The Poz
04-29-2007, 05:33 PM
Sorry if it's a repost. I know how some of you guys get.
http://www.kcchiefs.com/news/2007/04/29/chiefs_hierarchy_sums_up_the_2007_draft/
Chiefs Hierarchy Sums Up the 2007 Draft
CARL PETERSON: “Ultimately at the end of the day, one person has to make the decision on draft picks and it’s yours truly and it hasn’t changed in a long time – 18 years. But what I always try to do with Bill and Herm is determine who has the highest grade? What’s the next highest rated player? Yes, there are positions of need. You say where’s the next corner? Is it too far, is it too far a reach? If it is then you stay with your board. Once again, we stayed even in the second day with Kolby Smith and Justin Medlock.
“After this week and after the mini-camps there are going to be some changes again in the National Football League. We’ll see what happens. This is not the roster you’ll see when we go to training camp.
HERM EDWARDS: “You have some needs you’d like to fill when you go into the draft; there are always certain positions more than others. I think the thing that we’ve done the last two years in putting together our draft is we haven’t cheated the board. We haven’t thrown away a year and a half and sometimes two years of preparation on these players. When certain players were left off the board when we were ready to pick there maybe were some guys on the board who weren’t the value to go down and pick them. We stayed with the value of our board. That’s what you have to do when you understand the process of building and starting with some youth.
“You have to get the best players. You don’t want to reach all over the board and say we need this guy. We’re going to stick to the board and let the board weigh out. We’ve got some good players here and there are still a lot of things that are going to happen between now and training camp as usual. Last year it happened to us. We talked about corner last year a little bit. We ended up getting Ty Law and went out and signed some corners. There are a lot of different ways you can get these players. Our team at this point is not the team you will see on opening day. A lot of things will happen between now and training camp.
“What we wanted to do this draft was stick to the players we evaluated – as we did last year – and that you know and can come in here and play. Our first three players I know one thing: they’re going to make an impact on this football team right away. The game’s not too big for them. They played in big games. They will compete for positions on this football team.
“All of a sudden the Michael Bennett trade makes sense. We traded this year’s fourth round pick for him last year. He’s a fourth round running back along with Kolby Smith. We’ve got another running back to add to the mix. We went down the list and filled some needs.
“Did we fill all of them? No, unless you’ve got 20 picks you can’t in the draft. You have to dictate what the board lets you and you have to lucky. But we feel good about the players we drafted.”
Q: As you put together your board and went through the mock drafts did you see any scenarios where you wouldn’t get any corner at all? There wasn’t a guy there you liked?
BILL KUHARICH: “The corners went early as we expected. Then by the time we got into the second round there were a couple of corners that went early in the second and it seemed like we were always trying to play catch-up. When we got into the second day we didn’t have a fourth (round pick) and so we had to watch all those players come off. We had some corners targeted at five, six and seven, but once again when it came time for us to pick some of the guys we targeted were gone. That happens some time and you don’t get an opportunity to get one.”
Q: In the third you had a corner close to where you were picking, would it have been a reach to pick him at that point?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, because of the grade we had on (Tank) Tyler. It would have been. We needed to stick to the board because we felt we were getting a football player. I know one thing: if you want to help your secondary you have to put pressure on the quarterback. Period. Now we’ve done a pretty good job of stacking this defensive line where we’ve got a great rotation and got some guys who can get to the cornerback.”
Q: How much better are you in that phase of the game than you were a couple of days ago?
EDWARDS: “Not only that but the acquisition of some free agents. You can’t forget about that. We brought in two new linebackers and all of a sudden we’ve got three new defensive linemen we didn’t have last year. All these guys are good players: Boone, who we got from Chicago, and these two guys we drafted. All of a sudden at once we have depth. We can play very fast and very physical. Our linebacker acquisitions are very athletic all of a sudden. Our front seven is upgraded no doubt. We’ve got some youth back in the secondary as far as the safeties and some veteran corners. But we’ve improved our front seven.”
Q: The fact that you can do some things with your linebackers with Derrick Johnson and Donnie Edwards in coverage, and have an improved pass rush, does it make corner less than a major item?
PETERSON: “I sure hope so.”
