When he was drafted to KC I said that he had gone to NFL Heaven… a place with history, great fans, and a commitment to players and winning. Given the same opportunity to say it to him again I’d say they ARE history, the fans can be great but fickle, and the commitment that the Chiefs have to players is to keep them at the lowest price and win if that happens to occur. Wave goodbye to all the sacks and personality folks because the Cheaps have earned it again.

And so, there are two situations where this move becomes a waste. #1 – if Croyle does awesome and you sit the $60 Million man on the bench; #2 – if Ryan is a bust and the Chiefs never replace him, because they give him 4 chances to blossom as an NFL QB. The first is important, because it implies that you’re wasting money on a player who doesn’t see the field, but it also implies that you used a pick on a backup QB when you could have landed a full-time defensive or offensive tackle. In the second situation, we’ve seen too many instances of QBs who start for several years not because of how they do on the field, but because of where they were drafted. Harrington and Boller played well past their usefulness. Leftwich started even after Garrard was the obviously superior QB. How many years did Houston refuse to draft/sign a QB because they were waiting for Carr’s potential to finally develop? I realize there are risks to be taken, I just happen to think that if your goal is to promote a pure QB competition, why not just use your second round pick on a QB instead? Who knows, maybe the Chiefs get a pick at #17 and use it instead on Brian Brohm, who I believe is superior to Ryan anyway.

A QB outside of the first round is cheaper, has to legitimately win a starting job instead of having it handed to him, and is a legit enough threat to take the starting job that Croyle will feel compelled to perform or die. The Browns had it right last year. Remember, there was buzz that they’d take Brady Quinn because they badly needed a QB; they went with Joe Thomas instead and that worked out great for them.

I would argue that if Quinn was drafted at #3, Derek Anderson either would ahve been benched halfway through last season or he would not have been re-signed for 2008.