Chiefs make no noise in supplemental draft

By Mike Ash  |   Sunday, July 15, 2007  |  Comments( 5 )

Kansas City Chiefs
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The NFL held its yearly supplemental draft last Thursday, giving underclassmen that are ineligible for the upcoming college season an opportunity to enter the league. Although the 2007 class was considered better than most, by the end of the day only two teams -- the San Diego Chargers and the Baltimore Ravens -- opted to get early use from a 2008 draft pick by choosing among the dozen or so prospects who were available.

Putting it another way, 30 franchises in the NFL -- the Kansas City Chiefs among them -- walked away from the supplemental draft without adding anyone to their roster. But to hear the reactions of some distressed Chiefs fans, general manager Carl Peterson not making a selection during the process was akin to Nero playing his fiddle while Rome burned around him.

To understand that particular line of thinking, you have to first understand that cornerback and offensive line are two areas the Chiefs were expected to address in the regular 2007 draft. Rather than reach on a player just to fill a position, though, head coach Herm Edwards ultimately stayed true to his draft board. And, as it happened, the two top prospects in the supplemental draft -- former Georgia CB Paul Oliver (Chargers) and former Maryland OT Jared Gaither (Ravens) -- happened to match up exactly with the areas Kansas City needs to fill.

So during the slow summer months of the NFL offseason, a time when fans have little else to occupy their minds with, supporters in Kansas City began to entertain themselves with the possibilities of the supplemental draft. The more creative among them actually dreamed up scenarios in which the Chiefs would land both players, and the hype they read about Oliver and Gaither only helped fan the flames.

Oliver, it's said, shut down former Georgia Tech wide receiver Calvin Johnson -- the second overall pick in April's draft -- when their teams met in 2006. Of course, the fact that Georgia Tech quarterback Reggie Ball had the worst game of his career, only completing six passes for 42 yards, may have had a little more to do with Johnson's lack of production that day than Oliver did. Nevertheless, a legend was born and supplemental draft fans began heralding Oliver as the next coming of Champ Bailey, despite Oliver's lack of speed and his low interception totals.

Likewise, plenty of hype surrounded Gaither, whom some reports compared to elite NFL tackles like Walter Jones and Jonathan Ogden. This despite the fact that Gaither's lack of effort and frustrating refusal to play to his potential actually saw him bumped down the depth chart at Maryland by the end of his final season. And that's saying nothing of his constant academic issues.

This isn't to say that neither player will amount to anything in the NFL. They may both go onto have strong, productive careers. The point, though, is that there's two sides to every story, and no matter what some Chiefs fans may think, the team did not pass on Willie Roaf and Albert Lewis in their prime.

The outraged reactions also don't seem to factor in the complicated nature of the supplemental draft process. With the lottery system that's used, the playoff teams are grouped together and a drawing is done to determine the order. So despite the fact that the Chiefs picked ahead of both teams in the regular draft, it's entirely possible that the Chargers and Ravens chose ahead of Kansas City this time around. For all anyone knows at this point, the Chiefs may have submitted identical requests for Oliver in the fourth and Gaither in the fifth and simply lost out to teams that had a higher pick.

If that were the case, all the angered fans would have to complain about is the fact that the Chiefs didn't attempt to grab the players a round sooner than they were taken. Had they actually done that, though, the Chiefs would have been the only team in the NFL to value the players that highly. Not a single franchise in the league thought Oliver was worth a third-round pick, and the overwhelming majority didn't think he was worth a fourth-rounder. The same theory, just a round lower in execution, holds true for Gaither.

Ultimately, assuming the players in the supplemental draft even see the field in 2007, they won't make a difference to their team's season. They're already several months behind the other rookies, and some, like Oliver, weren't even in proper shape for their much-delayed pro-day workouts. The soonest they could reasonably be expected to contribute would be 2008, just like any of the players taken in next year's draft. Kansas City is expected to have draft picks numbering in the double digits in '08, and it'll be in prime position to address its needs at cornerback and on the offensive line by then.

Chiefs fans that are bent out of shape over the supplemental draft need to calm down, take a few deep breaths, and take a look out the window. Because the sky, no matter what some may think, is not falling in Kansas City.

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CommentsComments: 5  |  Sign Up  View all comments
No.1
Jeremy		01:59 PM
07/16/2007
I do not remember any studs coming out of the supplemental draft. The Chiefs have quite a few young dbs on their roster. I am ...
No.2
Patrick Baird		02:06 PM
07/16/2007
Finally someone who knows what their talking about! You hit the nail right on the head, I've been all over the message boards ...
No.3
anonymous		03:58 PM
07/17/2007
You don't remember any studs that have come out of the supplemental draft. How about Jamal Williams, Mike Wahle, Cris Carter, or ...
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