Yeah, yeah. I know, I know. "All of these guys have great character." Oh, I also forgot "they were all team captains and show great leadership." That's good. I don't doubt those things. In fact, I'm quite glad to have them on the team. I also assume they're highly talented.
In case you haven't noticed, there's a Chief-sized conundrum occurring, as two player personality types clash in front of the media of all places (the opposite of Pioli's favorite hangout). It's almost hilarious to some degree, as if it was scripted by some drama-lovin' mastermind. Instead, I think it's just because several million billion football fans gotta have something(!) to talk about, right? Consider the following:
1. Angelic hosts proclaimed the arrival of Kansas City's newest draft class, a group everyone would entrust their grandmother's groceries to in addition to making waves on the football field. Everyone here at AP, at the Mother Ship and throughout footballdom (don't believe that's a real word, but you get it) wrote how Pioli was changing the culture and how character and leadership were going to change things.
2. Then, as if to blow the halos out, a shadow worthy of Mordor descends on the Chiefs camp with the stupidest player quotes this side of anything JaMarcus Russell could possibly be saying right now. This Dwayne Bowe saga is continuing to play out in the media (Pioli's lovin' it, McDonalds style), with the Chiefs former uniform washing machine technician weighing in on the matter to ESPN or Pro Football Talk.
More after the jump:
High character guys. No character guy(s). Good. Evil. Light. Dark. Maybe the clash isn't that epic, but it's definitely near-hilarity after the choir boy set of headlines coming out Kansas City the last few weeks. And many are wondering, "What are the Chiefs going to do about Dwayne Bowe? Doesn't this go against exactly what you just drafted for?"That's a great question. And it's exactly my point here -- when such a firestorm has been made about the intangibles of your newest acquisitions, what do you do when those are the downfalls of your most talented wide receiver? Do you jettison him? Do you put your head down and hope it goes away? Do you trade him for a Santonio Holmes-like package of a Mark Grace rookie card and a pack of Bubblicious?
Instantly, the national media changed their tune about Kansas City from the Chiefs' high character machine to the Chiefs' prostitute petting zoo. And I think they're all missing the point. Dwayne Bowe is, like it or not, very talented -- at a position where the Chiefs don't exactly have a ton of depth. And the guys the Chiefs just drafted? They might be Eagle Scouts, but they're also very talented.
If you want a headline coming out of Kansas City that's worth anything in these next few weeks of downtime, let it be this: Scott Pioli and Todd Haley will keep the guys who are talented and can help them win. And the Chiefs just drafted a slew of new guys who are talented and can help them win. Some are eccentric. Some will be community heroes. And some are stupid when you place a microphone in front of them. But all the noise about who's good or who's not dies down when the opening kickoff is heard. And, I assume, that's what Pioli is most concerned about above character -- either good or bad.