Finding Players Never Ends
From River Falls, Wisconsin
The business of player personnel in the NFL is a 24/7, 365-day job. There are ebbs and flows, but always there are more bodies to evaluate, more rocks to turnover, more tape to analyze.
That goes for teams at the top of the standings and teams at the bottom. Bad teams are always looking to get better and the good teams can’t take a breath and relax. As Chuck Noll once told me, in the NFL you are either getting better or you are getting worse, you never stay the same.
Starting this Sunday night the NFL will play 65 pre-season games. By the time that schedule is completed, the Chiefs personnel staff will have seen in person every team in the league. They will spend more hours looking at tape. Even as their own roster is being reduced to the final NFL limit of 53 players, the personnel staff will be out looking for new bodies to bring in.
New and better.
“We approach the pre-season with our own roster in mind and finding players out there who would be better than what we have,” said V.P. of Player Personnel Bill Kuharich. “If we’ve have seven linebackers pegged for the final roster, we want to know if there’s somebody out there who might become available who is better than our seventh guy.”
So you can bet that when the Chiefs hit the pre-season road next week, they will take an extra hard look at offensive linemen and wide receivers, the two most shallow talent pools on the roster.
That’s how QB Tyler Thigpen came to be wearing a Chiefs uniform. Here’s my story on kcchiefs.com on Thigpen and why he came to be part of the Chiefs.
This year the Chiefs have divided up their scouting duties so that Director of Pro Personnel Ray Farmer will attend 11 games, Kuharich will see 10 games, Director of College Scouting Chuck Cook will see two and then the personnel department assistants will each see a game. By the time the end of August rolls around they will have seen more than 25 games live and all 31 teams in the league live.
Which begs the question, why bother? Tapes of all the games are available to every NFL team simply by clicking a computer mouse.Â
“That’s true, but there is some advantage to going to the games and watching certain things and certain players,” Kuharich said. “The purpose is to see them on the field, but also to see how they react to situations. Take a defensive back who gets beat for a touchdown. Our guys are instructed to look and see what he does when he comes off the field. Does he go sit down? Does he talk with the defensive coordinator? What kind of body language does he display?
“We go to each game with two levels of players. We have three or four guys on every team on level A. These are guys we have an interest in based on previous evaluations. Then there’s another group, where in case one of those guys in level A doesn’t play, we reach down and grab one of those guys.”
Those reports are collected each week and players move up and down and on and off the lists.Â
“Some guys will fall off our list and some will come on our list as the pre-season goes on,” Kuharich said.
Since the young, inexperienced players will get most of their playing time in a team’s first two pre-season games, by the start of the third week the Chiefs tracking list is whittled to anywhere from 12 to 18 players. “Some of those guys might not be a factor because they don’t play at a position of need for us,” Kuharich said.
It’s all part of a personnel process that never stops.
Bob, will K.C. Chiefs fans, be able to view the practices being played tonight against the Vikings, by any reporting agency, either on the computer or TV.
Your articles are great, we the fans are always looking for new information on the progress of the New Chiefs.
Bob, a little off topic, but why is it that KC hasnt put Tank Tyler in Ron Edwards slot next to Dorsey with the starting unit, and if Harris is able to lose his job, what about mcintosh, hes had a similar attitude and my wallpaper has a picture of him over Pat Thomas ready to sock him silly, I dont like seeing that kind of stuff at all let alone with the same team…Why not bring up Harrison, or let Richardson take the RT spot.
A slow period here, so I can sneak in a few answers to your questions.
Bob: practice tonight against Vikings is on hold right now (12:30p) because of weather. Heavy rains in the area and more set for tonight.
There will be no visible way to watch the practice other than here in River Falls. I’ve heard that 610 sports is going to go live for an hour during the work. Not sure what they will provide but they will be in the house.
Alex: Ron Edwards has had a pretty good camp so far. He’s under-estimated by most fans and observers because he’s not very flashy. But the Chiefs are asking him to take on two blockers on every play. If he does that, it makes things a lot easier for the other guys.
Tank will get his playing time. They will rotate those tackles and right now that would be Edwards/Dorsey/Tyler and T.J. Jackson.
As for McIntosh, he’s on shaky ground at right tackle. Ultimately, the Chiefs want to see Barry Richardson there, but right now on the last day of July, Richardson isn’t ready to play. He may not be ready a month from now or even six months from now. He’s impressed the evaluators with his growth and some of the things he’s done, but he’s not starting material just yet. Nobody else is any better than McIntosh. Maybe Richardson will grow in these coming pre-season games. It will be interesting to watch, because if he can get the job done, Edwards will put him on the field.
Thanks for finding the site.
BG
Bob, does Michael Allen have a chance of making the roster, and who do you think has looked best at FB. Who has been the 2nd string RB. The depth chart came out today and it says Battle but I thought it was Charles. Will they keep 4 RBs?
Thanks, I love the site.
I always value your opinion so I have 2 quick ones for you. One, how has Brodie looked as far as his ability to read defenses and make good decisions (not dumping it off too early counts), and two, is Adrian Jones holding his own? Didn’t he play tackle?