Chiefs Week in Review – Happy Memorial Day Weekend. It may be the end of May, but the Chiefs have had a busy week nonetheless.
On Monday, Michael Travis offered a great piece on Deron Cherry called: “Chiefs Deron Cherry: The Cherry Bomb” and he siad,
“Deron Cherry was a free agent signed safety out of Rutgers University by the Chiefs in 1981. He was released in the team’s final cut. Then he was asked back, and, low and behold, enjoyed a glorious 10-year career with us.”
Lyle Graversen at ArrowheadAddict had a piece called. “Analyzing Andy Reid’s Historic Use of Rookies” in which he said,
“The 2020 NFL draft class was the 22nd of Andy Reid‘s head coaching career. That means we have 21 previous drafts worth of background information that we can use to see how he has used rookies.”
Graversen then added:
“Below is a breakdown of the number of draft picks and average games active and started by rookies in each round they were selected over Andy Reid’s first 21 NFL drafts as a head coach.
- 1st – 16 picks – 12.3 games active, 6.3 games started
- 2nd – 25 picks – 12.2 games active, 5.1 games started
- 3rd – 23 picks – 10.1 games active, 3.3 games started
- 4th – 31 picks – 8.6 games active, 2.0 games started
- 5th – 25 picks – 6.8 games active, 1.4 games started
- 6th – 33 picks – 4.8 games active, 1.6 games started
- 7th – 22 picks – 6.5 games active, 1.5 games started”
Graversen was making a point that in 21 years of drafting, Andy Reid has only started 5 players from the 4th round or later including: “tight end Jed Weaver in 1999, center Jason Kelce in 2011, linebacker Brian Rolle in 2011, tackle Dennis Kelly in 2012, and guard Zach Fulton in 2014.“
I’m not so sure what that means for someone like 4th round pick CB L’Jarius Sneed but my hope is that he comes along more quickly and can see the field regularly by mid-season. However, it should be noted that of the 5 players Graversen listed above, only one of them was a defensive player.
Also this week, DC Steve Spagnuolo said that the Chiefs second round pick, Willie Gay Jr., would probably start as an outside linebackers. Spags said:
“We’ll probably begin with Willie at one of the outside positions. It might, we think, without knowing right away, we’re hopeful, that he would replace what Reggie Ragland did for us last year. I preface that by saying that we don’t know that until we get him.”
Our own David Bell pinned a piece called: “Capturing Lightning in a Bottle” in which he stated this about Willie Gay:
“Gay was a player that I overlooked purposely. Why? Because Reid, Veach, the Chiefs scouting staff and defensive Coordinator Steve Spagnuolo gave no clue at all that they were even secretly looking at Gay. What we found out after the selection was that all the components of evaluation had been done, including vetting the player. So, their secrecy paid off…. In 2020, Willie Gay, Jr. will ascend the ranks of the “unwashed” and become an immediate starter at Linebacker for the Chiefs. It will take time to fold him in as the Chiefs defensive signal caller for the front seven, but he will become just that.”
Andy Reid revealed info about the Chiefs Zoom Meetings this week:
“So we have the ability to have team meetings… and we’ve also had chances to break up and have offensive and defensive meetings, which we’ve done… and then we break up into individual meetings, and as the head coach you can kind of bop in on all the different groups and talk with the guys, and just so they know that you’re watching, like they’re doing… you’re a part of that.”
Dave Toub revealed this week that Mecole Hardman may not be returning to his Special Teams Unit.
Sammy Watkins on Andy Reid
In a piece for Bleacher Report, called, “What Sammy Watkins Believes” Watkins says of his relationship with Andy Reid:
“It’s the best he’s ever had with a coach. It started with 11 p.m. phone calls his first year in Kansas City. “Hey, Starship! How you doing?” (Reid calls him “Starship 14.”) Reid would ask about life, about his two girls. (Watkins’ daughters love Reid.) Their energies match. Reid gets him. Once, in a team meeting, Watkins leaned back to stretch a sore neck, and Reid, out of nowhere, yelled at him. “Sammy, stop! Stop talking to your people! …. Watkins asked him what he meant. “You know, Mars, Neptune…”
Reid gets him.
This week, Eric Bieniemy came up (as he often does everytime minority issues come up) when the league began to propose a new policy concerning an alternative to the Rooney Rule… and if a team chooses to hire a minority coach, GM, or front office personnel, they would receive more draft picks. The rule was tabled for now but the owners could revisit it at any time.
Ex-Chiefs HC Herman Edwards got involved in this discussion as well, and I concur with him on this point:
“…to incentivize people for not only interviewing guys but hiring guys? No one wants that. I don’t blame any owner for hiring whoever he wants to hire. But to incentivize it, it just makes it awkward, man. You don’t want to get hired under that cloud. It’s bad for the league, it’s bad for the coach, it’s just bad for football.”
Also this week, a new possible policy concerning an alternative to kicking an onside kick: the 4th-and-15 from your own 25 Rule, was considered by NFL owners and shared with teams… and they are still considering it. Some think it, “will test tired defenses“… but Andy Reid is not so much in favor of the idea.
On Saturday, QB Patrick Mahomes gave a short commencement speech to his fellow Texas Tech graduates:
Ladner Morse — ArrowheadOne
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