Did Turk McBride really have 2 sacks and a forced fumble or is someone playing a really elaborate joke on me? Definitely didn’t see this one coming. Of course I still think Turk stinks(he wasn’t even good in college), but what a great surprise it would be if he turned out to be a decent player. We need another end pretty badly. Could that end possibly be Turk? I’ll be shocked if he breaks 5 sacks this season, but lord knows I’ve been wrong before.
McBride’s astounding preseason game aside, we’re going to have a really hard time generating a pass rush this year. Gunther likes to blitz linebackers, but my understanding is that there’s not a lot of room for that in the cover 2. You know, because the cover 2 sucks. Or at least it sucks for us. Tamba’s comments after the Chicago game about feeling slow really scare me. If he doesn’t get to the quarterback we’re in serious trouble. When I was reading his comments I immediately thought of how pissed the Lie Guys must’ve been that one of their players was actually being honest with us. A few more doses of truth like that and the whole house of cards could come tumbling down. As soon as Hali’s quotes hit the papers Herm and Carl promptly had him killed and replaced by Eric Downing in a Tamba Hali jersey. The rest of the players were too scared to say anything.
I’m pissed about not being able to watch these preseason games. If any of you want to post game reviews like Diet Pepsi did after the Chicago game I’d be much obliged. I need reports from you guys actually, because I simply don’t trust any other sources. Everywhere I look I see the Chiefs spin doctors at work. I trust Whitlock, but he doesn’t write often enough.
I do have to give the Chiefs credit for benching Napoleon Harris. That’s normally not how they roll. Standard Chiefs practice with free agent busts is to keep starting them and claiming they’re good until they can be quietly sneaked out the back door, usually after no less than 3 years. This protects them from having to answer questions about why they signed that terrible player in the first place. I guess maybe they feel safe benching Harris because of all the inexplicable good will among Chiefs fans about where we’re at right now(build!). I mean I haven’t heard anyone question that signing, have you? Everyone’s too busy gushing about how good we’re gonna be in 2012.
Yeah, Brodie Croyle is going to be bad. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for giving him a chance this year, but there’s no way he’s our quarterback of the future. He never should’ve been pegged as such. It’s not like the guy was a first round pick. He was picked in the third round. Quarterbacks picked that late don’t usually work out. The way you handle a QB picked in the third round is to keep him on the team for a few years and play him if he actually looks good. At no point has Croyle looked good. It’s foolish to assume a mid-level draft picks is going to develop into a good starting quarterback. But that’s Herm’s call, and it could be what eventually forces him out of KC. If the rest of our team shows promise but Croyle keeps us from competing Herm should have to answer for that. Not that he will of course. He’s much more likely to get defensive and talk about how long he’s been in this league. Plus, if Clark Hunt’s comments are any indication, Herm is on much safer ground than Carl. I think if/when we crash and burn again Carl will be the next scapegoat. Then maybe we can get to Herm, unless there’s someone else left to take the fall. If Carl gets fired look for Herm to try to re-hire Mike Solari. His track record as Herm’s fall guy is impeccable.
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There was one play where Tank actually got in Warner’s grill (probably a broken screen play or something) and I’m curious if anyone else saw good things out of Tank?
Boone needs to be playing tackle, not end. I have to believe that Turk can out play him at end. I need to believe it.
My brief thoughts on the game:
Brodie has no touch with the ball. He can’t drop one over anyone’s shoulder. Every deep ball is high. I generally don’t really agree with whitlock (he is the yin to Carl’s yang of bullshit), but he was right about Croyle in his Sunday column. And, i agree with the hatt, you can’t plan to rebuild around a third round qb. when the late round qbs do succeed, it’s more of a fluke thing, not planned.
The running game looked pretty good. The line played well. But, unless Charles transforms into a playmaker, we are going to see a lot of field goals. As good as LJ and Bowe look, there is no one on this team who can make a big play. That being said, the playcalling seems alot better.
