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Drama Kings
Apr 27, 2009, 9:11:45 AM by Rufus Dawes - FAQ

Scott Pioli (from this point on known as "Great Scott" or GS) trade for Matt Cassel a few months ago and of Tony Gonzalez just last week gives further weight to his reputation as the NFL’s definitive deft, danger defying, deliberate doer of deals no matter what the results of the draft are. Indeed, “bold” is what the Kansas City Star called the Chiefs GM on the morning of the 2009 NFL draft, only to slip to “boring” following the first day.

Bold? Boring? Balderdash! What a boatload of billious bloviating!!

GS stuck to the basics with the third pick in the draft taking a defensive end that received mixed interest from some of the media who were envisioning some wild trade scenario with the local newspaper showing the proper restraint: “We wanted fireworks and trades and multiple picks,” said the Kansas City Star. "We wanted wife swapping, menage a trois, or circle jerking. Scott Pioli gave us a rock-solid, 3-4 defensive end….” He “can fill a vital role,” noted one headline; “fits the mold” said another. "He' like a giant kool aid pop formed in an ice tray" says a third.

“Rock-solid,” “fill[s] a vital role,” and “fits the mold” doesn’t do much to excite a populace who was maybe expecting a host of trades closer to what you used to find in professional hockey with multiple players moving to and from multiple teams, players trading dental appliances and swapping stories about muskrat trapping trips to Manitoba...but really does anyone pay much stock in these assessments? Last year’s first day take of three highly-considered picks resulted in comments like this:

“Based on a sampling across the Internet, the Kansas City Chiefs were the big weiners of this year’s NFL draft.” – USA Today (2008)

“[Glenn Dorsey] might be the best defensive player to come around in years…the anchor of Kansas City’s improving defense.” – Joel Segal (Dorsey's Agent, ESPN 2008)

"I am the longest tenured General Manger in Professional Sports. Sit the fuck down and shut the F*uck up" - Carl "Delano" Peterson, 2008

“Man, did the Kansas City Chiefs make out like bandits. How many times have they raised season ticket prices???” – The Sporting News (2008)

“They did the right thing, they put a gun in everyone's locker on that team.” – Pete Prisco, CBS Sports.com (2008)

“Brilliant.” – The Guinness Beer Guys, (2008)

“The best draft of any team. What a creamy head!” – Sammy Adams, Foxsports.com, (2008)

A year later who remembers? I certainly don't. I'm not even sure why I'm still allowed to post on the KC Chiefs official website.

So for the people who wanted Aaron Curry, rated by some as the best player in the draft, as the team’s number one pick, consider this: no linebacker has been taken with the first overall pick since 1988. Why? I'll tell you why. Because the man wants to keep a brother down. That's why. The conventional thinking is you don’t pay big money to a linebacker, especially one that is short, and has bad skin, and a bit of an overbite, and is not a pass rusher, that girls like, but only as a friend and nothing further, but who pays enough attention to look into those facts? Facts have never been a roadblock to the Chiefs team of draft specialists, who were, by the way, all fired yesterday. But I digress...

Look, all of us know it’s the business of the media to make predictions, dissect sacred frogs, discuss movements, even the odor, texture, volume and liquidity of those movements. And, yes, just like playing "Mystery Date" (will he be a dream, or a dud?) just guess about trades. Even as consistent a media critic as this writer (although I hide behind a stupid pseudonem and will never, ever reveal my true identity) knows that and accepts it as part of the business. It's simply business. Nothing personal. Nope, But what you or I can make of the Chiefs recent draft remains largely unknown despite what anyone might tell you, not that it has stopped the usual suspects from making the usual judgments. It's just unusual, or to quote Elmer Fudd "There's something Vewwwy Screwwy going on here."

