Double D’s Draftables – Chiefs Interior OL

As promised in my article yesterday, today I’m going to offer up some of my own offensive line draft prospects that the Chiefs might want to consider based on 1) our need to bulk up and add depth to our interior line positions and 2) the offensive efficiency of the DIV I schools for which these draft prospects played. My (admittedly very thin) theory is that good offensive line play depends not just on individual size and talent, but also upon whether the guy was effective at “gelling” with his brother lineman. As mentioned yesterday, I narrowed my list to the following schools based on Football Outsiders S&P Offensive Rankings:

The big reveal lies just beyond the jump.

I’ll begin by pointing out that “draft experts” typically differ, big shock, on their player rankings so one of the things I’ve done here is sample 3 different opinions on that subject. To that end, the column headings DrafTek proj, CDS proj, and WF proj represent draft round projections from DraftTek, Consensus Draft Services, and WalterFootball respectively. Also, the DrafTek projections might be a little outdated as I acquired them about two weeks ago, i.e., before the combine. In any event, I figured providing these three ought to give a reasonable mix of opinions on the subject, particularly for the mid to late round prospects. By all means though, please feel free to add other expert (including your own!) opinions in the comments section.

Offensive Tackle

Even though the byline for this post suggests this is about drafting Interior Offensive Linemen, I’ll nevertheless start this off with an Offensive Tackle prospect in the event that this ends up being a position that the Chiefs are considering for change via the draft. For example, there is the perennial argument that Branden Albert is a less than ideal choice at Left Tackle, that he is rather better suited for one of the guard slots.

Carimi is considered one the top OT’s in this year’s draft and can play either side. Four year starter, Outland Trophy Winner. His size, skills, and college experience are all well suited to a ZBS. If the Chiefs decide they need an elite tackle, there’s a decent chance that Carimi could still be on the board when they make their first pick.

Offensive Guard

Now before you dismiss a lot of these guys as late rounders and thus presumably of lower quality, I think it is important to remind everyone that there are currently (and historically) many quality, starting interior linemen in the NFL that were acquired quite late in their respective drafts. Brian Waters, for instance, entered the NFL as an undrafted Free Agent. Note also that some of these guys played OT in college but are projected at OG in the NFL.

I’ll make some passing comments here about most of these players and then leave it for the Addict gallery to add comments and/or supplemental information concerning this list. The more we know about these guys, the better.

Hudson is considered by many to be a top candidate for a ZBS team. I can’t argue with that. Another thing that scouts and other evaluators like to note about him is his versatility. Based on reports from the combine, it appears he wears 299 pretty well and that’s a very encouraging sign. Even so, I gotta be honest about one thing here – what concerns me about players who need to add weight is my fear of Haley’s “all players can stand to lose weight” training regimen. If a player feels they can perform better at a higher weight, it seems to me they should at least be allowed to prove it. My biggest concern with Hudson is that Haley would have him right back at 285 and if that’s the case, I don’t see how Hudson brings anything to the Chiefs that we don’t already have in Lilja.

Moffitt seems to be very popular with a lot of AA readers and staffers – Merlin loves him. I too like his size, skills and reputation for playing with a mean streak. In fact, I see him as an excellent fit – if he’s there for us in the 4th round, it would make sense to snatch him up. Considering we pick in the latter half of the 3rd round, I would not overlook him as an option there either.

Schilling? Meh – I don’t put a lot of stock in Sr Bowl performances but he really seemed to struggle against Cameron Jordan. Bender doesn’t particularly excite me either. I couldn’t come up with anything significant information on Dominguez so unless somebody wants to chime in, I’m going to consider him an unlikely.

Carpenter was a JUCO transfer who came in and started all 27 games for the Tide, no small feat – has the necessary size and skills -thus a possible fit for the Chiefs. DeMarcus Love, another versatile, ZBS-style lineman, was among other things, a team captain (thus, “right 53″ material) and is also noted for playing with an attitude – I don’t believe he’s going to be a starting NFL tackle but I can definitely see him making some noise as a guard. My gut tells me Love will go in the 3rd round. A couple of other potential late round/undrafted guys I would keep an eye on are Berry and Ziemba – ZBS skills, hard workers, team players, solid all around lunch pail types.

Center

As you can see, the pickings for centers from these particular schools are pretty slim. Such is life.

Let’s start with McMahon. This guy is your basic show-up-for-work and do your job every single day kind of guy. I’m not 100% sure, but I believe he may have ended up with more starts than any player in FSU history. He’s seems a bit on the light side but with his height, if he can put on another 10 lbs (subject to my earlier caveat) that would put him in the Jeff Saturday category. He was an Outland and Rimington Trophy candidate for 2010. Aside from that, I don’t have much in the way of noteworthy information about the guy. Nevertheless, if he’s still there, this is somebody I can see us making a move for in the 7th round (we don’t have a 6th round pick) depending upon what positions we’ve already filled prior to that.

Pugh comes in with nice dimensions for center and aside from being a 4 year starter, I can’t say that there’s really anything about this guy that jumps out at me. I remember reading somewhere that he has a penchant for chop blocks. Not sure what to make of him – I’m guessing because of his school association he could bring attention in the 6th or 7th rounds but there’s nothing here that says to me that he won’t go undrafted. If anyone has some in-depth 411 on this guy, I’d love to hear it.

So there you have it. I tried my best to keep this brief. In case anyone’s interested, there is a lot more information (unless otherwise noted) on most of these guys that I’ll be happy to share if asked. Believe it or not, this took a lot of time and work to put all this together. Now it’s up to all Addicts to step up and do their part. Translation – won’t be satisfied with less than 100 comments. Eagerly awaiting the flood of intelligent questions, insightful opinions, and hopefully even a few hate-laced barbs to arrive . . .

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Tags: 2011 Chiefs Draft, 2011 Offensive line draft prospects, DeMarcus Love, Gabe Carimi, James Carpenter, John Bender, John Moffitt, Lee Ziemba, Mike Berry, Ray Dominguez, Rodney Hudson, Ryan McMahon, Ryan Pugh, Stephen Schilling