Off-Season Moves/NFC Review … A Cup O’Chiefs

As the NFL closes in on two full weeks of the 2010 off-season, one thing has become clear.

Quarterbacks are in high demand and even bad ones and untested ones are getting big money. That was the case last year, when 15 NFL starts was enough for Matt Cassel to get the biggest contract in Chiefs franchise history.

Deals like that one continue and they were the highlight of Day No. 13 of the new business year in the league. The Chiefs were quiet, as they did not announce any moves after being so busy the last few days with the deals for Thomas Jones, Jerheme Urban, Shaun Smith, Casey Wiegmann and Ryan Lilja.

But, back to quarterbacks and their money, for instance Charlie Whitehurst (above). He spent the past four seasons as the No. 3 quarterback with the San Diego Chargers. He played in two regular season or post-season games, putting up a pair of running plays for 13 yards and a touchdown. Whitehurst has yet to throw a pass that counted in the NFL.

And, yet he signed a new contract on Wednesday with the Seattle Seahawks. As a restricted free agent, Whitehurst worked out a deal with the Seahawks, and the club turned around and worked out a trade with the Chargers. Seattle and San Diego swapped spots in the second round of next month’s draft (a move of 20 spots) and the Seahawks also give up a third-round choice in the 2011 NFL Draft.

Whitehurst inked a two-year contract, worth $5 million per year. That’s right, $5 million for a quarterback who hasn’t thrown a single pass in a regular-season game. Read More..

Off-Season Moves/AFC Review … A Cup O’Chiefs

The signing of G Ryan Lilja to a three-year contract on Tuesday kept alive what has been a busy 10-day period for the Chiefs in free agency.

In fact, they have been the busiest teams in the league when it comes to adding talent to the roster. They’ve kept six of their own players and signed five UFAs. They’ve kept or added OLB Mike Vrabel, WR Terrance Copper, RB Jackie Battle, WR Chris Chambers, QB Matt Gutierrez, RB Kolby Smith, RB Thomas Jones, WR Jerheme Urban, NT Shaun Smith, C Casey Wiegmann and Lilja (above with Peyton Manning.)

No other general manager in the league has turned in more contracts to the league office in the last two weeks than Scott Pioli. Denver has made nine moves for second spot in the AFC. Over in the NFC, Detroit and Washington also have made nine moves.

For our accounting purposes we are adding up the unrestricted free agents signed or re-signed, the restricted free agents who have signed their tender offer and any players acquired through trades.

When it comes to signing new players, only Pittsburgh can match the Chiefs total of five. That alone is quite a surprise since the Steelers have never been known as a major player in free agency. Like the Chiefs, Pittsburgh has signed a lot of UFAs, but they haven’t been the big name types with big dollars attached to their move. Read More..

A Second Look At The Moves … Tuesday Cup O’Chiefs

The smoke has cleared in the free agency period around the NFL. The roster activity will not stop completely when it comes to hiring and firing of players in the league, but the pace has slowed considerably.

Just check out the activity from Monday at the bottom of this post. There were four UFA signings announced where a player changed teams. The movement of LB Paris Lenon, CB Marcus Hudson, WR Ruvell Martin and ILB Larry Foote didn’t create much of splash.

But that’s where the available players sit right now. There are a few players every day coming available; for instance, QB Chris Simms and S Deon Grant because available after they were released by the Broncos and Seahawks.

We’ll take a look at the best signings around the league on Wednesday. Here on Tuesday, we’ll take a look at the Chiefs roster moves since the start of the new league year, plus the day before it all began when they re-signed LB Mike Vrabel (above). Here’s my view on what the Chiefs have gotten done, in order or importance to the team in 2010:

1. Signed free agent RB Thomas Jones – Much has been written about the acquisition of Jones last week and there’s no sense going back over plowed ground. Suffice to say that just about everyone in the league thinks the Chiefs really helped themselves and their offense. As long as that over 30 running back wall doesn’t drop on Jones all at once, the signing of Jones fills a big hole on the roster and depth chart. Read More..

L.T. Or T.J.? … Monday Cup O’Chiefs

The merry-go-round of NFL personnel moves made an interesting circle on Sunday.

That’s when the New York Jets signed former San Diego RB LaDainian Tomlinson (right) to a two-year contract, reportedly worth $5.1 million.

This is the same Jets team that released its leading rusher from last season in Thomas Jones because he wouldn’t take a pay cut. Jones signed with the Chiefs last week; it’s a two-year deal, worth $5 million. It has been reported that Jones gave the Jets a chance to match that offer. Instead they decided to sign Tomlinson to a deal that is essentially $100,000 more than what Jones got from the Chiefs – two years, $5.1 million.

