Chiefs The offensive line and Pioli's "track record".

htismaqe · 05-08-2009, 10:41 AM

I keep seeing posts complaining about the lack of offensive linemen taken in the draft and comments like "The Patriots built up their OL and DL and won the Super Bowl".

Until now I hadn't done much research, but seemed to remember that their actual draft history with offensive linemen wasn't that great. So I did a little digging and here's what I found.

Let's start with the starting offensive lines (LT-RT) during Pioli's tenure:

2008 - Light, Mankins, Koppen, Neal, Kaczur
2007 - Light, Mankins, Koppen, Neal, Kaczur
2006 - Light, Mankins, Koppen, Neal, Kaczur
2005 - Kaczur, Mankins, Koppen, Neal, Ashworth
2004 - Light, Andruzzi, Koppen, Neal, Gorin
2003 - Light, Woody, Koppen, Andruzzi, Ashworth
2002 - Light, Compton, Woody, Andruzzi, Jones
2001 - Light, Compton, Woody, Andruzzi, Randall
2000 - Armstrong, Andruzzi, Woody, Isaia, Williams

And now their OL draft picks during Pioli's tenure:

2000 - Adrian Klemm, G, 2nd
2000 - Greg Randall, T, 4th
2001 - Matt Light, T, 2nd
2001 - Kenyatta Jones, T, 4th
2003 - Dan Koppen, C, 5th
2005 - Logan Mankins, G, 1st
2005 - Nick Kaczur, T, 3rd
2006 - Ryan O'Callaghan, T, 5th
2006 - Dan Stevenson, G, 6th
2007 - Clint Oldenburg, T, 5th
2007 - Corey Hilliard, T, 6th
2007 - Mike Elgin, G, 7th

The pick that makes it all happen was the pick of Matt Light in their 2nd draft. Adrian Klemm missed the entire 2001 season and ended up only starting 10 games his entire time in New England. Greg Randall started 4 games his rookie year and 16 his 2nd, but was replaced in 2002 by Kenyatta Jones, who only lasted 11 games and missed the entire 2003 season.

Their 2 to 3 best picks after Light (Mankins, Kaczur, and to a lesser extent Koppen) came into a line that was already established. Granted Damien Woody was a 1st-round draft pick in 1999 for the previous regime, but Andruzzi was a free agent 2000 as was Compton in 2001, who had already been in the league for almost a decade.

So what does this all mean? To me, it means we shouldn't be real surprised that Pioli didn't go balls-out on the offensive line this offseason. The Patriots real success in building their 2001 offensive line that won the first championship came in the 2001 offseason, not 2000. In fact, their 2000 draft only landed one player of significance - Tom Brady. The rest of the draft is pretty ho-hum.

LaChapelle · 05-08-2009, 10:45 AM

2005 - Logan Mankins, G, 1st. shit meet fan.

FAX · 05-08-2009, 10:46 AM

Fascinating and insightful information, Mr. htismaqe. I'm trying to grasp the underlying lesson here ...

So ... they were given a Woody and we weren't?

FAX

Ebolapox · 05-08-2009, 10:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LaChapelle

2005 - Logan Mankins, G, 1st. shit meet fan.

yeah, and it was a very late first round pick (aka, in the 30's). there's nothing wrong with picking a guard THAT deep into round one if there are no other value positions. however, if they picked a guard in the top ten, they'd have been ****ing reeruned.

htismaqe · 05-08-2009, 10:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FAX

Fascinating and insightful information, Mr. htismaqe. I'm trying to grasp the underlying lesson here ...

So ... they were given a Woody and we weren't?

FAX

Woody was their 1999 1st rounder. Brandon Albert was our 2008 first rounder. They play different positions, but the only thing that tells me is that we won't need Matt Light next year, we'll probably need a guard. They brought in an aging guard to patch the line for a couple of seasons, Mike Compton, and we brought in Mike Goff. The big kicker here is that we didn't have a 2nd-round pick to spend on a guy like they got in Adrian Klemm because we gave it up for Cassel. Other than that, they took an OT in the 4th, we took one in the 5th. I would expect us to draft an OL next year HIGH, like first day, based on what I see here.

And most of all, I wouldn't expect that throwing numbers at the OL this past draft would do THAT much good - Pioli's early history with OL wasn't that great.

cmh6476 · 05-08-2009, 11:07 AM

It would have been hard to justifying spending our only real likely first-year impact pick in this year's draft on an offensive-lineman, when Albert seems like he's at the least going to be competent at the toughest position on the line for us, and we just locked in a ton of money on the line. Hard to justify having all that money invested in two young offensive linemen with all the other holes on this team that still needed to be filled.

htismaqe · 05-08-2009, 11:15 AM

The only other thing I might interject as a counterpoint to my own argument here is that I didn't take my research back beyond 1999, which is somewhat significant considering the Patriots played in the 1997 Super Bowl. The building needed on that team was somewhat different in 2000 than it is here, so there's not a perfect parallel.

CoMoChief · 05-08-2009, 11:21 AM

I do not like the tackle out of MU. HORRIBLE pick. I hope I'm wrong.

