I did my weekly hour of KC Chiefs talk on 610 Sports today instead of the regular Tuesday due to some sort of local college basketball news yesterday. (Frank Martin something?) Danny Parkins, Carrington Harrison and myself talked Chiefs for an hour covering nose tackles, the 2012 NFL draft and and trading back, among other things. You can listen live when I'm on from 11-12:00 p.m. (Arrowhead Time) on Tuesdays. (I'm still waiting for an AP reader to call in and try to embarrass me.)
A recap of a few things we talked about is below...
No sport like the NFL. At least not right now when it comes to popularity. Look at baseball -- the first game of the season was today...on tape delay. Can you imagine the NFL not having their first game of the season be the biggest event that day? The NFL will have a three-hour special on multiple networks dedicated solely to the release of the schedule. The schedule! We already know the teams. This is just the release of the dates of when those teams will play. The NFL truly is king. (Baseball fans will unite against me now.)
Do the Chiefs have any holes? Romeo Crennel talked to the KC Star this week and indicated that the Chiefs don't necessarily have any glaring holes. Reasonable people can disagree with that one but I do think the Chiefs have few holes...they just come at major positions like quarterback, which is a question mark, and nose tackle, which is an even bigger question mark.
Why trade back from pick No. 11? Carrington made this point a few times -- if your guy is there at 11, why not take him at 11? I agree with that take in general but looking at the Chiefs specific situation I'm not sure that I agree. I don't see a big talent drop-off between 11 and, let's say 22, when it comes to potential Chiefs draft picks. Is there anyone available at 11 that won't be there at 22 that is worth the Chiefs giving up an extra second round pick, or whatever they'd get for trading back? Maybe Dontari Poe, but he's hardly a sure thing. I really don't think there is. Absent selecting a quarterback high in the draft, I'm not sure I would ever turn down a trade back offer (assuming it's a fair offer, of course).
Nose tackle talk. We covered a lot on nose tackle and there was one caller who brought up some great points. First, the Chiefs nose tackle is on the field for like half the snaps so maybe we're overvaluing its importance. Look at what GM Scott Pioli has done at nose tackle in three years -- not a whole lot, outside Kelly Gregg and a sixth round pick on Jerrell Powe. Maybe the Chiefs don't place a high premium on nose tackle like the rest of us do. Second, Dontari Poe, a common mock draft pick for KC, didn't have the production at Memphis that you'd like to see. The caller brought up Vince Wilfork a few years ago. He was a first round pick at nose tackle and it was clear as day when he came out that Wilfork was the best available nose tackle (with a nod to Tommie Harris). He was the man at Miami and everyone knew it. It's concerning that Poe didn't perform like that in college. Now that Pioli has been in-house for three years, we're starting to realize where he places his priorities. Nose tackle, at least three years in, certainly doesn't seem like a major priority.