Pro Football Articles Opinion & Fantasy – Football Diner

The Football Diner All-Time Draft
Pick # 5 – Kansas City Chiefs
by Sam Monson
19/8/2008
 
The Kansas City Chiefs are in rebuilding mode. This has its advantages. For one thing they began the 2008 NFL Draft with 13 draft picks. The downside to that is that they were looking for half a dozen starters with all of that ammunition.
 
When it comes to looking back into their past though it means that the Chiefs have something of a blank canvass, with few established stars on the team, the Chiefs can largely afford to aim simply at the best player from their history, a luxury some of the teams we’ve looked at already couldn’t afford.
 
In Branden Albert, Glen Dorsey and Brandon Flowers, the Chiefs hit on three immediate starters, and what they hope will be three impact players with their top three picks in this draft. Dorsey is as talented as any defensive tackle to come out of college in years, and should provide the Chiefs what they wanted way back when they drafted Ryan Sims (whoops).
 
The biggest question mark about Kansas City is clearly at quarterback. Brodie Croyle has the 2008 season to prove he is a legitimate franchise QB, but there aren’t many people who think he’ll be successful in that attempt. Tyler Thigpen is a young quarterback who has some tools, but is very raw. The Diner actually believes that he’ll get a shot to start some games this year after Croyle struggles, and could secure the job, but can you really pass up a legitimate Hall of Fame quarterback for a guy who you believe can get the job done if he gets a shot?
 
Len Dawson was the Chiefs own legend at QB. Despite playing back in the 1960s, Dawson put up a career passer rating of 82.56, which would be considered a pretty good rating even in today’s pass-happy league. He led the Chiefs (one season in their original Texans incarnation) to four AFL titles, winning four AFL passing crowns in his efforts. He was also named MVP of Superbowl IV, leading the Chiefs to a win against the heavily favoured NFL representatives, the Minnesota Vikings.
 
Dawson was a deadly accurate passer, often called by his coach, Hank Stram, the most accurate passer in pro football. He was also an astute field general, poised in every situation, and rarely if ever rattled. In short, he is the perfect guy to build a franchise around if you’re throwing everything out and starting from scratch. The Chiefs are pretty close to that point, who better than Dawson?
 
The Chiefs have just drafted Dorsey, what about putting Buck Buchanan next to him on the D-line to instantly create a rival for the Vikings and Ravens for the best DT tandem in football? Buchanan was the first overall selection in the 1963 AFL Draft. He came into the AFL having been termed the finest lineman I have seen by his Grambling coach, Eddie Robinson.
 
Buchanan was a physical monster, at 6’7 and 270lbs in the 1960s, one can only imagine how much of a physical freak he would be in today’s NFL conditioning programs. In one season alone he batted 16 passes down at the line of scrimmage. He was another player that was instrumental in the Chiefs upset over the Vikings in the Superbowl.
 
The Chiefs are currently without a MLB they can rely on, with Napoleon Harris failing to live up to the contract he signed as a Free Agent from Minnesota, Pat Thomas now tops the depth chart at the position. Willie Lanier played middle linebacker for the Chiefs for eleven seasons. He was a pioneer as the first African-American player to star at a position that was thought of as too demanding for black players.
 
Lanier would be able to step into the role of MLB beside former first round pick and rising star, Derrick Johnson, and help the Chiefs regain some lost grit to the Defense.
 
The Chiefs also have more outstanding past greats on Defense. Derrick Thomas and Neil Smith starred for the Chiefs 3-4 Defense during the 1990s, allowing Thomas to rack up a staggering number of sacks as one of the league’s most feared pass rushers. The trouble with that is that he might not have a position in a 4-3 system, and certainly would be wasted there, not half the impact player he was. Smith proved after life in KC that he could survive happily in a 4-3 system when he went on to help Denver win the Superbowls they were missing.
 
It is possible that the Chiefs would adapt a defense to accommodate a talent like Derrick Thomas, playing the kind of hybrid system that Baltimore play with Suggs switching between putting his hand in the dirt and standing up.
 
Next up for the Chiefs is a look along the O-line. Whilst they drafted Branden Albert, it’s not so many years since the Chiefs had the league’s best O-line. Willie Roaf and Will Shields dominated the trenches for years, both compiling staggering trips to Hawaii. Either one would be a colossal upgrade along the O-line, and would allow the Chiefs to find out what Albert’s best position is, rather than trying to force him into one because they committed to it with his draft position.
 
The Chiefs are lodged firmly in a rebuilding mode, and with few legitimate stars on either side of the ball they have close to a blank canvass from which to take their pick of their past superstars. Whilst they have several Hall of Fame defensive players from which to choose, they aren’t sufficiently addled that they’re prepared to fly in the face of the time-honoured maxim: Don’t pass on a franchise QB unless you have one already.
 
In the NFL Draft that’s no sure thing, since finding Franchise QBs isn’t easy but in Len Dawson the Chiefs have a man who is a guaranteed Hall of Fame player that they can build around. O-linemen can be found everywhere, Hall of Fame quarterbacks are a little tougher to stumble upon.
 
With the #5 pick in the ‘The Football Diner 2008 All-Time Draft’, the Kansas City Chiefs select: