Official 2014 NFL Draft Discussion Thread

[TopekaRoy]

2014 NFL Draft

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Scout.com's top 32 draft prospects:

Player	Pos.	School	Grade
1. Jadeveon Clowney*	DE	S Carolina	98
2. Greg Robinson	OT	Auburn	97
3. Khalil Mack	OLB	Buffalo	96
4. Sammy Watkins*	WR	Clemson	96
5. Jake Matthews	OT	Texas A&M	95
6. Aaron Donald	DT	Pittsburgh	94
7. Mike Evans*	WR	Texas A&M	94
8. Taylor Lewan	OT	Michigan	94
9. Zack Martin	OT	Notre Dame	93
10. O. Beckham Jr.*	WR	LSU	93
11. Eric Ebron*	TE	N Carolina	92
12. Darqueze Dennard	CB	Michigan St	92
13. H. Clinton-Dix*	S	Alabama	92
14. C.J. Mosley	ILB	Alabama	92
15. Kyle Fuller	CB	Virginia Tech	92
16. Morgan Moses	OT	Virginia	92
17. Ryan Shazier	OLB	Ohio State	92
18. Blake Bortles*	QB	UCF	91
19. Brandin Cooks*	WR	Oregon St	91
20. Justin Gilbert	CB	Oklahoma St	91
21. Calvin Pryor*	S	Louisville	91
22. Johnny Manziel*	QB	Texas A&M	90
23. Jason Verrett	CB	TCU	90
24. Marqise Lee*	WR	USC	90
25. Anthony Barr	OLB	UCLA	90
26. Bradley Roby*	CB	Ohio State	89
27. Stephon Tuitt	DE	Notre Dame	89
28. T. Bridgewater*	QB	Louisville	89
29. Dee Ford	DE	Auburn	89
30. J. Attaochu	OLB	Georgia Tech	89
31. Joel Bitonio	OT	Nevada	89
32. Cyrus Kouandjio	OT	Alabama	88

Notes: The NFL has reduced the amount of time to make each pick in the first round from 15 minutes to 10.
This year, the prospective draftees are permitted to select their own "Walk up" music. That should be interesting!

The Houston Texans are on the clock.

Discuss...

[Mongo]

A few thoughts:
Like the draft. Wish we could have traded down in R1 but PHI screwed us. Dee Ford's got a lot to learn, but will replace Hali in 2015.

Love the CB Gaines. Raw as well. His measurables are off the chart! Reminds me of an old school fav -- Dale Carter. He'll replace Flowers in 15.

Love DAT. Looks like they've replaced DMC with someone shiftier and tougher to tackle. Finally an upgrade!

They could possibly stash Murray on IR given that he is coming off of an ACL and cut Daniels next year. Assuming Al is kept.

The two R6 OL -- who knows? Reid had as many misses on the OL in PHI as he did hits. We'll see. If one or both contribute its gravy. If not, NBD.

Disappointed some of the name UFA weren't signed. Haven't heard of any of the current ones.

Overall, the Chiefs were limited with what they could do in this draft minus the R2. Like many I'd have liked to see a WR at some point, but it didn't work out. I think many thought the draft would fill our holes, after we got chipped away at in FA. It didn't. It did posture us for the future, which is what a draft is supposed to do. This will be a down year for us, but 2015 could be amazing.

Draft grade B

[Eydugstr]

For those who are upset that we didn't draft a WR, Thomas may be the slot WR to replace McCluster. The question is who is going to start across from Bowe. My money is on Jenkins and maybe Kyle Williams (if he can comeback from the knee injury) becoming a solid number 2.

Agreed. Thomas fits the Reid "mold" of RB's - fast, good hands.

[Eydugstr]

LOL! So do I.

Me three. Stock those lines!!

[spiman]

Nice read guys. It was the best the Chiefs could do in my mind. I will look for the give a grade post on the draft

[brdempsey69]

Looking ahead, the Chiefs will have a full stock of draft picks and some compensatory picks next year. This year could be a 'weathering the storm' type of year. The only thing I'm really expecting is that this team doesn't roll over on their backs and die like they did 2 years ago -- just get out there and play hard and let the chips fall where they may.

As for this years draft. For what it's worth I'll give my take of this draft by each round.

1) Dee Ford made all the sense in world with what happened with Houston and Hali last year & with the receivers being off the board. The Chiefs can use Ford very much like the Niners used Aldon Smith as a situational pass-rusher before he takes a full-time job in year 2 or 3. I had believed all along the pick would be either WR or a D7 player.

3) A good CB prospect in Phillip Gaines with 4.38 speed. This pick is debatable with WR Moncrief still on the board, however. I think it was "pick your poison" type of pick. A CB was needed because we don't know how much longer we will have Flowers, but a WR was also needed because Bowe and Avery certainly are not guaranteed long-term solutions. I wouldn't be surprised if Dorsey flipped a coin on this one, as to whether to take the CB or WR.

4) De'Anthony Thomas. I'm OK with this pick because a kick-returner was needed and this guy was said to have run in the mid 4.3 range at his pro days. And this was late 4th round, not early 2nd round like Pigoli did with McCluster in 2010. Thomas is a threat to take it to the house every time he touches the ball & will be the primary punt and kickoff returner and has already won those jobs barring anything unforeseen.

