Additional gripes about the Draft.

While Paddy came out with his own sterling grade for the Chiefs’ Draft, I am much more disillusioned about it. I provided my own individual selection grades to counter Paddy’s, and put in my two cents on the team’s entire haul on Saturday.

A couple days ago, Michael Ash pours some more gas on the fire I started with his own sharp analysis. This particular snippet warrants highlighting, though I’d encourage you to read the entire piece:

"[J]udging by the draft, it seems like the Chiefs have settled on a three-pronged plan for victory in 2010: be creative and score lots of points on offense, return lots of kicks and punts for touchdowns, and then let Eric Berry roam free in the secondary when the other team starts passing to catch up.If that’s the strategy, then ignoring the front seven makes sense. They’ll be lucky to win two games that way, but at least we can take some comfort in knowing there’s a plan in place."

"Unfortunately, if the offense does come around, it seems destined – at least in 2010 – to be hamstrung by a defense that won’t be holding up its end of the bargain.An effective offense, dangerous kick returners, a porous defense — all this time we thought Scott Pioli wanted to recreate the Patriots. Who knew that he wanted to recreate the Dick Vermeil Chiefs instead?"

Except that Vermeil did spend two very high picks to bolster his defensive front — they just busted. But Scott Pioli has radically transformed a Cover 2 4-3 defense to a one-gap 3-4 defense withoutdrafting a single nose tackle or serious OLB passrusher in his first two drafts (Sheffeld, by himself, barely counts). He hasn’t even picked up a premier free agent at either of those crucial positions (Vrabel’s 2 sacks barely count).

Let’s hope that changes with Henderson.To paraphrase Pioli, this guy is now a “must.”