Over the years, I have been very frustrated by the lack of attention the Chiefs have paid to drafting quality offensive line talent. It seems that whoever runs the drafts (Carl, Kuharich, Pioli) seems to forget about the line when draft time arrives. It wasn’t that long ago that the Chiefs had their best offensive line ever (Roaf, Waters, Wiegmann, Shields and Tait). Tait left after the 2003 season and the descent started. I don’t blame Carl for losing Tait. Tait got left tackle money from Chicago and we could only pay him as a right tackle. When Tait left, we also had Roaf and Shields near the end of their careers. We had three holes to replace soon. Attention was needed. Quality draft picks were needed to groom their replacements.
Offensive line is a set of positions where you can develop lower round talent into good starters. However, you do need some quality draft picks. Let’s take a look at that great line as an example. Roaf and Tait were both first round draft picks. Shields was a third round pick. Neither Waters or Wiegmann were drafted. It’s a bit heavy on the UDFA’s but the idea still holds. Three of your starters were drafted in the first three rounds of the draft.
Starting from 2004 to present we have selected seventeen players in the first three rounds of the draft. Just how many offensive lineman have we taken? Answer below the fold.
The answer is: one, Branden Albert in the first round of the 2008 draft. Not coincidentally, he is the only young lineman we can count on. After that, you have to go all the way down to round five to find just one more offensive lineman we drafted, Colin Brown in 2009 . Addicts, this just isn’t going to cut it. Is there any wonder our line is not doing a good job? We can try to patch with older free agents and try to develop low round selections. However, we need to invest more quality draft picks in this critical area. You can easily trace our downfall to the decline of the offensive line. Carl deserves the brunt of the blame for this. However, not the entire blame. What was Scott Pioli thinking when he took over? Generally, he has made solid moves, but the lack of attention to the offensive line is, in my opinion, his biggest mistake so far. He looks at the tape of our line play and decides that one good solid vet FA (Goff) is all it will take to fix the line? We don’t need to draft a player high? Even though the recent draft was loaded with good center prospects, we don’t need to draft one?
Addicts, it just this simple. We will not be a good team until we get better offensive line play. Pioli is either going to have to shell out big bucks for a good young FA offensive lineman (i.e. Jason Brown from last year) or he needs to spend some first day picks (plural) on offensive line talent. Then, we can develop a line that will stay together for years. Speaking of years, Brian Waters’ time is short. Yes, that’s one more hole to be filled.
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