Laddie Morse
As time goes by, now that both Orlando Brown and Frank Clark have exited, I’m convinced that if those players don’t return on a team friendly deal, GM Brett Veach will find both an Edge Rusher, and an OT to sign in Free Agency — or trade for one or both — BEFORE the draft. The supplement to that belief is that: both of these newly acquired players will be superior to their predecessors. Plus, the caveat to that is: I still fully expect Brett Veach to draft an Edge Rusher and an Offensive Tackle in the first three or four rounds. IOW, he intends to fix the future.
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EDGE Rushers
Let’s begin by taking a look at EDGE Rushers and where they rank: Here’s the CBS Sports top ten 2023 NFL Draft Prospect Rankings for the EDGE
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We’ll be averaging the rankings of three services: CBS Sports (top 10+), Draft Buzz (top 12+) and DrafTek (top8+) for Edge Rushers. Here’s Draft Buzz: EDGE RUSHER RANKINGS 2023 NFL DRAFT:
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Here’s the top 8 EDGE Rushers ranked by DrafTek:
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What I did was to take all these rankings and combine them on to one chart, then average out their rankings to come up with a meta-researched way of determining the rank of a prospect. Here’s that chart:
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Some of these prospects are not ranked as EDGE Rushers, they fall under the 5-tech DE category, so they are listed as such. The average seen on the right side column is how I ended up ordering these prospects (based on their meta-score).
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Offensive Tackles
The main reason for this piece is that the Chiefs will need to take an EDGE Rusher and an Offensive Tackle in this draft. In a conversation with Davis Bell on Friday, he said the EDGE Rushers — as a group — are climbing up the ladder as the deepest position group in this draft. DrafTek (KCBudMan) has said: “The OT class is not as deep as the EDGE this year, at least not at the top-end.” Bleacher Report would agree with that assessment, and so would I.
Bleacher Report has the top four looking like this: “1) EDGE Rushers, 2) Defensive [Interior] Line, 3) Wide Receivers, and 4) Offensive Tackles.” I agree… for the most part. What that means is… the Chiefs need to draft an Offensive Tackle as high as possible to get the most talented prospect possible (at that position) first and foremost. Here’s the top 12+ by ranked by Draft Buzz: OFFENSIVE LINE RANKINGS 2023 NFL DRAFT:
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Here’s the top 14+Offensive Tackles offered by DrafTek:
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CBS Sports OTs could not be located so I used, WalterFootball.com and the ranking of his OTs came out like this:
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That all leads to the meta-researched Offensive Tackles chart which came out like this:
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I expect the OT tackle to be taken by K.C. in the first round to be somewhere between the 5-8.3 range. Will they be a starter in year one? I doubt it. They’ll likely sit and learn from a FA that Veach has signed previously. At least that’s the ideal –> The Plan.
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Choosing Up Sides For Basketball
More than ever, the NFL each season has become a game of “choosing up sides for basketball.” By that, I mean, no one knows for sure just who their teammates will be from one day (year) to the next. Do you happen to remember who the DE it was (that started the most games for K.C.) across from Frank Clark just three years ago when the Chiefs won Super Bowl LIV? That would be Emmanuel Ogbah. So, how many players do you think are still on the team in 2022 which were on the team in 2019? If you said anything more than fourteen, you are wrong. The answer is 13. That’s 13 out of 55 players, the normal limit to a NFL roster. That’s less than one-fourth. That’s 23.6%.
Free Agency
Free Agency is starting this week (beginning this coming Wednesday) and the 3-day tampering period prior to that (the legal tampering period begins at 12 p.m. ET on Monday, March 13). So, this pick-up game of basketball is about to begin… if it hasn’t already (that last part was ferociously spoken). So, what I mean by that is… I believe that some teams have already been in touch with some Free Agents. Proof, you ask? No… just purely unjustified speculation. Plus, some players have already been released by teams (like OBJr. and Frank Clark) ahead of the Free Agent period and if they want to go ahead and barter for the best price they can eventually get from a team, they can do that.
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A 2-round Mock
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As you can see by the feature graphic just who I prefer at OT (Broderick Jones)… and as you can see here, he was not available in this 2-round Mock I just finished. If he does drop into the 20s, I hope Veach has already made arrangements with a trade partner to jump up and get him. Plus, the EDGE Rusher will just have to be the best EDGE Rusher available at the time. Either way, both players will have to sit and learn or accept fewer snaps, as they learn on the job.
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Summary
If GM Brett Veach can find a Free Agent LT to sign or trade for prior to the draft, that’s exactly what is meant by –> The Plan. Then, unless he has a favorite OT picked out in the later rounds, I can see him drafting a starting quality Left Tackle at pick #31, unless he trades up. A trade upwards seems like a good possibility since K.C owns so many draft picks. Ten (10) picks in all. Then in the second or third round, I can see Veach taking an EDGE Rusher he has fallen in love with. I can also see Veach double-dipping at these two critical positions in this draft. How about you? What do you see?
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Laddie Morse — ArrowheadOne
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