Drama Kings
Apr 27, 2009, 9:11:45 AM by Rufus Dawes - FAQ
Scott Pioli’s 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 boldest 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.
Pioli 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. “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.
“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, 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 winners 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.” – John Clayton, ESPN (2008)
“Man, did the Kansas City Chiefs make out like bandits.” – The Sporting News (2008)
“They did the right thing.” – Pete Prisco, CBS Sports.com (2008)
“Brilliant.” – Bill Williamson, ESPN.com (2008)
“The best draft of any team.” – John Czarneki, Foxsports.com, (2008)
A year later who remembers? 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. The conventional thinking is you don’t pay big money to a linebacker, especially one that is short and is not a pass rusher, but who pays enough attention to look into those facts?
Look, all of us know it’s the business of the media to make predictions, dissect moves and, yes, just guess about trades. Even as consistent a media critic as this writer knows that and accepts it as part of the business. 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. For give-or-take a month now, readers, viewers and listeners have been bombarded with all sorts of rhetoric on team needs, position strengths and player abilities from a wide variety of “experts,” some of which these so-called draft insiders have no more skill in evaluating than they do determining exactly how much of a carbon footprint can actually impact global warming.
A fan fun exercise to be sure and something that must excite the public or there wouldn’t be so much of it, 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 waxing on and on from television studios about so-and-so’s hand release, knee bend and who’s prospects are rising and falling, or at least they think they are. The evaluations of the NFL draft by media show all the depth of a Tiger Beat reporter.
Those who are pulled into this great sucking maw of draft overkill face grave and often embarrassing consequences. Consider Brady Quinn, 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 dejected and confused face as the names are called and his isn’t one of them. 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 a top pick. Soon, his successors in this pseudo-drama will find themselves as forgotten tomorrow as Quinn is today.
From all we have seen and heard 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. 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. 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. Scott Pioli, 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.”
From all indications, that is how it will go in Mr. Pioli’s time in Kansas City and no doubt many will find it a refreshing change from the past, although the past wasn’t too forthcoming either if you think about it. 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, except the draftniks who, of course, nod affirmatively or negatively when the names are called, as if they know something no one else knows. It’s all part of a game and it’s likely to be played out in Kansas City by very private individuals in undemonstrative ways but elsewhere with all the drama the media can concoct.
