki was given the Hayden Fry Award for extra effort and was a member of Iowa’s leadership council for four years."
Pioli (and Todd Haley) has said time and time again that players need to be the "right fit" with the Chiefs. They need to be good players who love football but they also need to be folks who contribute to the community or, at the very least, won't contribute in a negative way.
Pioli was successful in that regard. All of these players are leaders.
“I just don’t think you can have enough [leaders]," Haley said after day one of the draft. "You need leadership on any kind of team and you can’t put a price tag on it and I don’t think you can have enough, I really don’t. As long as I’ve been around, that’s what you’re always fighting and in coaching staff meetings you hear, ‘Gosh, we need more leaders. We need more leaders.’ You need leaders."
Well, the Chiefs got their leaders.