Chiefs Will Meet With Robert Griffin III
The Kansas City Chiefs will meet with Robert Griffin III tonight at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis.
The Chiefs will meet with about 60 players in total this weekend for about 15 minutes each. Might KC just be doing their due diligence in meeting with Griffin?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
I know there are some of you out there that think there is no chance that the Chiefs will move up in the draft to take RGIII. I understand your trepidation.
But I disagree.
The Chiefs seem to be making it abundantly clear that they are interested in getting their hands on a franchise QB this offseason. First, the team comes out and says they plan on creating competition at the QB position for Matt Cassel. This is something they’ve never said. Sure, they’ve said they want competition at all the positions, but they’ve never really singled out Cassel before.
Next, we start hearing the rumors that the Chiefs are interested in Manning. They might be bogus but it just adds another log to the franchise QB search fire.
Now, the Chiefs are meeting with RGII, a player who has absolutely zero chance of falling to them in April.
Why would they do that?
A few weeks ago, Pioli said this while talking with
Hack
Jack Harry of NBC Action News:
"“From year to year you have so many needs,” Pioli said. “To start giving up multiple No. 1 picks, that’s a big decision, because right now we may say we have needs in these five areas and to sacrifice multiple drafts in the future, I tend to want to be a little more responsible than that.“I didn’t come here to win one championship. I didn’t come here to get the quick fix, be done and move onto the next job. This is where our family is. This is where I want to spend the rest of my career.“So what I’m going to do is make prudent decisions to get the best players and get the best team built. Being too short-sighted and trading too many draft picks for any one player… I don’t even know who the player is who I’d say I’d give up multiple first round picks based on where we’re at.”"
No chance of him trading up them, right? We have to take Pioli at his word.
Like from this article from SI.com:
"“Atlanta GM Thomas Dimitroff calls the safety-at-the-top-of-the-draft debate a conundrum. “It’s been on my mind a lot lately,” he said, “and I realize I’m speaking out of both sides of my mouth here, but Berry’s a really good player. It’s been on my mind quite a bit recently. You want the good hitter with hip movement, able to turn and run, but then reality sets in. I was talking to [Kansas City GM] Scott Pioli about Berry, and I said, ‘Scott, this guy’s your pick.’ And he said, ‘You know how I feel about safeties that early.’ And I understand.””"
Speaking of Dimitroff, did you know that he and Pioli are pretty much best friends? Did you also know that last April, before the Atlanta Falcons traded multiple picks to the Cleveland Browns for the right to move up and take Julio Jones, that Dimitroff called two people for advice?
Bill Belichick and Scott Pioli.
Belichick told Dimitroff to stay where he was and draft Jonathan Baldwin.
Pioli told Dimitroff to go for it and get Jones.
The fact of the matter is, the Chiefs are closer to being a championship contender than anyone might think. All the pieces are there, for the most part, except a franchise QB. If we believe that Pioli might be interested in acquiring Peyton Manning, a short term answer, should he become available, then we must believe Pioli is willing to trade up in the draft for Griffin, a long term answer. If Pioli is interested in Manning, then he thinks Manning can make the Chiefs a Super Bowl contender right now. If that is true, how could he not think Griffin couldn’t make the Chiefs a Super Bowl contender for the next ten years or more?
Scott Pioli definitely has a list of guidelines that he uses to help him make decisions, but that doesn’t mean those guidelines are rules. He told Dimitroff he didn’t like taking safeties high, but then he took a safety high. He even took a linebacker (who got) high when he said multiple times he was looking for “The Right 53.” There are always exceptions to the rules.
Trading away two first round picks and a second is not going to doom the future of the Kansas City Chiefs, even if RGIII is a bust. It just isn’t. KC’s roster has enough talent to sacrifice a few draft picks, whiff and still win.
The Chiefs are picking 11th. They need to get to #2 to secure RGIII. They will have to give up a lot to get there but not as much as they would have to give up if they were picking say, 20th. The fact of the matter is, the Chiefs are so talented that they aren’t likely to be this close to the top ten for a long time. That means that if you don’t think the Chiefs already have a franchise QB on their roster that you are banking on them either lucking out on a later round QB, trading for one or snagging one in free agency.
Good luck with that.
If Pioli will tell his best friend to trade away multiple picks for a receiver, a position everyone knows doesn’t make as big an impact on your football team as QB, then he’d do the same himself to land a franchise QB.
It was in an interview that Julio Jones won over Thomas Dimitroff.
Make no mistake, the Chiefs meeting with Griffin is significant and it does signal that they are seriously considering acquiring him.
I’ll leave you with this quote from Scott Pioli’s press conference at the Combine today:
"“We’ll be talking with him (Griffin) and a number of other players,” Pioli said. “You do your homework. You never know what’s going to happen with a player. You don’t know where you’re going to be and you don’t know where he’s going to be. Right now, there’s ten teams ahead of us throwing out all kinds of smoke signals as to what they’re going to do. You never know.”"