I was not impressed with the defense. the young dbs are going to get picked apart unless we find some pass rush. the cards tried to pick on flowers all game. he did alright, but if you can’t get pressure with four up front in our scheme, they are going to give up big plays. we have absolutely no speed on the outside rush. BTW, on one of turk’s sacks, he was unblocked and ran up the field unabated to sack warner. (i didn’t see the other one)
overall, it wasn’t as bad as i thought it would be. we are going to stay in games, but it will be tough to win a lot without any dynamic players with good speed on either side of the ball (except mike cox of course).
and by “win a lot”, piano man, i assume you mean win a lot of time in the battle for time of possession. then just sit back and let the scoreboard take care of itself
Herm has masterfullly arranged things so his job in secure in the immediate future. Although this is Herm’s third year as head coach, it is his first year of “rebuilding”. Nobody (except myself and bighatt) is going to hold it against Herm for losing this year while he is “rebuilding”. Next year, the team will need to “gel”. When or if that doesn’t happen, the excuse will be we need one more year to add players and to “gel”. So Herm’s job is pretty secure for the next three years, losing team or not. (Clark Hunt will cave and not fire Herm after this year or the next two). Probably, Herm’s departure will follow the 2010 season.
Due to the fact I disagreed with the hatt’s and piano man’s assertions that a team should not rebuild around a “mid-level” or “3rd round” quarterback, I decided to take some time and look at the starting quarterback’s for the 2008 season. I did not have an ax to grind, but I was merely curious if my suppositions were correct. In the end, I do not know what I think, but I will share some tidbits with you. Again, all I did was take all the slated starting quarterbacks this year and matched them up with their corresponding overall draft pick.
Currently, there are 12 starting quarterbacks that were picked later than Brodie (85th overall). They are, in no particular order:
Trent Edwards (92nd)
Tom Brady (199th)
Troy Smith (174th)
Derek Anderson (213th)
Matt Schaub (90th)
David Garrard (108th)
Tony Romo (undrafted)
Jon Kitna (undrafted)
Jake Delhomme (undrafted)
Jeff Garcia (undrafted)
Marc Bulger (168th)
Matt Hasselbeck (187th).
There are five #1 overall picks slated as starters:
Carson Palmer
Peyton Manning
Eli Manning
Alex Smith
JaMarcus Russell
There are ten first round picks (other than the #1 picks) slated as starters:
Chad Pennington (18th)
Ben Roethlisberger (11th)
Vince Young (3rd)
Jay Cutler (11th)
Philip Rivers (4th)
Donovan McNabb (2nd)
Jason Campbell (25th)
Rex Grossman (22nd)
Aaron Rodgers (24th)
Matt Leinart (10th)
The balance of slated starters looks like this:
Brett Favre (33rd)
Tarvaris Jackson (64th)–he might not be Week 1 starter
Chris Redman (75th)–don’t know if he’ll beat out Matt Ryan for Atlanta
Drew Brees (32nd)
I guess I am mixed on the idea of building around 1st or 2nd round “talent” at qb. I like the idea of building around a Roethlisberger, Cutler, or Campbell but Grossman and Tarvaris Jackson scare me. I also like the idea of buliidng around Trent Edwards or Derek Anderson but not Troy Smith or David Garrard.
In the end, I think the Chiefs made a bad judgment with Brodie. Other teams made bad mistakes with more valuable picks (Leaf, Couch, Carr, Akili Smith, and I think JaMarcus Russell and Alex Smith will be bad picks when all is said and done).
I think 80% of the teams are better off at their qb position than the Chiefs are, which sucks.
I am depressed after viewing the list I made.
Well, we’re gonna stink this year anyway so maybe we’ll have a Tebow or a Chase Daniels next year. Which brings up another question…will Chase be drafted in the first 2 rounds? I know next to nothing about how college quarterbacks are rated when it comes ot the draft so I’m looking for some help here.
And I don’t think I like Tebow…in fact, I think I hate players from Florida…I don’t like Florida in general.
Unless Urban Meyer changes Florida’s offense, Tebow will be a poor man’s Vince Young. I say poor because Tebow will not single handedly win a national championship like Vince Young did. Florida is not going to move away from the veer option they run because their bigs and running backs are so much more athletic than every other team.
