Of course I agree that we’ve otherwise totally blown free agency, though. Olive Hoyte is a Delmo, while Devard Darling is a good signing, but not a revelation by any means.

All a transition tag does is give the other team the right of first refusal on any contract offered by another team and accepted by the player. We don’t have to offer a compensatory draft pick for him if we sign him. Considering that Pittsburgh reportedly had little cap room left (even before the draft) I don’t think it would be a problem to snag him relatively cheap (two or three million).

He’s not a great tackle, true…but he’s young, so there’s still room to develop, and moving him to guard is not out of the question either (and, last I checked, we still needed guards…and $2-3 million is not too much to pay for that position). Given that most of our draft picks are going to be in the rounds where you’re lucky to find players who aren’t immediate roster cuts, we could do a lot worse than adding Starks as a starter somewhere until either a) he pans out or b) we find somebody capable of replacing him. Frankly, I don’t look forward to the prospect of having any of the line spots manned by a seventh-round draft pick who’s not a legitimate starter just to save a few bucks and so that Herm and Carl can claim that they’re great at finding good football players in the late rounds. Whether you like the guy or not, that’ll insure that Croyle never has a chance to become the QB of the future because he’ll get killed…and then we’re back to square one on drafting and developing a QB.

As for the comment on the A, B, and C list, I think that’s highly inaccurate. It shows that the Chiefs had an A list (and I think it’s inaccurate to say that these players “slipped away,” given Herm’s complaints which I believe are legit given that Faine was signed hours after free agency started even despite expressing an interest in visiting KC). And Darling and Demorrio Williams represent a bit of a C list. See, Faine and Brown are very good players who deserve to be paid a lot of money. I would argue that the B list consists of average players that are grossly overpaid with A money because the A List was so small this year. The C list includes B list players who are making B list money. And then the D list are all the retreads who have no potential, no upside, and won’t be paid anything. The Chiefs seem pretty intent on targeting a very select few people from the A list and trying to find as many people from the C list as they can find. Given the craziness of free agency, I think there are more people in the B list, so we’ll just have to wait. I strongly disagree that the Chiefs “let B list people slip away.” The Chiefs never showed even a slight interest in Johnson/Hackett, therefore, they never got away.

The A-list was not necessarily the big name guys, with B-list being lesser, etc.

A were the guys they wanted most. B were the guys you went after if the A guys were gone, etc.

For all we know Williams could have been on the A-list. They signed him pretty quick. Darling could have been on the B-list and Hackett and Johnson may not have been on the list at all.

Up till now everyone has been saying “stay true to the Herm Philosophy of the younger no names type players.”

Right there in the article Herm is admiting that he had an “A list” (Faneca/Faine) – then when we let them all go to other teams he had a “B list” (Hackett/Johnson)- again we let them go to other teams leaving us we the “C list” (Darling/Williams)

There is no excuse now as far as I am concerned – they knew there were some good players out there – they alwo knew they had plenty of money and yet we got none of them!

Getting C rate players before and soon to be after the Draft does not inspire me!

Although I stand by my belief that Justin Medlock was never going to develop. When he can’t even hit his field goals in practice you know the kid sucks. The Rams had him on their roster when they signed Josh Brown, so I get the idea that’s not only my perception.