Releasing Jones and filling that spot by signing L.T. is a move that has the NFL collectively scratching its head. The Chiefs signing of Jones has gotten the stamp of approval from everyone in the league, because of what he can potentially bring to the Kansas City offense and the relatively low price the Chiefs are paying him. Some pundits have ranked it among the league’s top five moves of the off-season. Not so with New York’s double move at running back. Read More..

The Best Chiefs Picks … Weekend Cup O’Chiefs

On Friday the NFL will announce a contest in honor of the 75th NFL Draft that will be held in April.

They are going to ask fans to vote on the 75 best draft choices in league history. Fans are asked to go to NFL.com where they will find a list of 320 players. From that group, they are asked to select 75 choices as the best of all time. The top 10 choices will be announced on April 22nd during the first round of the 2010 Draft.

Voting begins on March 12th and will run through April 18th.

We know a good idea when we hear one, so here’s a chance for Chiefs fans to pick the best draft choices in their favorite team’s history. We aren’t going to ask for 75; that might be hard to fill out that field!

No, I’m interested in the top 10 Chiefs draft choices of all time. There’s no other qualification(s) for the selections, just the 10 players that in your mind were the best draft selections by the Hunt Family franchise beginning in 1960 and running through 2009.

Rank them in order, one through 10, with No. 1 being the best draft choice in team history.

Attach your list of 10 to the comments on this post. Voting remains open until 11:59 p.m. Saturday, March 20th.

I look forward to seeing your selections and for your reading pleasure, here’s my top 10 Texans-Chiefs draft picks of all time: Read More..

Stupid Until Proven Innocent … Thursday Cup O’Chiefs

The presumption of innocence, otherwise known as innocent until proven guilty is one of the foundation stones of American society and has roots that reach back to England, ancient Greece and the Roman Empire.

In this current age of instant news and the 24-hour news cycle, it’s become a harder concept to live by and accept. Too much becomes known too fast about a moment in time. The standard of presuming innocence does not exist outside American courtroom in this 21st Century; it’s survival in jurisprudence can be debated as well.

It happens all the time. A person will be charged with some sort of crime or felonious behavior and it will become big headlines. A grand-jury indictment signals the perp walk that television loves, even though an indictment is not a finding of guilty or not guilty.

These days it seems more like guilty until proven innocent.

This civics lesson comes because of the latest incident that involves Pittsburgh QB Ben Roethlisberger. Big Ben is accused of sexual assault last week in Milledgeville, Georgia. A 20-year-old student at Georgia College and State University told authorities that Roethlisberger sexually assaulted her at in a women’s bathroom at nightclub near the college campus. Police at the scene interviewed Roethlisberger and members of his party and permitted them to leave.

The woman was treated at a Milledgeville hospital that night and released.

Join me by repeating three times:

OK, innocent until proven guilty, innocent until proven guilty, innocent until proven guilty.

Read More..

Experienced Legs … Wednesday Cup O’Chiefs

It is one of the most proven truisms of pro football: running backs hit the wall when they reach 30 years of age.

The accumulation of carries, hits and knockout shots take the tread off the tires of running backs much faster than any other position in the game. Quarterbacks are coming into their prime when they reach 30. Receivers keep getting older and older, productive beyond the 30th birthday. Pass rushers, run stoppers and pass defenders don’t physically deteriorate like running backs.

That’s why more than one coach has decided that when it comes to running backs, they are either going to use two for a running back-by-committee, or they are going to get themselves a young stud and use up all his carries.

All of this became part of the picture of the 2010 Chiefs when they signed soon to be 32-year old running back Thomas Jones to a two-year contract worth $5 million total, with another half-million available on incentives

Jones became the first outside free agent to sign up with Pioli/Haley in this second season. Read More..

Hoping For More … Tuesday Cup O’Chiefs

OK, so you are a Chiefs fan and you are having a hard time dealing with your teams approach to free agency.

Sure you like the fact that the re-signing of WR Chris Chambers (left) was announced on Monday, a three-year deal for up to $15 million with performance bonuses and just short of $6 million in guaranteed money.

But you don’t like the fact that the best players in the 2010 crop of UFAs have changed area codes and none have added the 816. You want sparkle, you want names like Peppers, Rolle and Dansby signing deals and walking away with a truck load of Hunt Family money.

Let me assure those that may feel the Chiefs have not done enough in the first four days of shopping that they’ve fallen victim to the allure of free agency. It’s far too early to make a ruling on the ability of GM Scott Pioli and his folks to handle this part of the personnel picture; free agency is just four days old right now.