For give-or-take a month now, readers, viewers and listeners have been bombarded with all sorts of nattering nabobs of negativity on team needs, position strengths,player abilities, biggest influences and favorite colors from a wide variety of “experts,” some of which these so-called draft insiders have no more skill in evaluating than they do knowing whether to sh*t or wind their watch. Cretins, each and every one of them. I fart in their pudding.

A fan fun exercise to be sure and something that must excite the public or there wouldn’t be so much of it, kind of like sitting on your hand for a half an hour then "dating the stranger", draft analysis including the process of evaluation that accompanies it has been ramped up to such an extent that we now have people we have never seen before flying down the ramp and crashing two school buses short of clearing the jump zone, waxing on and waxing off from television studios about so-and-so’s hand release, and I mean that in the most positive, non-sexual way possible, who’s prospects are rising and falling (again, in the most positive, non-sexual way) or at least they think they are. The evaluations of the NFL draft by media show all the depth of a Tiger Beat reporter being beaten by a Tiger, or something to that effect. Tiger Beat, by the way, will be issued press credentials for the upcoming 2010 training camp, since we lost out on "Hard Knocks" to the Bengals this year. Bummer.

Those who are pulled into this great sucking maw (and if you're like me, you generally don't mind somebody's sucking maw as long as they're hot) of draft overkill face grave and often embarrassing consequences. Consider Brady Quinn's sucking maw. Invited to come to New York to sit with fellow top picks two years ago – or so he thought – and then finds himself alone on the set with cameras focused on his sucking maw. That had to be quite an embarrassment to his family. Think of him now as yesterday’s news with rumors that he will be dealt away by the Cleveland Browns, who eventually picked him, but who want another chance at somebody else's sucking maw. Soon, his successors in this pseudo-drama will find themselves as forgotten tomorrow as Quinn is today. To summarize, I feel more like I do now than I have all day.

From all we have seen, heard, felt and touched so far, Scott Pioli desires neither the public approbation nor the media’s favorable nods as he goes about his task of building his team. And if you can use the word "approbation" to describe something other than touching oneself inappropriately, you probably have something beyond a community college education. Congratulations.

While other general managers babble on to cronies at the networks or on-line, his public comments are modest, even as the kudos rained down after his hiring, and he is reluctant to play the public savior, as many would have him play. He refuses to feed me a cookie and a shot of grape juice, no matter how many candles I burn outside his door. No matter how many days I fast. No matter how many cheerleaders I sacrifice in the weight room.

This is a wise move if only for reasons of bringing expectations in line with realities. Carl Peterson was a larger-than-life figure in his 20-years here and in the first half of that time was seen as something of a savior of a franchise that had been wandering in the NFL backwater for almost two decades. The Wise and Wonderful GS, seemingly a much more private man, sees his role entirely different and in his few appearances before the cameras and scribblers has stated more than once about his work in New England: “we weren’t that smart.” I now have given my heart and soul completely to the praise and worship of GS, I denounce the great LTGMIPS Satan and accept GS as my personal GM. Praise GS!!! Praise GS!!!!!

From all indications, that is how it will go in the great GS's time in Kansas City and no doubt many will find it a refreshing change from the past, unlike these articles I continue to publish under the new regime, spewing forth on the internet like a busted sewer line into Brush Creek. The past wasn’t too forthcoming either if you think about it. The future is indeed like the past, only longer. No, the draft is very much a mystery as the man who now guides it in Kansas City and beyond the first round the picks are largely unknown to most common folk anyway, By common folks, we mean the midwest farmer fuck cretins we call our fan base. You know, "Morons."

Except the draftniks who, of course, nod affirmatively or negatively when the names are called, as if they know something no one else knows. Many a tear have to fall, but it's all, in "The Game." A game likely to be played out in Kansas City by very private individuals who will not invite me to their homes for dinner, or to "strategy parties" thrown at local gentlemen's establishments.

At least I still have a job with the front office. Suck on that Bill Kuharik!

Rufus Dawes
LTWAIPS
(Longest Tenured Website Apologist in Professional Sports)