Dontari Poe Tape

Now that the 2012 NFL Draft is over, it is time to start taking a closer look at the Chiefs’ new players.

The selection of Dontari Poe is extremely controversial. Poe has amazing measurables but he also was not a dominant player in college. Some fans and experts fear that the Chiefs got blinded by Poe’s strength and speed and reached for a boom or bust pick.

The Chiefs seemed ready for the criticism that would be coming their way after the pick. When talking about Poe the first night after the draft, Kansas City Chiefs head coach Romeo Crennel was beaming. He talked a lot about how much Poe was moved around on the defensive line at Memphis. According to Crennel, Poe was asked to be a jack of all trades and thus was never able to consistently excel at one position.

The Chiefs feel Poe will be able to be a three-down nose tackle for them that can help put pressure on the QB.

Here is some tape of Poe from one game against Tulane. Poe had one tackle in the game. You can clearly see that Poe is moved all over the field. He lines up at pretty much every spot on the defensive line.

I’m no scout or defensive line expert but I think I can see Poe’s potential here. He doesn’t always get the most push but he also never gets blown off the ball. He’s usually getting double-teamed. I saw a few occasions where Poe was able to blow between those double teams, however Tulane was usually getting the ball out so fast that it didn’t matter. There are a couple of occasions where he demonstrates a pretty effective spin move for such a big guy.

The good news is that Romeo Crennel and KC’s scouts have seen a lot more of Poe than we have and while Poe never looks overwhelming in this tape, we can only hope they guys who get paid to make these decisions got it right.

What do you see on Poe’s tape?