Chiefs sign Mike Brown

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

Not to single you out but I don't buy into this supposed "role".

Did you read Peter King's MMQB this week? There's a piece with Warren Sapp where Sapp unequivocally states that younger players do not listen to veterans. They blow them off, entirely. He saw it with the Bucs and the Raiders. He said Derrick Brooks has experienced the same thing.

Trent Green was pissed about the drafting of Brodie Croyle in 2006.

This whole "mentoring" thing is a figment of the imagination of the fans.

It just doesn't exist.

Where do you get that Green was pissed about Croyle? From everything I have heard and seen, Green and Huard went out of their way to take Croyle under their wing.

I do agree that the role of mentorship is overrated, but I disagree that leaders are any less important. And Sapp is not exactly an expert on leadership and followership--he was neither during his career and he was so good that he didn't really need anyone's help anyway. Not only that, but he plays a position that is largely a physical skill position--you either have it, or you don't. It's not like QB where you can make up for inferior talent by being superior at the mental part of the game. While mentorship is overrated, leadership is not. A young player will listen to another young player much less than to a veteran. When Zach Thomas yells at a player for screwing up on the field, are you really going to tell me he doesn't hold more weight than Demorrio Williams? Here's a classic example: Matt Cassel apparently has a "Brady-like" work ethic--do you really think he would have picked that same work ethic up if he was "mentored" on the same Patriots team, but with Daunte Culpepper as the starting QB?

I think you underrate the role of veteran leaders. In my opinion, it's the sole reason why teams like Washington and Oakland never succeed, in spite of loading up on talented players--it's because the team continually picks up veterans who have no leadership capacity. Mentorship doesn't always mean taking a kid under their wing. Many times, it's just showing kids the right habits, even if they don't intentionally try to do so. I guarantee that even if Jerry Rice was supposedly a self-absorbent prick, everyone around him became so much better just by watching such a superb practitioner of the game.