Cant believe we need a RG more than Claythan needs to get laid, and we continued to pass on Duke Robinson. I will not let that go. Hes a stud and will be stud in this league.

talastan · 05-08-2009, 11:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CoMoChief

I do not like the tackle out of MU. HORRIBLE pick. I hope I'm wrong.

Cant believe we need a RG more than Claythan needs to get laid, and we continued to pass on Duke Robinson. I will not let that go. Hes a stud and will be stud in this league.

53 Right guys, not the 53 best..../Pioli. I think it wasn't Duke's talent that made them not take him. They had other needs, and their own draft board set up. Maybe there was something mentally, or in tape that they saw that they didn't like.

I won't worry about it for a couple of years until we see how this draft class pans out.

htismaqe · 05-08-2009, 12:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CoMoChief

I do not like the tackle out of MU. HORRIBLE pick. I hope I'm wrong.

Cant believe we need a RG more than Claythan needs to get laid, and we continued to pass on Duke Robinson. I will not let that go. Hes a stud and will be stud in this league.

Lots of people passed on Duke Robinson. And Mike Goff is our starting RG.

**buddha** · 05-08-2009, 12:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CoMoChief

I do not like the tackle out of MU. HORRIBLE pick. I hope I'm wrong.

Cant believe we need a RG more than Claythan needs to get laid, and we continued to pass on Duke Robinson. I will not let that go. Hes a stud and will be stud in this league.

I disagree with your take on Brown AND while Duke Robinson was a good guard at OU, you fail to understand that he had a top 10 center playing next to him and a top 10 tackle playing on the other side. You and I would probably look good in that situation...well, I know that I would.

Robinson's feet are average at best...sorry, it's the truth.

I'm not going to try and change your mind on Brown. Let's see how he does. I think he'll make the team and be a contributer.

FAX · 05-08-2009, 12:14 PM

The encouraging thing to note is that (other than Neal, it appears) the Pats' starting OL is comprised of their own draft picks. If we're supposing that Pioli will remain true to form, it seems that, based on Mr. htismaqe's research, we can look forward to a young, talented OL that we drafted in two to three years - the same amount of time Herm had in which he populated the line with run down FAs and marginal guys playing out of their natural position.

Hopefully, Albert will work out at LT. That gives us a head start on rebuilding the OL, at least. And, who knows? Maybe we can see some growth and development out of a couple of other guys already under contract. Either way, I'm pretty sure that Pioli understands the importance of an effective OL. There's an old Italian proverb that states; "Quarterbacks that look like a pool of molasses don't throw passes."

FAX

htismaqe · 05-08-2009, 01:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FAX

The encouraging thing to note is that (other than Neal, it appears) the Pats' starting OL is comprised of their own draft picks. If we're supposing that Pioli will remain true to form, it seems that, based on Mr. htismaqe's research, we can look forward to a young, talented OL that we drafted in two to three years - the same amount of time Herm had in which he populated the line with run down FAs and marginal guys playing out of their natural position.

Hopefully, Albert will work out at LT. That gives us a head start on rebuilding the OL, at least. And, who knows? Maybe we can see some growth and development out of a couple of other guys already under contract. Either way, I'm pretty sure that Pioli understands the importance of an effective OL. There's an old Italian proverb that states; "Quarterbacks that look like a pool of molasses don't throw passes."

FAX

The thing is, the first two-three years WEREN'T their draft picks - they were free agents or the previous regime's draft picks - other than Matt Light. By the time they "built" their line for the long haul, they'd ALREADY won a Super Bowl.

kcbubb · 05-08-2009, 01:03 PM

do we have anyone else at G besides Goff and Waters???? There doesn't appear to be much depth.

we've got

Albert Taylor
Waters Smith
Niswanger Smith
Goff Smith
McIntosh Brown

makes you miss the days of

Roaf
Shields
Wiegmann
Waters
Tait

Could that have been one of the best offensive lines of all time???

htismaqe · 05-08-2009, 01:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kcbubb

do we have anyone else at G besides Goff and Waters???? There doesn't appear to be much depth.

A bunch of 1st and 2nd-year street free agents. I'm guessing that maybe they thought most of the guys available 4th and after were roughly similar to the bottom-dollar guys they already had.

