Ron Chenoy-US PRESSWIRE

It is draft day and the rumors are flying faster than we can keep up with.

The latest comes from Peter King of SI.com. Kings thinks the Minnesota Vikings plan to stay at #3 and take OT Matt Kalil.

There was a report floating around that the Chiefs were interested in trading up to nab Kalil. I never believed it and it appears King doesn’t see that scenario playing out either. In fact, he doesn’t see a lot of teams trading up at all.

This draft is 75 picks deep with potential year-one rookie starters, and I’m hearing no strong evidence that any team is inclined to climb this high to blow it all on one player.

The one exception here, at No. 4 with Cleveland, could be Alabama running back Trent Richardson. But I look for Minnesota to stay put, ignore the bleatings of people like me who say the Vikes should take a corner here, and draft USC tackle Matt Kalil.

I tend to agree with King here. Unless you are trying to get a guy who you believe is a franchise QB, which in this case would be Ryan Tannehill, moving up far for one guy makes no sense. We could see some short trade ups in the top 10, maybe one or two spots but it is hard to see a team betting the farm on one guy who isn’t even a QB.

If the Chiefs don’t believe Tannehill is a franchise QB then I want them moving back. I especially want them moving back if they think a guy like Branden Weeden is a franchise QB. I’d be fine with the Chiefs sliding back into the 20s, picking up an extra second or thirdrd along the way. If they did that, I’d be ok with them reaching on Weeden in the first to ensure they got their man because they’d have more action in the second round thanks to moving back.

What do you think, Addicts? Is the eventual first round draft pick for the Chiefs going in the top 15 or will KC get their man significantly later?

• I hope both the Bills and the Lions go undefeated this year. The better they look, the less heat we have to take for our pathetic showings against them in the season openers. If the Bills can beat down the Patriots, I don’t feel bad that the Chiefs were just another notch on their victim list. Plus, just as we were the Cinderella story of last year, we can all warm our hearts by watching their (inevitably quixotic) quests to reach and push deep into the playoffs.
• It’s been a while since I’ve had to struggle to piece together a rational, yet apologist case for why the Chiefs were a relevant team. As they rose to the top of the division last year, they fought their own battles on the field. Now that they’ve come back to Earth and are once again one of those infuriatingly fluky, hot-and-cold, poorly coached teams in the league, it’s our turn again to get their backs. It’s always nice to feel needed. And thus, keep your heads up high, Addicts! Surely our rhetorical skills at smack talking, our scientific prowess at stat-mining and our intestinal fortitude to endure nauseating displays of pigskin dysfunction are enough for us to keep the brave, yet ineffective Chiefs aloft into a few competitive games, some verbal brawls with Raiders fans and eventually another top-5 draft selection.
• Also, (cliché moral victory argument alert!) I think this game against the Chargers had the best possible outcome for the Chiefs long-term. Here’s why after the jump: (more…)

What a crazy couple of weeks.

If you’re like me, you’re still struggling to put together everything that happened. Granted, the Chiefs were fairly quiet, but I can’t disagree with a single move they made. Still, obviously, the question of how they are going to do this year depends on much more than how they themselves improved. This year’s schedule will be much harder and all of our upcoming opponents have been busy.

Thus, to see how our upcoming adversaries stack up, I bring you my second Opponent Power Ranking of the year.

Disclaimer: I did my best to put in the latest and most complete FA info on each team, but I only counted FA’s that have been definitively signed or resigned. By the time you read this, there could be a whole swath of new developments.

See what we got coming after the jump: (more…)

Without further ado…

Pick	Team	Player Selected	Player’s Position	Player’s School	Analysis
1.		Jimmy Clausen	Quarterback	Notre Dame	Yep. I’m going there. Look, the Rams have been drafting high for a while now. They usually go with the safe pick. Everyone is going to think they are crazy for passing on Suh but I think the Rams are going to look around at the teams in the playoffs. They’ll see names like Favre, Rivers, Manning, Brees, Brady and Warner. It is apparent you need a QB in today’s NFL more than ever. If the Rams don’t get one now, they aren’t getting one in this draft.
2.		Ndamukong Suh	Defensive Tackle	Nebraska	Detroit, already having a QB, pees their pants when the Rams take Clausen. Litterally pees their pants on their way to the podium to take Suh.
3.		Gerald McCoy	Defensive Tackle	Oklahoma	Tampa is now also freaking out because they had Gerald McCoy’s name circled on their draft board and suddenly Eric freakin Berry is available. They have planned their draft around the fact that Suh and Berry would be gone when they picked. The don’t gamble and they stick with McCoy.
4.		Eric Berry	Free Safety	Tennessee	Mike Shanahan won games with Jake Plumber as his QB. He can probably win games with Jason Cambell. He also isn’t stupid enough to go reaching for Sam Bradford here before he has a season to evaluate his new team. He is building a new program and Eric Berry is one hell of a start. No way does he let Berry slip to the Chiefs.

(more…)

Many of us would like to tell him to lick something else.

Brett Favre is back. Blah, blah, blah. You’ve all heard enough about No. 4 by now. But I’ve got a different angle for you.Yes, it involves our Chiefs.

