Best draft picks by Round - Round 1

[Rain Man]

I'll switch this up a little. Before posting my top 10 list, I'll start from the bottom, revealing in reverse order all 56 of the Chiefs' 1st round picks over the years. Then I'll put the top ten in this OP and put up the poll.

Feel free to share your memories, happiness, or disgust at each pick. I'll post one whenever I'm slightly bored.

#1 Buck Buchanan, DT
#2 Tony Gonzalez, TE
#3 Derrick Thomas, ROLB
#4 Ed Budde, LG
#5 Eric Berry, SS
#6 Gary Green, CB
#7 Derrick Johnson, ILB, OLB
#8 Art Still, DE
#9 E.J. Holub, OLB/C
#10 Tamba Hali, OLB/DE

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by stumppy

Since it's a Sunday do you think we could have #12 a little early ? Please.

I'm sure Rainman has several focus groups to convene and regression analyses to do before he figures out who the next guy on the list is. It's probably best not to rush the process.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

I'll post the whole list in order when I'm done, and I'll solicit edits to the list. The toughest calls to me are comparing guys who were great for a short amount of time to guys who were solid for a longer time. It seems like you'd just look at total production regardless of how many years it took, but that goes against everything I stand for in our Hall of Fame discussions.

Yeah, that's a hard one. Comparing different eras, especially pre-merger vs today, seems hard too.

[stumppy]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Check Post 244. You already have #12.

DOH ! I meant #11. How about just the next one.

[patteeu]

Here are the 11 he has left to list, for anyone interested:

1960 - Abner Haynes (RB)
1961 - E.J. Holub (C)
1963 - Buck Buchanan (DT)
1963 - Ed Budde Michigan State (OT)
1977 - Gary Green (CB)
1978 - Art Still (DE)
1988 - Neil Smith (DE)
1989 - Derrick Thomas (LB)
1997 - Tony Gonzalez (TE)
2005 - Derrick Johnson (LB)
2006 - Tamba Hali (DE)
2010 - Eric Berry (S)

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by patteeu

Here are the 11 he has left to list, for anyone interested:

1960 - Abner Haynes (RB)
1961 - E.J. Holub (C)
1963 - Buck Buchanan (DT)
1963 - Ed Budde Michigan State (OT)
1977 - Gary Green (CB)
1978 - Art Still (DE)
1988 - Neil Smith (DE)
1989 - Derrick Thomas (LB)
1997 - Tony Gonzalez (TE)
2005 - Derrick Johnson (LB)
2006 - Tamba Hali (DE)
2010 - Eric Berry (S)

I'm actually not including Abner Haynes because the 1960 draft was a mess. I couldn't figure it out, and apparently a whole bunch of players were "first-round picks" due to the way they drafted. One site also says there's no recorded history of the draft order, which is bizarre.

Here's one history: http://www.footballdb.com/draft/draft.html?lg=AFL&yr=1960&rnd=1

This one actually shows Haynes being originally drafted by the Raiders, so I have no idea what's going on: http://www.remembertheafl.com/1960AFLDraft.html

[Rain Man]

Just to make people mad, I'll note that 12 of the top 15 are defensive players, and two of the three offensive players are linemen. The only offensive skill player in my top 15 is a tight end. There's some deeper meaning to that.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

I'm actually not including Abner Haynes because the 1960 draft was a mess. I couldn't figure it out, and apparently a whole bunch of players were "first-round picks" due to the way they drafted. One site also says there's no recorded history of the draft order, which is bizarre.

Here's one history: http://www.footballdb.com/draft/draft.html?lg=AFL&yr=1960&rnd=1

This one actually shows Haynes being originally drafted by the Raiders, so I have no idea what's going on: http://www.remembertheafl.com/1960AFLDraft.html

lol, that's weird. (BTW, the direct link didn't work for me so I used this http://www.footballdb.com/draft/draft.html and manually adjusted the dropdown controls).

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by patteeu

lol, that's weird. (BTW, the direct link didn't work for me so I used this http://www.footballdb.com/draft/draft.html and manually adjusted the dropdown controls).

If I was going to place Abner on the list, my algorithm would place him just above Dale Carter in the 14 slot. Great career, but pretty short.

I'd like to learn more about Abner Haynes. He's kind of a forgotten hero in Chiefs lore.

[Rain Man]

Okay, the focus groups have reached consensus on the 11 pick. It'll come up soon.