EDWARDS: “You’re going to do some things differently. But when you can put pressure on the quarterback – and that’s the whole key – and don’t let the quarterback step up in the pocket or feel comfortable you do it by having athletic guys up front. We’ve upgraded that. There’s no question. Now, we’ve got to continue to build our football team.”
Q: The NFL has cracked down on the behavior issue. How much did that play into your decision on some picks as far as their off-the-field issues? Did you consider them small issues?
PETERSON: “They’re major issues and that’s why we research it thoroughly. We have our security people look into it; we have our director of player development look into it. If we feel it’s necessary we have these individuals meet with our psychologists and we discuss it in great depth. We go back and talk to their coaches, their academic people at the universities and try to get the true and full story and then make a decision if we should or should not go with this player.
“I would tell you that we had three or four players that we took off the board completely because we were concerned with the character issue.
KUHARICH: “And those players were drafted by other teams.”
PETERSON: “We spent time with them, some of them visited, we knew about their backgrounds.
“As I said earlier, we have in place one of the best player development departments in the NFL and these people know when they walk in they’re going to be scrutinized.
Q: Was Tank Tyler a first round pick on your board?
PETERSON: “No, but he was a very strong second round guy. When we saw that in the third round we had to go with our grades. And, Bill, how many guys evaluated him?
KUHARICH: “I think eight.”
PETERSON: “Some of these scouts have seen Tank for three years.”
Q: How much conversation has there been with Miami on Trent Green? Has there not been much the last couple of days?
PETERSON: “There’s been communication.”
Q: But it didn’t look like either Miami or Kansas City made a great effort to get this trade done. Is that’s a fair characterization?
PETERSON: “I don’t know if that’s fair. We presented to them what we thought was appropriate compensation for the value of a starting quarterback in the National Football League, a two-time Pro Bowler, and what we know and believe he could do if he went there. On the other side of that, we have to take into account the risk if we say good-bye to this player and what are we going to give up to do that.
“Obviously, they presented what they thought was appropriate and we didn’t think it was near enough. It didn’t work out. Sometimes trades don’t work out. There’s an old saying in our business that sometimes the best trade you make is the one that doesn’t happen.”
Q: Did you get closer?
PETERSON: “No, they never changed from their very first offer.”
http://www.kcchiefs.com/news/2007/04/29/chiefs_hierarchy_sums_up_the_2007_draft/
Chiefs Hierarchy Sums Up the 2007 Draft
CARL PETERSON: “Ultimately at the end of the day, one person has to make the decision on draft picks and it’s yours truly and it hasn’t changed in a long time – 18 years. But what I always try to do with Bill and Herm is determine who has the highest grade? What’s the next highest rated player? Yes, there are positions of need. You say where’s the next corner? Is it too far, is it too far a reach? If it is then you stay with your board. Once again, we stayed even in the second day with Kolby Smith and Justin Medlock.
“After this week and after the mini-camps there are going to be some changes again in the National Football League. We’ll see what happens. This is not the roster you’ll see when we go to training camp.
HERM EDWARDS: “You have some needs you’d like to fill when you go into the draft; there are always certain positions more than others. I think the thing that we’ve done the last two years in putting together our draft is we haven’t cheated the board. We haven’t thrown away a year and a half and sometimes two years of preparation on these players. When certain players were left off the board when we were ready to pick there maybe were some guys on the board who weren’t the value to go down and pick them. We stayed with the value of our board. That’s what you have to do when you understand the process of building and starting with some youth.
“You have to get the best players. You don’t want to reach all over the board and say we need this guy. We’re going to stick to the board and let the board weigh out. We’ve got some good players here and there are still a lot of things that are going to happen between now and training camp as usual. Last year it happened to us. We talked about corner last year a little bit. We ended up getting Ty Law and went out and signed some corners. There are a lot of different ways you can get these players. Our team at this point is not the team you will see on opening day. A lot of things will happen between now and training camp.
“What we wanted to do this draft was stick to the players we evaluated – as we did last year – and that you know and can come in here and play. Our first three players I know one thing: they’re going to make an impact on this football team right away. The game’s not too big for them. They played in big games. They will compete for positions on this football team.
“All of a sudden the Michael Bennett trade makes sense. We traded this year’s fourth round pick for him last year. He’s a fourth round running back along with Kolby Smith. We’ve got another running back to add to the mix. We went down the list and filled some needs.
