Dane this means our current scouting staff is better than New England!

It only takes a few minutes to check out who's in training camp, who the Chiefs drafted or who they picked up in free agency. I'm sure you're a busy, busy person with no time to spare though, so your overall lack of knowledge about the team outside the 17 weeks of the regular season is understandable. I have no problem with the casual fan just being a casual fan.

How about Austin Collie in the fourth when we didn't have a legitimate receiver with decent hands on the entire roster? How about a center? A right tackle? A nose tackle? An ILB?

He's had two head scratching drafts in terms of picks to this point, two off-seasons of cheap ass, worthless free agency, and utterly none of the Patriots tried and true "wheeling and dealing" in the draft or free agency. The guy has been, for a lack of a better word, a stiff.

And I have no problem with hot SLC Morman blondes that only give head and save their vigine for marriage

This is the difference between you and me. You treat this stuff like it's a religious or political discussion and this is the DC forum. I'm sorry, but I'm not a zealot like that. I don't have anything vested in Pioli, I'm not defending him in any way, and I'm not going to get in some heated debate over it.

I never said Gretz was a liar. I suggested that Kuharich may have had an axe to grind. Not Gretz. I happen to believe the same thing when it comes to Whitlock and Waters ; I think Waters had a problem with the new front office and coaching staff when they arrived, and I believe that's where the bit about winning games with players off the street that Whitlock wrote about came from. He was upset and Whitlock was his outlet. I think it may have been the same thing with Kuharich. Maybe it wasn't. I don't have any way of knowing, but I will *always* take things like that with a grain of salt.

I am happy to see that apparently Haley and the rest of the staff have gotten Waters to drink whatever kool-aid they're giving the rest of the teams, because he's been the model teammate and team leader this offseason.

In any case, as I said, I don't think it's really germane to the discussion (by 'it' I mean the Gretz/Kuharich thing). I really don't think it matters whether the '09 draft sucked because Pioli listened to New England guys or because Pioli listened to Kansas City guys. It sucked either way. It doesn't even really matter that I think the 2009 draft class as a whole was extremely weak. No, what really matters to me is whether anything changed between the '09 and '10 drafts, whether the kind of braindead moves I saw in 2009 - none of which I liked, beginning with the acquisition of Cassel and moving on to the drafting of Tyson Jackson - would be repeated in 2010.

I've liked what I've seen since then. I liked seeing the majority of the scouting staff let go after the '09 draft, I like the direction they went and the players they drafted in 2010, I like the coordinators they've hired, and I like many of the things I saw during the 2010 preseason. I'm generally pleased with 2010 so far.

Saying that is not defending Pioli in any way. All I'm doing is fairly (I think...) judging Pioli based on what I see. I saw failure in 2009. Everything about last year was failure, from the hiring of coordinators to the acquisition of vets and draft picks.

But I'm not the kind of person who's going to arbitrarily declare doom or victory based on the events and results of just one year. It's not enough. I need to see what happens during the season in 2010, and then I need to see 2011. So far this offseason I'm optimistic. Have they made exactly the moves that I would have, or taken exactly the players that I wanted? No. But I see the logic in the things they've done, and I've seen what I think are the beginning of results on the field.

But it's not a personal discussion for me. I don't have anything to gain or lose from the success or failure of Scott Pioli.

I'm sorry, it's personal for me.

I've invested too much money, too much blood, too much sweat and quite frankly, too much time. I can't just sit back and blindly follow a team, a front office, etc. and sit idly by.

This is the Internet Age. Moreso, this is the Instant Information Age. Everything that everyone does is instantly broadcast on the internet. It's amazing to me that someone can question a guy like Whitlock or Gretz. If what they had been circulating was false, the guns would come out blazing.

They didn't.

Maybe the success and failure of this team isn't as dear or important to you as it is to me. Maybe, being 2,000 miles away makes it different. I don't know.

But what I DO know is that people shouldn't be questioning legitimate news sources. Athan? Sure. Nick Wright? Probably.

Bob Gretz?

No.

And as I stated on Draft Day 2009, that draft will go down in Chiefs history as THE WORST EVER, bar none.

Like I said, I think it's irrelevant. 2009 was a failure. I don't care if that happened because Pioli trashed all his scouting reports and listened to New England guys, or because he listened to Kansas City guys. It's the same result either way. And there's a new staff here now; the people who put together the 2010 draft were a different group of people than the ones in 2009, whether it was New Englanders or Kansas Citieans.I never said the success or failure of the team wasn't important to me. All I said was that I don't have anything personally vested in Scott Pioli. What that means is that I don't have a personal stake in his success or failure; i.e. I won't attack or defend him for any personal reason.

In other words I just judge him by what he does. I don't like him or dislike him. I don't know him. It's the same way that I treated Carl Peterson. And I think you'd have a hard time finding somebody who was more critical of that guy's moves than I was.

It's too early for me to fairly judge Pioli. End of story.I don't think I need to say a 4th time that that whole discussion really isn't important to me....I don't think I've ever disagreed with that. I still don't get why they drafted Tyson Jackson. And I don't know that he'll ever be anything more than just a guy in the NFL. Although I don't think it's the worst pick they've ever made, based on his production so far. Guys like Sims and Jenkins are worse. But that draft was supposed to be a cornerstone draft to help build the foundation for a new generation of Chiefs, and they got one starter and one kicker out of it. That's a setback any way you slice it. That's the reason I'm only expecting them to win 6 or 7 games this year instead of 8 or 9, and why I don't think they'll be a legitimate playoff contender until 2012, instead of next year. They stumbled out of the gates. It's unfortunate, but it's reality, and they have to keep going forward. And thankfully it appears that they have this year, although it's much too early to tell for sure.

Seriously, is it possible the NE scouts were ordered by BB to hand over "fixed" reports as a parting gag gift? If you look at the stark difference between '09 and '10 drafts, I think it's entirely possible.

BB and co. were probably rolling all over the War Room on draft day last year, laughing their ASSES off.