[Rain Man]

#11. Neil Smith, DE, 1988. 2nd pick.

In 1988, the Chiefs held the 3rd pick in the draft, and it was apparently common knowledge that they coveted Nebraska defensive lineman Neil Smith. They were running with a trio of former 1st round picks, but Art Still was entering his 11th year and Mike Bell his 10th at the two DE spots.

The Falcons held the #1 pick and they were committed to Aundray Bruce because 1980s Falcons, so the key for the Chiefs was the Lions' pick at #2.

Depending on the story you read, either the Lions or the Raiders fleeced the Chiefs, because after all, this was still the Jack Steadman era when the Chiefs were easily taken advantage of. I suspect it was more the Lions' doing, but maybe they both teamed up. Regardless, rumors started circulating that the Raiders were negotiating a trade up into the #2 spot to get Smith, and it forced the Chiefs to take action. They gave the Lions their 2nd round pick and the #3 pick to move up one spot to the #2 pick. Ouch.

The Lions took Bennie Blades at #3 (9 years with Detroit, 1 pro bowl), and they used their 2nd round pick on Chris Spielman (8 seasons with Detroit, 4 pro bowls, 1 all pro). I'll let you make the call on whether the Chiefs should have traded up or not.

Anyway, the Chiefs drafted Neil. Physically, there was little question about Neil. Mentally, it was a little more shaky. Okay, a lot more shaky. He got a 4 on the Wonderlic, which is not considered to be a good score. (In fairness, I'm pretty sure that their backup plan, Bennie Blades, scored lower, believe it or not.) As an aside, I think this was the first time I ever heard the joke about "Nebraska, where the N on the helmet stands for more than just knowledge", so I've always attributed that to Neil.

Neil himself believed the trade hype, and he was excited about becoming a Los Angeles Raider and moving to California. He reported being shocked and confused when it was announced that Kansas City had drafted him, but he quickly recovered and bought into the Chiefs.

Regardless of all these things, the Chiefs went all in on him. After the draft, and before training camp, they traded starting LDE Art Still to the Buffalo Bills, in a move that made me cry. You should never trade Art Still. Art Still was way too cool to trade away.

Anyway, Neil started off slow, and maybe part of it was the learning challenges. In his eventual retrospective book, Neil confessed that the Chiefs gave written tests and reviews every week about performances and roles, and he was unable to read them. Defensive assistant Tom Pratt (or as Neil probably called him, Todd Parts) had to take him into another room and read them to him. That has to slow down one's development, and on top of that he also acquired an ankle injury, so he split time with underrated journeyman Leonard Griffin, or as Neil probably called him, Limo Glisten.

But an 86-inch arm span cannot be denied. In 1989, Neil won the starting LDE spot, and the Chiefs drafted an ROLB to help him out. Neil was delighted with the addition of the linebacker he called Dirk Topless, and the two became a nightmare for opposing quarterbacks for the next eight seasons. Together, they were the key in making Kansas City a powerhouse team throughout the 90s. They even got TV commercials, which is kind of cool:



On top of that, Neil's patented pre-snap flinch cause so many offensive disruptions that eventually the whiny offenses complained to the rules committee (which didn't have a Chiefs voice) and outlawed it. Neil was simply too good for their linemen to handle, so they had to make a rule specifically for him. He told a story once about accidentally doing it, and suddenly realized that the linemen reacted to it and he got free yards. So he kept doing it, particularly on third and short. Long live the Neil Smith rule.

Neil topped out at 15 sacks in 1993, which is amazing for an LDE in a 3-4 defense, and he was a vital factor in the Chiefs' deep playoff run that year. He could stop the run with the best of them, and averaged almost 9 sacks per year through his entire Chiefs career.

But like the highlander, there could be only one. Eventually, in 1997, Neil and Dirk both needed new contracts, and the stories diverge from there. You may hear Neil say that General Manager Carlyle Pemberton didn't make an offer to him, or you may hear Carl say that Neil wanted to be paid like Dirk Topless. In the end, King Carlyle signed Dirk and Neil had to look for other options. As we all know, he became a crossdressing prostitute in a Mexican border town, engaging in horrendous acts of degradation in exchange for money.

Just kidding. It was way worse than that. I didn't want to horrify anyone who might just be hearing about this. He signed with the Broncos, the team that become synonymous with salary cap violations, knee diving, illegal drug use, John Elway, trying to break fingers during pileups, use of foreign substances on jerseys, and numerous other abhorrent acts of cheating and poor sportsmanship. Nobody knows what happened to him after that.