The Chiefs will get the first crack at Favre during Friday night’s Chiefs-Vikings game. The twice-retired/twice-unretired gunslinger is expected to get the start for the preseason exhibition. He’s even lobbying for the start, apparently chomping at the bit to get back on the field. The game will be aired on the NFL Network. The sports media coverage will be insane.

Chiefs, please kill two birds with one stone and put this has-been on his ass. By doing so you will let the NFL know that the Chiefs are once again a serious team with an actual pass rush. More importantly, you can potentially save millions of NFL fans from the NFL’s version of The Truman Show.

Now, I am not saying they should do anything dirty (really dirty, anyway). I’m not condoning intentionally injuring a future Hall of Famer (well, except for his pride). What I’m saying is that this is our chance to show the NFL that the Herm era is over, and while serving that notice we can also make old man Favre second guess whether or not he really has another comeback in him. Don’t take it easy on him — hit him like it’s Week 17 and he’s Phillip Rivers.

While I hope we get to Favre — both for our sake and the sake of the football world, er, the football world minus Minnesota, John Madden, peter King and the few remaining Favre fiends — this is a good thing no matter what. With this being Favre’s first game back, both the crowd and media coverage will resemble that of a big regular season game. The game could really help the new Chiefs, and specifically Matt Cassel and the offensive line, prepare for the regular season. The first quarter will especially be as real of regular season simulation as the preseason can ever offer.

Firmly planting Favre on his “I don’t wanna play, wait, I do wanna play” ass time and time again would get the league’s attention. But I would at least like to see our Chiefs play well with all eyes on Friday night’s game. If the Chiefs start showing progress, I might be able to live with Farvefest 2009. Maybe. But let’s interrupt that programming if we can. By hitting him clean, of course (wink wink).

(Adam Best is the senior editor of Arrowhead Addict. Follow him daily via email/RSS feed and Twitter.)

Napoleon Harris will serve a second tour of duty as a Vikings linebacker after signing a contract for the rest of the season.  Harris began the year with Kansas City but was unable to crack the depth chart for whatever reason – this after a 2007 campaign which saw him lead the Chiefs in tackles.  Harris joins Dontarrious Thomas as a second former Viking brought in to fill the void left by the injuries to E.J. Henderson and Heath Farwell, both of whom have been placed on IR.

The Chiefs obvioulsy cut Harris because he couldn’t beat out players that were making about a fourth of his salary. This was another bad off-season signing for Carl Peterson. Luckily, he made the right decision and got rid of this one sooner rather than later. Consider yourself lucky, Pat Surtain.

Jared Allen sent a text message Saturday night to Tony Gonzalez, his good friend and old teammate from the Kansas City Chiefs. The word is, Gonzalez wants to be traded and the Chiefs are open to making that happen. Anyway, about that text message. Allen sent it after getting wind of the trade rumors.

“I said, ‘You want to get traded, man?’ ” Allen said he wrote in his text message to Gonzalez. “I was joking with him. I said, ‘Why don’t you come join me in Minnesota?’

The two teams have shown that they can get a deal done before, so you never know. Stay tuned, as we’ll be watching the Tony G situation like a hawk over the next 48 hours or so.

Albert, a left tackle, walked back to the locker room before the practice concluded. Coach Herm Edwards said he didn’t believe the injury would set Albert back much if at all.

“He’ll be fine,” Edwards said. “It’s nothing bad.”

I’m waiting for more info, but by all accounts our guys looked pretty good. I was glad to hear players like Bobby Sippio, Dimitri Patterson and Herb Taylor made some plays. Still, you can’t take too much away from the scrimmage because the Vikings kept a lot of guys back at home.

As reported earlier Thursday, Minnesota Vikings and former Chiefs defensive end Jared Allen did not travel with the Vikings on Thursday for the teams’ joint practice in River Falls, Wis.

According to Vikings coach Brad Childress, that could very well be the case. From the Access Vikings:

Today’s main Vikings story — at least the one that didn’t focus on Brett Favre — was all about Jared Allen’s return to see his Kansas City Chiefs teammates during tonight’s joint practice in River Falls, Wis.

Seemed like a good story idea. Doesn’t seem so good now. There appears a very good chance that Allen will be among the veterans who won’t be making the trip from Mankato. In Brad Childress’ defense, he tried to warn reporters following the afternoon practice on Wednesday.

“I don’t know if they will see him,” Childress said when asked about Allen being able to visit with his ex-teammates. “I’m going to be selective in the guys that need to compete over there because I want to look at as many young guys as I can.”

Looks like the highly anticipated Branden Albert-Jared Allen showdown might not go down. Shucks! That would blow for all of us Chiefs fans.

Jared also had a few things to say about his former team.

He definitely gave the young Chiefs players some locker room material. All I know is that the Vikings didn’t put a “whoopin” on us last season, training camp or regular season, and we were a 4-12 team. Jared’s last sentence here makes me think he was more about the money then most of us realize. “Now look where I’m at,” sounds like he is sitting on his millions having a good ole’ time.