While it’s not sexy, they’ve gotten things done by re-signing Chambers, OLB Mike Vrabel and WR Terrance Copper. And the free agency market doesn’t close after a few days or even a week; it runs up to the start of training camp in late July. The teams that fly out of the chute with their checkbooks don’t get any extra victories or points on the scoreboard.

Last year it was the Washington Redskins that dropped a huge contract on DT Albert Haynesworth and got him signed in the first 24 hours of free agency. Last year, Washington finished with a 4-12 record, the same as the Chiefs who did not sign a UFA on the first day they were allowed. Read More..

Don’t Doubt Marty’s Tears … Monday Cup O’Chiefs

The tears Marty Schottenheimer shed on Saturday when he was talking about becoming the 40th member of the Chiefs Hall of Fame were real.

They were always real with Marty. The German’s emotions are always close to the surface. You won’t find many men that have been in the game of football tougher than Martin Edward Schottenheimer. He was so tough that he didn’t much worry about those salty drops coming from his eyes, or the clutch that would come in his throat or what other people might think of them. When something flips that switch, he’s unafraid of allowing his emotions to take control for a few moments.

Many people questioned those tears at times, calling them phony. Those folks didn’t know Marty. I know Marty and I can tell you he’s one of the least phony people you would ever want to meet in any area of life. What you saw with Marty is what you got. He was stubborn, sometimes very stubborn, but he was never afraid to fix a mistake. He once said the best advice his father ever game him was never to be afraid of making a decision, because if you make the wrong decision, you just get another chance to make a decision, and another chance to get it right. Read More..

Day#1 Brings Big $ … Weekend Cup O’Free Agents

Lions head coach Jim Schwartz was on an airplane to Nashville and knocked on DE Kyle Vanden Bosch’s door a minute after midnight. Bears head coach Lovie Smith flew late Thursday night to Charlotte, where the Bears picked up DE Julius Peppers and gave him a ride back to Chicago.

And in Pittsburgh, the Steelers coaching staff was preparing for a trip to a ski resort in the nearby Laurel Highlands for a weekend bonding experience.

Such was the first day of free agency in the 2010 NFL season. Some teams were busy, some teams were focused and some teams were waxing their skies and packing turtlenecks, unfazed by the unrestricted free agent class that became available on Friday.

The big winner financially was Peppers (right), who signed a six-year deal with the Bears that’s worth at the top end $91.5 million. He may not see that figure, but the defensive end will get $42 million guaranteed and $40.5 million in the first three years of the deal. Remember when the Vikings signed Jared Allen two years ago as part of the trade with the Chiefs for the defensive end. Allen at the time got the biggest contract for a defensive player in NFL history: six years, $74 million and $31 million in guaranteed money. Peppers deal leaves Allen’s contract in the dust. Read More..

Gentlemen, Start Your Wallets … Friday Cup O’ Free Agents

The 2010 NFL season has officially begun, kicking off Thursday night with the start of free agency.

Some teams were busy right when the clock struck free agents. Despite the new economic landscape of the league operating without a salary cap, the free agency scene does not figure to change much. There will be a lot of action in the first few days of free agency and then the big money trail will grow cold.

Names like Julius Peppers, Karlos Dansby, Antrel Rolle, Chester Taylor, Dunta Robinson and Darren Sharper should be in the headlines very quickly.

The chances are slim that any of those names will end up wearing the red and gold uniform of the Chiefs. GM Scott Pioli said last week the Chiefs would be active like they were last season. That translates to signing eight to 10 free agents, but none of the big names and none of the big contracts. They will focus first on their own free agents that they want to keep, like the new contract for LB Mike Vrabel (right).

Each of those players named above would be a big transfusion of talent into the Chiefs roster. But so far it doesn’t look like the Clark Hunt-Pioli way includes spending big money on UFAs.

It sounds like the Chiefs were a player for San Diego RB Darren Sproles who seemed on his way to becoming an unrestricted free agent. And, they may still be pending further developments with the Chargers. After making Sproles their franchise player in ‘09, the Chargers said they were not going to tender Sproles in ‘10. But the Chargers had a change of heart and gave Sproles an offer on Thursday that requires first and third-round compensation if another team signed him. According to Sproles’ agent Gary Wichard, the interest of other teams got the Chargers attention. But grumpy G.M. A.J. Smith may be willing to settle for far less than a first and third. How about a second-round pick for Sproles? Read More..

A Little Bit Of Everything … Thursday Cup O’Chiefs

General thoughts, tidbits and musings after the NFL Combine and just hours before the 2010 season begins with the start of free agency.

PARALYSIS OF ANALYSIS – In the last 24 hours I’ve read at least two dozen stories on the Internet about players who got a push up from their performance at the Combine and those that hurt themselves.