But setting aside his tragic end, he had a top-notch Chiefs career. He was with the team for 9 years, starting 127 games and tallying 85.5 sacks. He was a five-time pro bowler and was named an all-pro once. He was truly a great Chief.

Dang, Neil had a heck of a frame. It's not like Derrick Thomas was small, but look at Neil.

[Rain Man]

#10. Tamba Hali, DE/OLB, 2006. 20th pick.

You probably know Tamba Hali mostly for his Twitter feeds and his rap career, but he's also had a strong career as an NFL player.

He's one of those people whose story seems completely alien and improbable to a vanilla American boy like me. He was born in Liberia, lived in the middle of a nasty civil war, but for some reason his father was able to emigrate out to Teaneck, New Jersey. He sends for the kids, and suddenly little Tamba is living in Teaneck, which is two muggings and a bus ride outside Manhattan.

Whoa. How did that happen? It's like when you watch a movie and suddenly the gun battle ends and the characters are sipping tea on a suburban lawn. I don't get it.

He was a semi-literate kid at the age of 11 when he arrived in New Jersey, because you don't get much schooling when you're hiding from armed rebels. His mom couldn't immigrate for legal reasons, and he hadn't seen his dad since he was two, so he found himself in a strange country with adults he didn't know, and not knowing anything about the good barbecue joints.

But he had football, once he found out what football was. Apparently in his first year of high school ball he didn't know that there were plays, and they just put him in to hit people. But he learned fast, and by his senior year he was a four-star recruit, choosing Penn State over Maryland, Miami, Syracuse, and USC.

Interesting trivia note: his football coach had been Dave Szott's high school coach as well, many years earlier.

In an excellent 'truth is stranger than fiction' moment, here's how Hali was recruited to Penn State, in a story that was reported 14 years ago in a more innocent time:

http://nypost.com/2002/02/17/heart-o...ar-to-penn-st/

Sixty-eight schools offered Hali a scholarship, including all the big ones. His final choice came down to Miami, Syracuse and Penn State. When Paterno came to visit, he won over Hali on the basketball court. Hali is center on his high school team and Paterno walked on the floor to scrimmage with the players. When the ball was passed to the player Paterno was guarding, the old coach pulled an old trick, he pulled down the player’s shorts.

“He said that’s how we used to do it in Brooklyn,” Hali recalls with a laugh.

[At this point, Rain Man stares wordlessly at the audience, drops the mic, and walks off stage.]











Okay, I'm back.

Meanwhile, in Kansas City, the Chiefs suspected that they had a big star brewing in Jared Allen, and they wanted to replicate the old Thomas and Smith days. So with the 20th pick, they nabbed Tamba to complement him. Tamba was brought in to replace Eric Hicks, or as you may remember him, "GODDAMMIT, HICKS, THAT WAS A BOOTLEG AGAIN! EVERY DAMN TIME! IT'S ALWAYS A BOOTLEG, ERIC!"

Tamba acquitted himself quite well his rookie year, actually leading the team in sacks. He ended up playing second fiddle to Allen after that, though, seeing his sack figures decline while Allen's rose.

On a random note, I recall reading a story about Hali's feet at one point, and I can't find a place to put in while keeping with the story line, so I'll just tell it. Apparently when you go barefoot in your youth, the bones in your feet spread out and you end up with really wide feet. Kind of like a non-hairy hobbit, I guess. Hali's feet were like this, so he had to get extra-wide shoes. I just had to share that.

Back to the team, Allen was a drinker and Herm was a stinker and Clark was a thinker, so big changes were underfoot. (Oh, hey, that was my chance to tell the wide feet story.) Clark fired Herm and they traded Jared and they brought in Todd Haley, and Haley's defensive coordinator, Clancy Pendergast, switched the team to a 3-4 from their 4-3. They shuffled everybody - Dorsey moved from DT to DE, Tamba went from DE to OLB, and Derrick Johnson went to the bench until he decided to listen.

As much as Chiefsplanet worried about it, Tamba's move was a success. He's been an OLB for the past 9 years, and has totaled 89.5 sacks over his career. The man was born to be an outside linebacker.

All in all, Tamba has been with the team for 12 seasons and is entering his 13th. He's been named to five pro bowls and for the first ten years of his career he had never missed more than one start per season. He's been put in more chokeholds than Lawrence Phillips' girlfriends, but maintains a pleasant demeanor. He's a trooper, and if not for the rap singing he might rank even higher on this list.

