Sniffing Out Hypocrisy?

There’s an angle in this whole debate over whether left tackle is the direction to go with our #5 overall that I’ve been missing until now. Patrick and I don’t always agree (especially with Merlin, AA’s unofficial Draft guru), but one of the few united fronts we’ve put up since partnering on AA has been that left tackle is definitely not the direction to go with our fifth overall.

We’ve been told, or at least I have several times, that since Brandon Albert is promising but ultimately unproven at left tackle, it would not hurt to draft a stud LT. Teams cannot win without a stud LT. It’s the safe pick, I’m told, because at the very least if the pick doesn’t pan out, he can be moved and Albert can be given another shot at LT, if he hasn’t been given the job anyway over the draftee.

(Forget the fact that Albert has had to adjust to a new playing weight and blocking scheme. Forget the fact that Albert was stellar in the latter part of the season as he got more adjusted. And forget the fact that we’re talking about improving a non-LT position on the offensive line with the #5 overall pick.)

This argument sounds almost exactly similar to an argument I’ve been making about the Chiefs possibly drafting Notre Dame QB Jimmy Clausen, doesn’t it? That this team cannot succeed without a stud QB, so we should use our #5 pick on the position because Matt Cassel is exactly what I’ve been told Albert is: a promising but unproven commodity. The major difference here is that Cassel mans the most important position on a football team.

I’m not saying let’s go Clausen (although he’s currently my third favorite pick for the Chiefs behind Berry and Spiller), but if we’re going to condemn picking Clausen because we’ve already got a player that does pretty well at the position, then why not a similar dismissal of going LT?

What say ye? Am I making any sense here?