How Pioli thinks about the draft!

[pbatrucker]

Chiefs GM Scott Pioli's Seven Draft Day Criteria - Arrowhead Pride

[Ryfo18]

Again, I know there are positions of greater influence that we have holes in, I acknowledged that in my previous.

But FROM A STRICTLY TALENT LEVEL safety is by far our worst position. The talent we have starting at safety wouldn't make 1/2 the NFL practice squads.

That's fair. Mike Brown made it through free agency until the end of June last year before he was signed. McGraw is a special teams guy turned into a starter. Not having Page really hurt last year, b/c I think he is a decent safety. I'm more up for taking a safety in round 2-3, the position is deep this year and you don't hear about a lot of the other guys b/c of they hype that Berry receives, and even Earl Thomas receives to some extent.

[slimdagreat]

For a defense that has struggled to get pressure on the QB the last 2 years, Safety is far from our MOST lacking position. Did you know we finished in the top 5 in pass D when we had Jared Allen and a pass rush. That's with Page and Wesley as our safeties. Getting to the QB can solve a lot of problems on defense. The safety is our biggest problem argument is getting ridiculous. It's not.

Speaking of misleading stats. Yes its true in 07 we were 7th in passing defense. We were also thrown against 4th fewest in the league that season, in other words only 3 teams had fewer passes thrown against them that year than we did. So naturally we were ranked high in passing yard defense, nobody threw on us. In addition we were 20th in yards per attempt.

Why didn't teams throw on us that year? Because we were 23rd in yards per rush, 22nd in rushing 1st downs allowed, and 28th in rushing yards allowed.

So while stat manipulation can be fun, lets look at the big picture. our pass defense was only good when you ignore the frequency we were thrown on, and the yards we allowed when we were thrown on.

[Ryfo18]

Speaking of misleading stats. Yes its true in 07 we were 7th in passing defense. We were also thrown against 4th fewest in the league that season, in other words only 3 teams had fewer passes thrown against them that year than we did. So naturally we were ranked high in passing yard defense, nobody threw on us. In addition we were 20th in yards per attempt.

Why didn't teams throw on us that year? Because we were 23rd in yards per rush, 22nd in rushing 1st downs allowed, and 28th in rushing yards allowed.

So while stat manipulation can be fun, lets look at the big picture. our pass defense was only good when you ignore the frequency we were thrown on, and the yards we allowed when we were thrown on.

That's fair, but look at how many rushing yards they gave in up 2007: 2089 yards. In 2008 they gave up 2543 yards and in 2009, 2504 yards. Was our pass D in the top 10 b/c teams were throwing less? No. Last year they still managed to finish 22nd worst in passing. Why? I'll still contend that it's b/c we have no pass rush.

Oh, and this year we had the third most rushing attempts against us and the 7th fewest pass attempts against us. I'll manipulate stats all day with you, as long as it proves my point!

[slimdagreat]

I agree that the pass rush needs to be priority #1, I said that in another thread as well.

But, its also fair to say that improving the secondary if there isn't a player than can improve our pass rush should be the way to go. And IMO there aren't that many great pass rushers in this draft worth taking at #5.

I think the best pass rushers are Morgan, Pierre-Paul (Derrick Harvey pt. 2) and Kindle. So unless you want to reach and overpay one of these guys I still say you have to take what's there.

[Xanathol]

This is an EXTREMELY misleading stat and here are the reasons why.

1. There were only 32 3-4 DEs in the entire league last season, so TJ being ranked 24th out of 32 is pretty awful as far as pressures go.

2. Also because of the lack of overall talent at the position, there were only 12 DEs that played in 3-4 defenses and played at least 75% of their teams snaps, and of those 12, Dorsey ranks 8th (which puts him in the bottom 25%) and TJ is dead last.

3. I'll give you that Edwards was decent, but he was feast or famine. 7 games (almost 1/2 the season) he finished with 0 pressures.

4. Hali was great, this is obvious. Vrable was 13th out of 28. Very average if you ask me and out of ILBs that played 75% of their teams snaps, he was 2nd to last.

5. D Johnson was phenomenal considering he only played about a 1/3 of the snaps as most of the top 10. Per snap he'd be #1 in the league in pressures. Corey Mays ranked 43rd out of 53 players that registered a QB pressure, not exactly setting the world on fire either.

1. Where do you get 32 from? Are you only counting starters? PFF recorded 74 players that played the position during the season, 39 who played 25% of the highest snap total, 17 @ 50%, 12 @ 60%, 7 @ 75%.

2. 12 was @ 60, but anyhow, Dorsey had 16 QB Pressures, 8th among all 3-4 DEs, would tie for 39th among all 4-3 DEs, would tie for 7th amoung all DT/NTs. No matter how you cut it, that's pretty good.

More to the point, however, is that what would be 'extremely misleading' would be using 75% of the snaps as a comparison, considering how many players actually played that many snaps in the league:

4-3 DE: 20
4-3 OLB: 14
3-4 DE: 7
3-4 OLB: 13
DT/NT: 15
ILB: 23
CB: 41
S: 36

With the 75% baseline, you could only field seven 4-3 fronts or three 3-4 fronts. In other words, its silly to use that as a baseline.

As I've admitted before, I am a passing KC fan, but IMO, I think KC really needs safety help ( badly ) and to grab an ILB and an OLB in the draft. The CBs for KC are pretty good, but ya gotta get help elsewhere in coverage. Take away over the top / down the middle plays with safety help, take away some outlet options with a couple of new LBers, and those QB Pressures will start to turn into sacks.