Did Scott Pioli Pick His Nose?
By Double D
Alright, allow me rephrase that – is picking the right Nose still among Scott Pioli’s biggest priorities? For example, Pioli, while with the Patriots, in Vince Wilfork, picked the right Nose. Everyone since then unanimously agrees that Pioli truly picked “his Nose” when he got Wilfork. I also think we can generally agree that Pioli certainly picked a Nose in this draft by taking Jerrell Powe in the 6th round. Nevertheless, I also think it’s fair to say that the jury is still out on whether Pioli has actually picked, again, “his Nose.”
We’ll probe this a little deeper right after the jump.
Now before we just plow right in, let’s first revisit the recently popular question of whether Pioli defacto picked his Nose before the 2011 draft? To put that a little more eloquently, is it really even necessary for Scott Pioli to pick his Nose at this point? Over the last couple of weeks, both Big Matt and Lyle Graverson made, um, interesting attempts at explaining why picking his Nose may no longer be at the top of Scott Pioli’s priority list. Their arguments can basically be summarized as “Ron Edwards is doing just fine” which kind of implies Scott Pioli has already picked his Nose, albiet subtlely.
I countered with my own set of reasons as to why their conclusions are completely in error. For those who missed it, I’ll provide a brief summary as to why they were both so far off in implying that Pioli had already picked his Nose. Hereinafter, the following set of arguments shall be known as . . .
DD’s No Nose Proof.
Law of the Nose: The Nose is responsible for both A gaps (that is, the holes on either side of the center).
DD’s Stipulation #1: Using Football Outsider’s Stats, the Chiefs ranked 27th at defending against runs through the A gaps in 2010, yielding an average of 4.42 adjusted line yards per carry.
DD’s Postulate #1: Ron Edwards was responsible for defending both A gaps and ranked 27th in the league at defending against runs through the A gaps in 2010.
DD’s Stipulation #2: The league average for run attempts through the A gaps was 50% in 2010 according to Football Outsiders.
DD’s Stipulation #3: Chiefs opponents attacked the A gaps 63% of the time.
DD’s Stipulation #4: Even though Chiefs opponents ran to the A gaps 63% of the time, Ron Edwards could only collect to himself 26 tackles over the entire season.
DD’s Stipulation #5: Jets opponents attacked the A gaps 46% of the time and yet Jets NT Pouha accumulated 59 tackles.
DD’s Postulate #2: Chiefs opponents successfully attacked the A gaps 63% of the time because Ron Edwards is horrible and thus absolutely can not be viewed as Pioli’s Nose pick.
DD’s Stipulation #6: When the Nose is taking care of his A gaps, your ILBs are less committed to defending the run and thus better able to defend against the short pass.
DD’s Nose Corollary: The Chiefs were eaten alive by passes to TE’s, SR’s and RB’s because our ILBs were committed to defending against runs through the A gaps that Ron Edwards was unable to stop.
My conclusion thus is that Scott Pioli did not subtlely pick his Nose with Ron Edwards. Actually, Ron Edwards is a complete fraud mascarading as a Nose Tackle. It would be far more accurate to call Ron Edwards low quality Nose Tissue because he is completely ineffective when it comes to containing the constant running. Tagging him with Mr. Kleenex would be a compliment. Calling him Mr. Dollar Saver Tissue would improperly suggest he might be a good value. Mr. Soggy 1 Ply Generic Tissue comes about the closest. Edwards ongoing presence is the single biggest obstacle to the Chiefs D achieving greatness.
Now the next question is, does Jerrell Powe constitute Scott Pioli picking his Nose? Considering that nobody was interested in Powe until late in the 6th round suggests Powe is probably not that great of a Nose pick. Because Nose Tackle is the most physically demanding position in the 34 defense, I think our best hope is that Powe will be useful in spelling Edwards, or visa versa, with the idea that both remain relatively fresh for a full 4 quarters – at least until some team decides to run the 2 minute drill against us for an entire game – if that happens, a Nose Tackle is going to wear out.
Many of us, myself included, were hoping that Pioli would get the itch to pick his Nose in the 1st round of the 2011 Draft. Instead, Pioli resisted that urge and wound up with a couple of
tasty
juicy picks in exchange. I won’t fault him for that. Besides, picking his Nose in the 1st round would have been a highly visible move. I’m sure he thought to himself “Do I really want to pick my Nose now? What if I blow it?”
Until proven otherwise, I’m going to say that Scott Pioli did not pick, again, “his Nose,” by going after Jerrell Powe late in the draft. However, if Powe proves me wrong on that, then I guess I’ll have to admit that Pioli discretely landed himself a real trophy in the 6th round (when hardly anybody was paying attention mind you). Don’t get me wrong, my hope is that Pioli came away with a real whopper in Powe, it’s just that coming across hidden treasures so deep in the late rounds happens so infrequently. Then again, maybe Pioli knew exactly what he was looking for and where to find it.
So Addicts, putting this into a somewhat fingurative sense, did we see this?
Or did we really see this?