5) Aaron Murray. A good gamble in this round as without the ACL injury, he might have gone in round 2 or 3. Will he break the schnide of ZERO for 17 drafting QB's since 1970 for KC? Time will tell. He probably will push Chase Daniel off the roster soon.

6) Zach Fulton and Laurent Duvernay-Tardif. Obviously the Chiefs O-Line needed some depth and these two provide it at a nice value point in the draft.

Greg Rosenthal at NFL.com is calling the Chiefs losers in this draft, but Rosenthal is a douche that seems to hate KC and is critical of the Chiefs saying that they didn't get any impact players. How would he know that without the games being played first? Ford could very well make a huge impact as a situational pass-rusher, just like Aldon Smith did with the 49ers in 2011. And Thomas should make an impact as a kick-returner right away.

[ctchiefsfan]

All things considered I think this was a pretty decent draft. Call it a "Building for the future" draft.

We added some players that will provide decent depth when the injury gods come calling and they aren't going to cost us a boatload of cash which leaves us cash for the players that we ABSOLTELY POSITIVELY MUST KEEP.

We put another developmental QB on ice and I think that is a good thing. As brdempsey points out we don't have a great track record when it comes to drafting QBs, but I think Reid may be the coach to kill that curse. If nothing else, Bray and Murray are guys that at one time seemed likely to go much higher in the draft than they did and can probably be traded for some picks down the road. As we all know, Dorsey likes to have lots of draft picks.

I'm pretty happy with the Dee Ford pick. We can't go anywhere in the playoffs if we give up 28 point leads. We have to figure out how to either stop the receivers or stop the quarterbacks. As things stand, we were better at putting pressure on QBs than at stopping the receivers. The Ford pick will make us even better. A QB who is flat on his back can't can't throw the ball.

Gaines was a good pick. Hopefully he'll be some help when our rush doesn't get to the passer. We added a pass rusher and a CB. Good moves. Our defense needed help.I

I think Thomas will turn out to be a solid player who will at least give us what we had in McCluster. We'll be getting a supplemental pick for McCluster and Thomas only cost us a late 4th rounder so I figure this was a pretty good move.

And while it wasn't part of the draft, I like grabbing Dressler and Duvernay-Tardiff. I have a "feeling" one or both of them are going to turn into important players. Plus it shows Dorsey is willing to think outside the box.

In a way it was a disappointing draft in that we didn't get any "sure thing" stars. But I can't really blame that on Dorsey. Our turnaround last year meant we were picking late in the draft and we didn't have a 2cond round pick because of the trade for Smith. Success usually comes with a price tag. And this years draft was no exception. Last years success cost us PLENTY in this years draft.

All in all I think we did about as well as we could have given what we had to work with.

[jason1981]

I think people need to stop saying thomas replaces mccluster atleast on offense cuz mccluster never did much on offense. And im not sure thomas will play wr. He better be an upgrade of mccluster if he is replacing him. But mccluster never needed to be replaced cuz he never did much. Im talking about production wise that is. Mccluster danced around to k6uch and was to easy to tackle and lot of times he jumed himself out and fell down.

[brdempsey69]

I think people need to stop saying thomas replaces mccluster atleast on offense cuz mccluster never did much on offense. And im not sure thomas will play wr. He better be an upgrade of mccluster if he is replacing him. But mccluster never needed to be replaced cuz he never did much. Im talking about production wise that is. Mccluster danced around to k6uch and was to easy to tackle and lot of times he jumed himself out and fell down.

I'd say that Thomas, from what I've seen from him on film, looks more to be a replacement for Dante Hall than McCluster. And Hall was far superior to McCluster as a kick-returner and slot WR. McCluster was WAY over drafted by Pigoli.

[ctchiefsfan]

I don't know if I would call Thomas another Dante Hall (GEEZ! those were FUN times!) but I feel pretty confident he will be as much of a weapon on special teams as McCluster was and will eventually outperform McCluster on offense. So with the supplemental pick we in effect traded McCluster for a late round pick and a better, cheaper, younger player. Good move IMO.

Something worth noting is that Dressler is supposed to be a decent returner as well. If Thomas turns out to be a good return man it will mean that we'll have 2 good return men on the field. The enemy will no longer have the luxury of simply kicking away from our return threat. I'm thinking those two combined may give us the best return game in the NFL.

[matthewschiefs]

I don't know if I would call Thomas another Dante Hall (GEEZ! those were FUN times!) but I feel pretty confident he will be as much of a weapon on special teams as McCluster was and will eventually outperform McCluster on offense. So with the supplemental pick we in effect traded McCluster for a late round pick and a better, cheaper, younger player. Good move IMO.

Something worth noting is that Dressler is supposed to be a decent returner as well. If Thomas turns out to be a good return man it will mean that we'll have 2 good return men on the field. The enemy will no longer have the luxury of simply kicking away from our return threat. I'm thinking those two combined may give us the best return game in the NFL.

YEP
best return I think I've ever seen. Might have somthing to do with doing it against Denver