ChiefsPlanet - Chiefs Babb:Chiefs’ draft focuses on future instead of quick fixes

Chiefs’ draft focuses on future instead of quick fixes
This time around, the Chiefs’ draft selections reflect the team’s focus on the future.
By KENT BABB
The Kansas City Star

More than three years after Chiefs general manager Scott Pioli arrived in Kansas City, his team entered this year’s draft facing something new.

When Pioli was hired in January 2009, the team he inherited had gone 2-14 a season earlier and faced holes at most every position group. If the direction of the franchise was to turn any time soon, Pioli and the Chiefs would need to be near-perfect in evaluations, selections and signings during free agency and the draft.

Now, with most of the heavy lifting complete as the rebuilding begins its fourth year, the team no longer required perfection from its top decision-makers. The Chiefs could spend this draft focusing on depth and upgrades for the future.

“We’re certainly in a different place than where we were,” Pioli said.

When the Chiefs selected Memphis nose tackle Dontari Poe in Thursday’s first round, they addressed their only glaring need — and added perhaps the only rookie who will be expected to start as a rookie.

Second-round offensive lineman Jeff Allen likely will be a backup swing blocker in his first season, but he could give the Chiefs options if veteran guard Ryan Lilja, 30, begins to hit the wall. Fourth-round receiver Devon Wylie adds a new weapon alongside — or in place of — Dexter McCluster, and sixth-round running back Cyrus Gray could give the team an additional rusher alongside Jamaal Charles and Peyton Hillis.

“We put ourselves into a situation where we could look for the best athlete available,” coach Romeo Crennel said Saturday. “In the later rounds, you can reach a little bit today and not feel as bad about it.”

The Chiefs did that by eliminating holes during free agency, particularly when they added right tackle Eric Winston. That upgraded a weakness of the past two seasons and made nose tackle the team’s only must-address position for the draft. The Chiefs wasted no time, selecting Poe at No. 11 overall.

Crennel insisted Thursday night that the top pick won’t necessarily begin the season as the starter. But considering the team’s only other nose tackle, second-year lineman Jerrell Powe, played only seven snaps in 2011, Poe is expected to be in the opening-week starting lineup.

Still, Pioli said Saturday that it would be unwise to count out Powe, a sixth-rounder last year, saying he had reported in good shape to the team’s offseason program.

“One of the concerns about big guys in general is when they go away for a couple months and they come back, you never know what they’re going to look like,” Pioli said. “And he came back, and he looks good. … What’s happened here now is: We’ve got a lot of competition.”

Nowhere is that more visible than along the offensive line. The Chiefs didn’t take a big-name blocker, avoiding the first-round temptation of Stanford guard David DeCastro, and likely didn’t bring in an immediate starter. Allen has never played guard but will be seen as a versatile blocker who, barring an injury to a starting tackle, will find his way into the starting lineup soonest at guard.

Another lineman, third-rounder Donald Stephenson, who played at Blue Springs, is a developmental tackle with a high ceiling but little experience. He played two seasons at Oklahoma and will likely need time to adjust to the NFL’s demands. But if he reaches his potential quickly, Stephenson could give his hometown team options when veteran left tackle Branden Albert’s contract expires after this season.

After three years of chasing must-start prospects — the Chiefs spent the 2009 draft selecting pieces to play the 3-4 defense (Tyson Jackson), the next year upgrading an aging safety corps (Eric Berry) and slow kick return unit (Dexter McCluster), and last year addressing various needs — the team downshifted over the past three days. It focused on the future.

“If you have a need,” Crennel said, “you get stuck sometimes in a draft because the value is too low for a position, and you shouldn’t take it.

“And then when you take it, you get in trouble because you’re just not taking the value. So, I think by what we’ve been able to do is put ourselves in position to truly take the value on the board.”

What the Chiefs didn’t get, though, was another quarterback to compete with Matt Cassel or to challenge Brady Quinn and Ricky Stanzi as the team’s backup. Pioli passed on developmental quarterbacks such as Wisconsin’s Russell Wilson (third round to Seattle), Arizona’s Nick Foles (third round to Philadelphia) and San Diego State’s Ryan Lindley (sixth round to the Cardinals).

“We do have a young kid that we took last year that we feel good about,” Crennel said of Stanzi, a fifth-rounder in 2011, “and so we’ll have to feel good about whoever we look at, that he will have a chance to compete with Stanzi, or he has to be better than Stanzi, which might be tough at this point.”

Pioli said the Chiefs’ newcomers would still be expected to contribute immediately. But for the first time since the rebuilding began, the pressure to alter the franchise in a single draft seems to be behind the Chiefs.

“There really are no guarantees about whether these guys will be great players or not,” Crennel said. “Only time will tell that, but we feel good about them.”