05-08-2009, 10:41 AM
htismaqe 'Tis my eye! Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Chiefsplanet Casino cash: $10269900	The offensive line and Pioli's "track record". I keep seeing posts complaining about the lack of offensive linemen taken in the draft and comments like "The Patriots built up their OL and DL and won the Super Bowl". Until now I hadn't done much research, but seemed to remember that their actual draft history with offensive linemen wasn't that great. So I did a little digging and here's what I found. Let's start with the starting offensive lines (LT-RT) during Pioli's tenure: 2008 - Light, Mankins, Koppen, Neal, Kaczur 2007 - Light, Mankins, Koppen, Neal, Kaczur 2006 - Light, Mankins, Koppen, Neal, Kaczur 2005 - Kaczur, Mankins, Koppen, Neal, Ashworth 2004 - Light, Andruzzi, Koppen, Neal, Gorin 2003 - Light, Woody, Koppen, Andruzzi, Ashworth 2002 - Light, Compton, Woody, Andruzzi, Jones 2001 - Light, Compton, Woody, Andruzzi, Randall 2000 - Armstrong, Andruzzi, Woody, Isaia, Williams And now their OL draft picks during Pioli's tenure: 2000 - Adrian Klemm, G, 2nd 2000 - Greg Randall, T, 4th 2001 - Matt Light, T, 2nd 2001 - Kenyatta Jones, T, 4th 2003 - Dan Koppen, C, 5th 2005 - Logan Mankins, G, 1st 2005 - Nick Kaczur, T, 3rd 2006 - Ryan O'Callaghan, T, 5th 2006 - Dan Stevenson, G, 6th 2007 - Clint Oldenburg, T, 5th 2007 - Corey Hilliard, T, 6th 2007 - Mike Elgin, G, 7th The pick that makes it all happen was the pick of Matt Light in their 2nd draft. Adrian Klemm missed the entire 2001 season and ended up only starting 10 games his entire time in New England. Greg Randall started 4 games his rookie year and 16 his 2nd, but was replaced in 2002 by Kenyatta Jones, who only lasted 11 games and missed the entire 2003 season. Their 2 to 3 best picks after Light (Mankins, Kaczur, and to a lesser extent Koppen) came into a line that was already established. Granted Damien Woody was a 1st-round draft pick in 1999 for the previous regime, but Andruzzi was a free agent 2000 as was Compton in 2001, who had already been in the league for almost a decade. So what does this all mean? To me, it means we shouldn't be real surprised that Pioli didn't go balls-out on the offensive line this offseason. The Patriots real success in building their 2001 offensive line that won the first championship came in the 2001 offseason, not 2000. In fact, their 2000 draft only landed one player of significance - Tom Brady. The rest of the draft is pretty ho-hum.
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05-08-2009, 10:45 AM	#2
LaChapelle Banned Join Date: Mar 2009 Casino cash: $10004900	2005 - Logan Mankins, G, 1st. shit meet fan.
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05-08-2009, 10:46 AM	#3
FAX testing ... 1, 2, 3 Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Tennessee Casino cash: $6753759	Fascinating and insightful information, Mr. htismaqe. I'm trying to grasp the underlying lesson here ... So ... they were given a Woody and we weren't? FAX
Posts: 44,492

05-08-2009, 11:07 AM	#6
cmh6476 Keep Camp Home! Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: St Joe MO Casino cash: $2756277	It would have been hard to justifying spending our only real likely first-year impact pick in this year's draft on an offensive-lineman, when Albert seems like he's at the least going to be competent at the toughest position on the line for us, and we just locked in a ton of money on the line. Hard to justify having all that money invested in two young offensive linemen with all the other holes on this team that still needed to be filled. __________________ from September to February! from November to April! from April to October! 2020 Adopt-a-Chief: Willie Gay
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05-08-2009, 11:15 AM	#7
htismaqe 'Tis my eye! Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Chiefsplanet Casino cash: $10269900	The only other thing I might interject as a counterpoint to my own argument here is that I didn't take my research back beyond 1999, which is somewhat significant considering the Patriots played in the 1997 Super Bowl. The building needed on that team was somewhat different in 2000 than it is here, so there's not a perfect parallel.
Posts: 100,022

05-08-2009, 11:21 AM	#8
CoMoChief Mahomes Dynasty Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Parts Unknown Casino cash: $8052254	I do not like the tackle out of MU. HORRIBLE pick. I hope I'm wrong. Cant believe we need a RG more than Claythan needs to get laid, and we continued to pass on Duke Robinson. I will not let that go. Hes a stud and will be stud in this league.
Posts: 39,155

05-08-2009, 12:14 PM	#12
FAX testing ... 1, 2, 3 Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Tennessee Casino cash: $6753759	The encouraging thing to note is that (other than Neal, it appears) the Pats' starting OL is comprised of their own draft picks. If we're supposing that Pioli will remain true to form, it seems that, based on Mr. htismaqe's research, we can look forward to a young, talented OL that we drafted in two to three years - the same amount of time Herm had in which he populated the line with run down FAs and marginal guys playing out of their natural position. Hopefully, Albert will work out at LT. That gives us a head start on rebuilding the OL, at least. And, who knows? Maybe we can see some growth and development out of a couple of other guys already under contract. Either way, I'm pretty sure that Pioli understands the importance of an effective OL. There's an old Italian proverb that states; "Quarterbacks that look like a pool of molasses don't throw passes." FAX
Posts: 44,492

05-08-2009, 01:03 PM	#14
kcbubb Veteran Join Date: Nov 2008 Casino cash: $6136719	do we have anyone else at G besides Goff and Waters???? There doesn't appear to be much depth. we've got Albert Taylor Waters Smith Niswanger Smith Goff Smith McIntosh Brown makes you miss the days of Roaf Shields Wiegmann Waters Tait Could that have been one of the best offensive lines of all time???
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