You Are On the Clock: Kansas City

If there was ever a team that could be ready for a bounce back year, it's Kansas City. They have a plethora of talent, but it hasn't all been properly utilized. Of course, it could be a slight problem now that Kansas City is moving to a 3-4 defense. Where will Glenn Dorsey and Tamba Hali fit into a 3-4 defense? Or even a hybrid defense?

And then there's the acquisition of Matt Cassel. This intrigues me as much as it concerns me. On the one hand, Haley wants to use a similar pass happy system in Kansas City that he used in Arizona. On the other hand, is Cassel going to be a waste because of his inability to throw deep? And what about Tyler Thigpen? Despite Thigpen's flaws, he put up some really good numbers in spite of an overwhelmingly weak offensive line, a terrible defense, and only two solid weapons in an overly conservative offense. And that was all from a guy who wasn't even a quarterback in high school and was a 7th round draft pick a few years back.

Todd Haley has said that he's going to open the quarterback job up as a competition, and surprisingly the Chiefs aren't going to give Cassel a contract extension. From the looks of things, they want to use this one-year 16 million dollar contract as a means of a tryout. If Cassel continues to play well, maybe he'll get a deal, but the Chiefs are playing with fire, and if Cassel is gone after the 2009-10 season then that would be a major waste of the 34th overall pick--especially when the early 2nd round is usually where a team can snag a guy who should have been in the first round and just happened to fall.

One would think that Kansas City has nowhere to go but up, but the defensive transition is going to cause a lot of question marks. In fact, Kansas City isn't a bad team per se, they are just a team with a ton of question marks.

Kansas City Chiefs Team Needs (In Order of Importance):

DE/OLB
MLB/ILB
OT
OG
C
WR
RB
NT
DT/E

You'll notice that I'm not very specific here. In the 3-4 defenses you often find today's 4-3 DE's moving to OLB, the 4-3 OLB's moving to ILB, and the defensive tackles moving to defensive end. The 3-4 is a very specialized defense, and when run properly it's nearly flawless as it can put major pressure on opposing quarterbacks and completely stuff the run.

But, it's a highly specialized defense, and there are some problems in Kansas City if they decide to use it full-time. Glenn Dorsey will probably move over to defensive end, because he's not stout enough to play nose tackle, but one has to ask whether or not he's tall enough or has long enough arms to play the defensive end role properly. Tamba Hali, Kansas City's 2006 1st round pick isn't even remotely big enough to play defensive end in a 3-4, where pretty much the entire defensive line is predicated on size and leverage, but he may not have quick enough hips or the coverage ability to play outside linebacker. His future as a full-time starter with the Chiefs is in question.

On the other side of the ball, the Chiefs drafted Branden Albert to play LT last year, even though he played LG in college at UVA. Obviously Albert has the skillset to play LT, but he struggled this year at times and may honestly be better suited moving back to LT. In this case, Kansas City could very well make it three teams in a row grabbing a left tackle. Consider the fact that Brian Waters wants out of Kansas City, the Chiefs offensive line is still going to be in disarray in 2009.

Either way, Kansas City needs to give Albert a hand on the left side of the line, they need to replace Rudy Niswanger at center, who Herman Edwards unwisely plucked from his career as a special teamer to a role as a starting center in an offense predicated on power running. The Chiefs could also do with replacing Adrian Jones and Damion McIntosh.

There's nothing really certain for the Chiefs. In this case, they should probably go best player available short of a quarterback.

Here are the players they will entertain:

1. Matthew Stafford, QB, Georgia
Just for the briefest moment they'll entertain it and they'll shoot it down. They'd have about 100 million locked up in QB's if they decided to draft him.

2. Aaron Curry, LB, Wake Forest
They're going to do more then entertain this one. The Chiefs need an outside linebacker opposite Derrick Johnson or they'll need an inside linebacker when they use 3-4 looks. It's not exactly common to see a 3-4 ILB taken this high, but he'll be playing two seperate positions and he's probably the safest pick in this draft when you combine his collegiate production, instincts, athleticism, and size. His role in Kansas City is muddled though, so it's not going to be any guarantee.

3. B.J. Raji, DT, Boston College
Raji is a very good choice here if Kansas City is serious about moving to a 3-4. He'd help out Glenn Dorsey a lot as Dorsey would have much more freedom during 4-3 sets as the undertackle. Still, I can't imagine Kansas City locking this much money up into their defensive line, especially when there's no guarantee of what system they are going to be playing. A hybrid system makes it really hard on us mock drafters.

4. Michael Crabtree, WR, Texas Tech

The Chiefs new offense is going to run a lot of three and four sets with receivers, so Michael Crabtree is a legitimate option here. However, I'm not sure Crabtree is the best compliment for Dwayne Bowe. If the Chiefs do select Crabtree, he'll mesh well as he is a superb route runner and he'd probably be the easy lock for offensive rookie of the year because Matt Cassel's best asset is his accuracy allowing for YAC, and Crabtree can pick up a lot of YAC.

5. Andre Smith, LT, Alabama

Could three offensive linemen really go in the first three picks? Usually I'd say no, but this year their may very well be six offensive tackles taken in the first round, with potentially two interior linemen going in the first as well. Smith is an outside shot, and he could play pretty much anywhere on the line. His pass blocking abilities against speed rushers has been questioned, but he is far and away the most dominant run blocker since Marcus McNeill in 2006. Wherever Smith goes, a team will find a position for him because of his punshing run blocking abilities, and more importantly his ability to play to the whistle. While his off-season has hurt him quite a bit, it would still shock me if he wasn't a top ten pick come April.

6. Brian Orakpo, DE/OLB, Texas

I'm not Orakpo's biggest fan, but his talent and skillset is undeniable. His collegiate production scares me. While had 10.5 sacks this past season, only 4.5 sacks came in conference against legitimate Big 12 competition. The Chiefs desperately need a pass rusher opposite Tamba Hali, and Orakpo can play DE in a 4-3 or OLB in a 3-4 which suits the Chiefs, but he's not worth the 3rd overall pick. I can't really see them grabbing him.

So what do the Chiefs do? They don't feel like a blank canvas so much as a canvas that somebody started painting on and then decided about halfway through they didn't like it.

It comes down to either Curry or Crabtree. We know how the NFL works. Curry has had the better off-season so he's the logical choice. How will the Chiefs be thinking on draft day?

We need to surround any one of our QB's with a solid offensive line and good weapons. Bowe, Crabtree, and Gonzalez would be good for whoever plays quarterback.

OR

The defense is really far off. We're not sure yet what system we want to use, and Curry can play in both of them. The offense we're using tends to inflate receivers stats, so perhaps we don't need to draft one this early.

To me, reasoning #2 is going to prevail here, and because Curry will probably make less then Crabtree would.

With the 3rd overall pick in the 2009 NFL Draft the Kansas City Chiefs select Aaron Curry, linebacker, from Wake Forest.