I like Chase Daniel, but he should not be drafted in the first 4 rounds. I think he could be a servicable backup because he seems to read defenses well. If that does not work, he could sell cars in Missouri for about 5 years then figure out what he is going to do with the rest of his life.
I think it would be tough for either Tebow or Daniel to be given a serious look at qb in the NFL. They both come from spread/run’n'gun type offenses. QB’s from those systems rarely turn out to be good pro’s. Alex Smith is a perfect example of this, he looked like the second coming of Christ under Urban Meyer when he was at Utah but has failed to show anything at the NFL level. Daniel and Tebow are both athletic enough to be drafted, but i don’t think there is anyway that Daniel goes in the first two rounds.
Kyle Orton was a 106th pick.
katz: i guess i assumed that was understood with Herm at the helm.
phanatic: i don’t have a problem with having a late-round pick at qb. my problem is the way the chiefs just anointed brodie as qb without any real competition and without brodie showing himself to be even a serviceable qb in the league. you can do that with a 1st round pick because of how much you’ve invested in the guy. but, why not bring in a 4 to 5 year veteran with some experience to push croyle last year (or even this year) and see if one of them when given the chance could be a qb in the league. there is no real harm in testing croyle b/c you didn’t invest all that much in him. all the “late round” qbs on the list had either had real competition for the job (ie not huard) and won it or when thrown in games showed they could be productive. croyle is the only guy on the list (except maybe T. Jackson) who hasn’t done either of those things.
Just to clarify, I definitely don’t have a problem with a 3rd rounder being our starter. I wouldn’t have a problem with a 7th rounder being our starter. What I have a problem with is a 3rd rounder being handed a starting job without doing anything to earn it.
Generally I’m not in favor of drafting QBs high, but when you draft one in the first round its reasonable to start him based on potential and investment. The Chiefs are acting like Croyle was a first round pick. As my boi Piano Man astutely pointed out, they’ve anointed Brodie as the QB of the future without any real evidence that he can be. All we’ve got to go on is some vague claims about him showing leadership and intangibles, not during games, but during practice. That is not enough for me.
Good research though Phanatic. That’s the type of thing I should be doing, but am generally too lazy to. Well done.
Also, if we take a QB with a first rounder at any point in the next couple years Herm could potentially be given even more time to wait for the QB to “develop”. That’s a scary thought.
Herm is smarter than you guys think. GL and now Big Matt have it right. He gets to look for magic in a botlte this year with Croyle and maybe even Thigpen, then if they fail as is likely, he gets to pick a QB with a very high draft choice next year and have at least another two years to develop him as all his young players develop as well. I don’t know if it is all by design, but Herm and Carl have come up with a pretty good plan for themselves and maybe even for the Chiefs.
I understand what the hatt and piano man are saying here about Croyle. I did the list for my own enjoyment. Frankly, I was surprised by the number of first round guys on the list.
In the future, I may tell you about a guy who I would like to see compete with Brodie. I know he is smarter than Brodie, and I think he would beat out Brodie in the ability to play quarterback category.
However, with some of these hearsay positives developing with the offensive line and running game, I want to give Brodie a proper shot to Show-Me.
my unfortunate position re: Kroyle & the Chiefs this year
i sure hope Croyle lives up to the hype as Katz’z Korruptor and just stinks up the joint.
if he’s even marginal…if Croyle’s not bringin the laughs, those Chiefies may lose my fanship altogether
after going over the schedule and re-watching the first half of saturday’s game, i believe the Chiefs could easily go 8-8…if huard is put in after the patriots game.
I talked to some guys who went to Univ. of Alabama and have watched Croyle extensively over the years. They say he ’s pretty good but always gets stuck in the same situation: Run for a loss two downs, then he’s asked to make a great play when everyone knows he’s going to throw. If we make our offense a touch less predictable, Croyle has a shot. Otherwise, I don’t think it matters who’s at QB, third and thirteen is a tough position to be in.