This outlook is typical of today’s media coverage of anything – there has to be winners and there has to be losers. Any relationship with reality doesn’t really matter. All these reports of players going up and down based on their time in the 40-yard dash or how many reps they had in the bench press are pure speculation. It’s the media playing GM or personnel director.

Joe Haden (right) the cornerback from Florida supposedly hurt his chances because of his 40-yard time, while Taylor Mays, a safety out of Southern Cal moved up the board with his unexpected 4.43 in the 40.

When it comes time to make a pick in the first round in April, the most important thing for Haden and Mays will not be what happened in Indy. It will be what the film showed when they played in Gainesville and at the Coliseum in Los Angeles.

Talk to the real scouts and decision makers and they left Indy with just another part of the evaluation process. For 99 percent of the players, the Combine was just another piece of a large puzzle that began at the start of their college career. Of all the numbers generated at Lucas Oil Stadium, I’d bet that one percent were a surprise to the guys who work the personnel end of the street.

A defensive back runs the 40-yard dash in 4.61 seconds instead of 4.59 is no big deal. Read More..

What Could Have Been … Wednesday Cup O’Chiefs

From No Longer in Indianapolis, Indiana

The pro football world has been focused on Lucas Oil Stadium for the better part of the last week as the NFL Combine went down.

What a gold mine for Indianapolis. There were more than 2,000 visitors checked into hotels at the end of February. That’s a convention business that any city would love to have in the winter months, especially one where the snow fell for several days. That’s 11,000 to 12,000 hotel room nights for the week. Indianapolis’ downtown restaurants were packed all week with club personnel, agents, folks from the NFL Players Association, media, job seekers and players.

And all of it – the Combine, the hotel nights, the packed restaurants, the newspaper and Internet datelines – could have been in Kansas City.

It was just about four years ago that the folks who put on the Combine each year, National Football Scouting, Inc., were taking bids not only for hosting future Combines, but for relocating their offices from Tulsa. Kansas City was a finalist under consideration at the time. The other finalist was Indianapolis.

Ultimately, NFS accepted the Indianapolis bid because there was no facility in Kansas City able to host the Combine. Read More..

Adios Indy … Tuesday Cup O’Combine

From Indianapolis, Indiana

Sometime Tuesday morning, the secondary will be on the field at Lucas Oil Stadium, the last position group to go through testing and drills at the 2010 NFL Combine.

By dinner time, most of the NFL will have sprinted to the airport and scattered back to home bases around the country. That’s where they will evaluate their experiences from the Combine and factor them into the puzzle that is the ‘10 NFL Draft in late April.

There’s a lot of attention placed on what happens at the Combine, tests like the 40-yard dash and bench press. There’s the very important medical information and the psychological testing. Also important are the interviews teams conduct with individual players.

More comes out of the Combine than just those numbers, tests results and interview notes. It’s a convention for NFL scouts and personnel types. After a day at the stadium and then interviews in the hotels of downtown Indianapolis, league types head for the bars, saloons and restaurants sprinkled throughout a vibrant city center. They complain about their boss, they complain about the long hours, they tell stories from the road and they enjoy the camaraderie of high-stress jobs in a very visible business.

If you hang around long enough and get to know these men, they will provide bits of information about what teams are really thinking about the prospects that will be available in the Draft. If you buy them a couple of beers, they’ll tell you more, all off the record and not for attribution. Read More..

Go With The Safeties … Monday Cup O’Combine

From Indianapolis, Indiana

Some might call it wacky, others could use a word like crazy, but I’ve dealt with evaluations like that before, and sometimes they’ve even been correct.

Over the weekend here at the NFL Combine I had a revelation. Maybe it’s been too much time in Lucas Oil Stadium over the last few days and too many interviews and too many adult beverages after hours and too … I’ll stop there.

I know what the Chiefs should do with at least two of their early picks in April’s 2010 NFL Draft.

They need to use their first-round choice on Tennessee safety Eric Berry. He’s the smiling guy above on the right. With one of their selections in the second, third or fourth rounds, they need to draft Florida State safety Myron Rolle. He’s the smiling guy above on the left.

Two safeties? Yeah, sounds kooky I know. But let me tell you this. After meeting and speaking with Berry and Rolle, I’m willing to roll the dice and say these two guys are locks to make it and make it big in the NFL. Over the last four days, more than 100 players have been brought to meet with the media. There have been some impressive young men, like QBs Tim Tebow, Sam Bradford and Colt McCoy. Defensive tackles Ndamukong Suh and Gerald McCoy were outstanding.

But nobody left an impression on me more than Berry and Rolle. Read More..