“Did we fill all of them? No, unless you’ve got 20 picks you can’t in the draft. You have to dictate what the board lets you and you have to lucky. But we feel good about the players we drafted.”
Q: As you put together your board and went through the mock drafts did you see any scenarios where you wouldn’t get any corner at all? There wasn’t a guy there you liked?
BILL KUHARICH: “The corners went early as we expected. Then by the time we got into the second round there were a couple of corners that went early in the second and it seemed like we were always trying to play catch-up. When we got into the second day we didn’t have a fourth (round pick) and so we had to watch all those players come off. We had some corners targeted at five, six and seven, but once again when it came time for us to pick some of the guys we targeted were gone. That happens some time and you don’t get an opportunity to get one.”
Q: In the third you had a corner close to where you were picking, would it have been a reach to pick him at that point?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, because of the grade we had on (Tank) Tyler. It would have been. We needed to stick to the board because we felt we were getting a football player. I know one thing: if you want to help your secondary you have to put pressure on the quarterback. Period. Now we’ve done a pretty good job of stacking this defensive line where we’ve got a great rotation and got some guys who can get to the cornerback.”
Q: How much better are you in that phase of the game than you were a couple of days ago?
EDWARDS: “Not only that but the acquisition of some free agents. You can’t forget about that. We brought in two new linebackers and all of a sudden we’ve got three new defensive linemen we didn’t have last year. All these guys are good players: Boone, who we got from Chicago, and these two guys we drafted. All of a sudden at once we have depth. We can play very fast and very physical. Our linebacker acquisitions are very athletic all of a sudden. Our front seven is upgraded no doubt. We’ve got some youth back in the secondary as far as the safeties and some veteran corners. But we’ve improved our front seven.”
Q: The fact that you can do some things with your linebackers with Derrick Johnson and Donnie Edwards in coverage, and have an improved pass rush, does it make corner less than a major item?
PETERSON: “I sure hope so.”
EDWARDS: “You’re going to do some things differently. But when you can put pressure on the quarterback – and that’s the whole key – and don’t let the quarterback step up in the pocket or feel comfortable you do it by having athletic guys up front. We’ve upgraded that. There’s no question. Now, we’ve got to continue to build our football team.”
Q: The NFL has cracked down on the behavior issue. How much did that play into your decision on some picks as far as their off-the-field issues? Did you consider them small issues?
PETERSON: “They’re major issues and that’s why we research it thoroughly. We have our security people look into it; we have our director of player development look into it. If we feel it’s necessary we have these individuals meet with our psychologists and we discuss it in great depth. We go back and talk to their coaches, their academic people at the universities and try to get the true and full story and then make a decision if we should or should not go with this player.
“I would tell you that we had three or four players that we took off the board completely because we were concerned with the character issue.
KUHARICH: “And those players were drafted by other teams.”
PETERSON: “We spent time with them, some of them visited, we knew about their backgrounds.
“As I said earlier, we have in place one of the best player development departments in the NFL and these people know when they walk in they’re going to be scrutinized.
Q: Was Tank Tyler a first round pick on your board?
PETERSON: “No, but he was a very strong second round guy. When we saw that in the third round we had to go with our grades. And, Bill, how many guys evaluated him?
KUHARICH: “I think eight.”
PETERSON: “Some of these scouts have seen Tank for three years.”
Q: How much conversation has there been with Miami on Trent Green? Has there not been much the last couple of days?
PETERSON: “There’s been communication.”
Q: But it didn’t look like either Miami or Kansas City made a great effort to get this trade done. Is that’s a fair characterization?
PETERSON: “I don’t know if that’s fair. We presented to them what we thought was appropriate compensation for the value of a starting quarterback in the National Football League, a two-time Pro Bowler, and what we know and believe he could do if he went there. On the other side of that, we have to take into account the risk if we say good-bye to this player and what are we going to give up to do that.
“Obviously, they presented what they thought was appropriate and we didn’t think it was near enough. It didn’t work out. Sometimes trades don’t work out. There’s an old saying in our business that sometimes the best trade you make is the one that doesn’t happen.”
Q: Did you get closer?
PETERSON: “No, they never changed from their very first offer.”