Offseason Review: Kansas City Chiefs

(ed. note: This is cross-posted at Ditka in a Box.)

With 2012, the chapter was closed on a Kansas City Chiefs lesson the New York Jets, Cleveland Browns, and Denver Broncos already learned: Hiring someone from Bill Belichick’s crew to run your personnel department results in terrible talent evaluation and decision more often than not made for ego gratification as for putting the best team on the field. Kansas City fired GM Scott Pioli and head coach Romeo Crennel at the end of 2012, a 2-14 team season where the team’s six Pro Bowl players only served to underscore just how bad the rest of the roster had gotten under Pioli (and how completely disengaged Crennel had become from his job).

Owner Clark Hunt moved quickly: He hired Andy Reid as soon as reasonably possible and plucked John Dorsey from Green Bay’s scouting department to be his GM. The two men, both possessed of solid credentials, went straight to work building the team in their image.

Jaguars fans have reason for optimism

Earlier this month, Forbes published a profile of Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shahid Khan, who bought the team last January, and details his approach for making the team both profitable and good at football.

A look at Arizona’s All-Pro LB, Daryl Washington

All right, here is part two of my infinite-part series breaking down players. By request I’ll be looking at Daryl Washington from the Arizona Cardinals. I knew nothing about him, but I saw that he was a second-team All-Pro this season. I’ve broken down four plays featuring him:

Is Christian Ponder doomed because of his arm?

All right, this is the first writeup in a series I’ll be doing looking at NFL players on tape and evaluating the questions around their performance and potential. We’re starting with Minnesota QB Christian Ponder and the simple question: Does he have the arm strength to be able to compete in the NFL? Let’s just dive right into this:

Who is this Needle77?

I’ll be posting a few writeups I have over the next few days. But before doing so I just wanted to quickly introduce myself. I’m Needle and the one who’s voice can be heard in a few of those early posts where we discussed the playoffs. I am a former Division 2 player and undergraduate assistant. I also was a graduate assistant at a conference champion FCS school. Since then I’ve been working in the high school ranks with a top team in the state of NJ who this past season extended the state’s longest active winning streak by winning their 3rd state title not having lost a game since November ’09.

I consider myself a lifelong football learner. I love to breakdown film and look at plays. Football has been something I’ve been directly involved with for the past 21 years of my life. So I hope to bring some of that little bit of knowledge I have to you. I’ll be breaking down game tapes, looking at college players, discussing all things NFL/NCAAF or whatever else football has to offer.

Let’s all laugh at the Colts

Newest post for Ditka in a Box is up; it’s a look at some of the, er, questionable free agent signings the Colts.

Indianapolis Colts: Spending Like It’s Dad’s Credit Card

 

Evaluating the first week of free agency, Part 1

(Ed. note: Ditka in a Box will be picking up some of my posts going forward; this is the first one that will be cross-posted there. You can view it on their site here.)

Even though every NFL fan wants to talk about and evaluate free agent signings, and wants opinions on how well their team handled the process, it can be unproductive to call teams “winners” and “losers” at this point in the offseason. (Remember two years ago, when we all thought Philadelphia were huge winners for the “Dream Team” signings? Now everyone involved is out of a job.) That said, I’m going to try anyway.

Pre-Free Agency Mock Draft, Round 3

In less than 12 24 hours, the free agent period officially kicks off. Come midnight 4 PM EDT teams can “officially” make offers to free agents (after a three-day “you’re allowed to tamper but you’re not allowed to make offers or sign anyone” period, the NFL’s vague way of acknowledging that tampering exists while trying to create hype for a signing day).

The mock will stop at the end of three rounds, since that’s where compensatory picks will be assigned and those can change the whole makeup of the draft.

(Editor’s note: As I was writing this round, news of the Percy Harvin trade broke. Once the final compensation is settled, I will be editing my mock to reflect that.)

Click here to read how my draft projections have changed with the Harvin trade, as well as links to the previous two rounds.

Pre-Free Agency Mock Draft Update

BREAKING NEWS: The Vikings have traded Percy Harvin to the Seattle Seahawks for a first- and seventh-round pick this year and a mid-round selection next year.

This would have to happen one day after my mock. Concerns about how this affects my attempt at pseudo-journalism aside, this means I’ll have to scrap large elements of my mock to reflect that the Vikings now have two picks (and need a receiver more than ever before).

I’m going to update my draft to reflect the trade. After the jump, I’ll fill you in as to where we are…

Pre-Free Agency Mock Draft, Round 2

I published round 1 in four parts on Sunday. For those who missed it… well, it’s in the previous four posts in this blog. Go find and read it now.

I’m going to try to knock out round 2 here in one post, with mostly short thoughts on the selections. Beginning with the late first round, we really move into the area where the talent pool is a little flatter and teams will draft according to individual evaluations or need.

(Update, 3/11 12:16 pm: I’ve changed a couple of picks to reflect a spot where I left a prospect off the board mistakenly thinking he’d been drafted.)

(Update, 3/11, 4:13 pm: I’ve edited this round to reflect the changes brought on by the Percy Harvin trade.)

Pre-Free Agency Mock Draft, Picks 25-32

Now that we’ve stretched this mock draft for maximum page views (or, in truthfully, because my ADD kept me from writing about more than eight picks at a time and I wanted to have something up for our readership), here is the end of the first round.

As always, you can read about Parts 1, 2, and 3 by clicking those numbers.

And away we go…

Pre-Free Agency Mock Draft, picks 17-24

You can read part 1 and part 2 at those links. We kick off the second half of the first round…

Pre-Free Agency Mock Draft, Picks 9-16

First eight picks here. Onward…

Pre-Free Agency Mock Draft, Picks 1-8

I don’t have any sort of special insight or team connections to base this draft on. It’s just a combination of player evaluation, team needs, and, if I’m feeling saucy, how likely I think a team’s management is to blow the pick.