Joe Posnanski: big SI Scott Pioli feature

[BossChief]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

And you can add Gilberry and Edwards to that list.

I'm still severely disappointed with the 2009 draft but despite that, the Chiefs are competing for a divisional championship. This team would be so much further along IF Pioli had hit on even one player.

I'll be happy if Pioli can hit on more than 50% of his acquisitions in the future (draft picks and free agency) but IMO, the reason the Chiefs have taken a leap this season, regardless of schedule, is because of the work of Crennel, Pleasant, Thomas and of course, Weis.

Pioli may have put those people in place but they're the reason it's getting done.

Well, to be fair he seems to have hit on two of those picks in 2009.

The 2nd rounder and 7th rounder.

You cant really judge a draft till 3 years after it happens, so its still possible to have Tyson Jackson turn into a good player and even though that wouldnt be 3 "hits" (due to him being drafted 3rd overall) it would be three players out of that draft that are playing a fairly big role.

Hell, no matter how much some still hate the "big trade" in the 7th round that brought Mr Occonnel here, he is still here and has made some recent contributions.

That makes 2 players that are already playing a big role in the turnaround and another two that are still growing into their roles on the team and one of those (TJ) having lost some significant time to injury after looking pretty good in the opener.

If we can (hopefully) yeild 4 players out of that class, it doesnt seem as big a failure as it originally seemed.

But yeah, we would be beasting on defense right now with my boy Orakpo!

Also, I think that this 2010 class should get almost as much credit as the coaches in this turnaround. When we were missing a c0ouple of the guys from that class, we seemed like we had taken a step back as a team. The contributions of Lewis, Moeaki, DMC and others is not to go unnoticed.