Teicher: Hunt pleased with moves Pioli has made...
 

Hunt pleased with moves Pioli has made

By ADAM TEICHER
The Kansas City Star

The reason boiled to its very essence that Clark Hunt hired Scott Pioli was for weeks like this one.

Pioli, hired as Chiefs general manager in large part because of his expertise in talent evaluation, conducted a draft over the weekend in which the Chiefs selected eight new players. He’s landed a slew of veteran players as well, including center Eric Ghiaciuc, who was signed Thursday.

Ghiaciuc (pronounced GUY-check) appeared in 48 games (42 starts) with Cincinnati during 2005-08. He is expected to battle for the starting job with Rudy Niswanger, who appeared in 15 games last season for the Chiefs.

Pioli has made a splash off the field as well.

He also was hired to infuse some new ideas into a football operation that had long gone stale. To that end, he fired much of the Chiefs’ scouting department, including player personnel director Bill Kuharich and college scouting director Chuck Cook.

Hunt, the Chiefs’ chairman, gave Pioli wide latitude to create a personnel team around him and he used it. Not surprisingly, Pioli imported at least one of New England’s former scouts, Jim Nagy, to work for the Chiefs.

As for the draft, the Chiefs won’t know whether Pioli succeeded in his first draft with the Chiefs for some time. They selected defensive end Tyson Jackson of LSU with their first pick.

Hunt said the Chiefs’ approach to the draft was different from when it was run by former president/general manager Carl Peterson.

“If you’re looking for something different than I’ve seen our approach in the past, this year was definitely not only the best player available, but does the player come in and fill a need?” Hunt said. “In Tyson Jackson’s case, he fills a very big need in helping the team make that jump-start to the 3-4 defense.

“I was very impressed with how things went. Certainly, the preparation was very thorough. It was evident to me that Scott personally had spent many, many hours studying tape on not only everybody we picked but a lot of people we weren’t able to pick. That was his reputation. He’s been a GM willing to roll up his sleeves and do the work himself.

“I know specifically on Tyson Jackson, he spent hours studying the tape trying to make a decision whether he was the right player. I could tell during the week he was starting to lean toward Tyson based on his film review. That, coupled with the fact the player will come in and really help the team transition to the 3-4, pushed him over the top.”

Pioli came to the Chiefs with a reputation as a draft-day dealer. New England, where Pioli spent nine seasons as personnel director before joining the Chiefs, had the league’s most active team in moving up or down in a given round.

The Chiefs didn’t make a trade until the seventh round this year, but Hunt said that was not for a lack of effort.

“It was interesting for me to see the trade discussions, how active he was in the trade discussions even though we ended up not trading (until the seventh round),” Hunt said. “New England has the reputation as a team that is willing to move around and do deals. We’ve seen with Scott leading up to the draft he’s certainly somebody willing to do deals on veteran players. But he was very, very active throughout both Saturday and Sunday looking for opportunities to both trade up and trade down. The way it ended up, he didn’t feel there was value in what we were offered.

“As Chiefs fans look to future drafts, I think they can expect the team to be very active from a trade standpoint.”

Before the draft, Pioli acquired 15 veterans through either free-agency or trades.

“We hired Scott for the draft, but we also hired him for what he’s been able to accomplish in free-agency,” Hunt said. “New England was always incredibly adept at finding players who were able to come in and fill a role.

“One of the things I’ve been very pleased with is leading up to the draft, we were fairly active in free-agency. For the most part, they haven’t been very big names. But they are guys who can come in and help the team for a year or two, provide veteran leadership, and I think that really vaults us much further down the road than we would have been had we just relied on the draft.”

of course he's thrilled. even if he wasn't thrilled, do you really think that he'd say so at this moment?

Yet it is nice to hear how active they tried to be.

Its nice to see Mr. Hunt paying attention. No offense intened to his father either.

Nice to see us try and become a player in the NFL again...

Hopefully the days of 9-7 and True Fans are long long gone!

I'd be ecstatic if we go 9-7 this year :D

Truth. I may not agree with some of the things he has done/will do, but it is certainly nice to have hope.
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:bravo:

I will also add, it's nice to see Teicher with some insight, as well. The guy seemed a bit disgruntled during the Carl days.

Short version:

"I am happy with the draft even though not much happened and I'm happy with our free agent signings even though none of the players are very good."

Clark

[QUOTE=DaWolf;5730675
“We hired Scott for the draft, but we also hired him for what he’s been able to accomplish in free-agency,” Hunt said. “New England was always incredibly adept at finding players who were able to come in and fill a role.
[/QUOTE]

why would they have hired pioli for the draft?? all he did in NE was sign free agents/sarcasm

I'm now in the "wait and see" camp. "Pleased" is not how I characterize my feelings for the moves so far.

But then, Peterson would often "please" us with his moves (Surtain, Law, Bell) and how did that turn out?

At least Pioli seems more methodical with his moves, giving indication there actually is a plan that consists of more than throwing darts or making the "popular" moves....

No shit so would I.

I think the whole 9-7, 10-6 true fans thing is ****in stupid.

I'd rather make the playoffs year after year having records as such, than to have a 4 or less win season and look to the draft after every ****in December. What you do after you make the playoffs is a different story, but you have to make it there first.

There's a difference between making the playoffs every year and setting your GOAL as making the playoffs every year.

We were fairly active in free-agency ?????????????