It's been a pleasure watching Tamba work, and I'm glad he didn't end up mining blood diamonds under the watchful eye of a warlord.

[Rain Man]

#9. E.J. Holub, LB/C, 1961. 6th pick.

First and foremost, E.J. Holub is a Texan. He was born in Texas, grew up in Texas, played for Texas Tech, got drafted by the Dallas Texans, and then after retirement went back to Texas. When the Texans moved to Kansas City, he brought his horse with him. He chewed tobacco during the games, and he looked like this:



In the offseason, he knew Mike Ditka and regularly went into Ditka's sports bar in Dallas. They would tease him by saying, "where's your horse", so at one point he put his horse in a trailer, hauled him to the bar, and then rode the horse inside and had a beer on horseback before departing. That caused enough of a stir that it produced good business for the bar, so another bar in Tulsa asked him to ride his horse in there. At some point he hauled the horse up to that bar, only to learn that it was on the second floor of a building. He had to put the horse in an elevator and ride up to the second floor, but he kept his promise.

As a bit of trivia, his stepson is Jeff Ireland, former GM of the Dolphins. Small world.

Anyway, back to football. He was a great center at Texas Tech and also played top-notch linebacker, becoming Texas Tech's first consensus all-American and their first player to have his jersey retired. The Chiefs (Texans) drafted him in 1961, and in keeping with the theme, they had to keep him away from the NFL team that drafted him ... the Dallas Cowboys.

The Chiefs slotted him in at Left Linebacker since they'd acquired a strong center (Jon Gilliam) that offseason, and Holub played there for four years. Eventually, they moved their left defensive end back to linebacker (a guy named Bobby Bell), and Holub moved to Right Linebacker. He played there for two years, until the Chiefs completed their linebacker set by drafting Jim Lynch. At that point, with an assist from a hamstring tear, he switched units and moved back to Center, starting there for four more years before eventually getting unseated by Jack Rudnay.

Other than being a cowboy, Holub is also best known for his knees. He had his first knee injury in high school, and during the next 14 years at Texas Tech and with the Chiefs, he had 10 more surgeries for a total of 11. Depending on what you read, he had another 6 to 9 after he retired, so he's not running marathons. He's the person behind the famous quote of "you look like you had a knife fight with a midget", which was actually uttered by a reporter coming to interview him in the locker room.

Another interesting anecdote about his knee surgeries is that one of them was performed by a former teammate who had become a surgeon. During drills, Holub had nailed the guy in the chin, leaving a scar. After his surgery, the doctor told Holub that he'd made his knee scar an inch too long to even the score.

Overall, Holub had a great career, playing for nearly the entire run of the AFL and even a year after the merger. He was a Chief for 10 seasons, started roughly 127 games, and made 5 AFL pro bowls and 2 AFL all-pros, all as a linebacker. He played in an AFL championship game and two Super Bowls, and he's the only player in NFL history to start Super Bowls on both sides of the ball, playing linebacker in Super Bowl I and center in Super Bowl IV. He was on the cover of Sports Illustrated for the Super Bowl win, and it wasn't even his first cover. That's impressive for a guy who played center as his first position.



All in all, he was a tough hombre. That's the theme I keep reading about. He looks like a football player, and he helped set the stage for the amazing defenses of the 60s as well as the 65 Toss Power Trap. That's worth a toast, Mr. Holub. Thank you for your service.

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

#11. Neil Smith, DE, 1988. 2nd pick.



[

Um what's Derrick doing with his hand? They were good buds weren't they NTTAWWT

[RippedmyFlesh]

Smith is big but DT had bigger guns.

[Rain Man]

#8. Art Still, DE, 1978. 2nd pick.

Prince Charles quote, upon meeting Art Still at the University of Kentucky. "My word, you're a big one, aren't you?"

Art Still was always an athlete. He was 6'7" in high school and was on an all-state basketball team, but his future was in football. He went to the University of Kentucky, and dominated there, carrying Kentucky to a top-20 ranking his junior year and top-10 ranking his senior year despite being the only top NFL prospect on his senior team. He played defensive end full time and was also used frequently as a tight end on offense.

"He's just a great player. He divides the field in half, and I tell my boys to run at the other half!"
-- Hall of Fame Coach Charlie McClendon of LSU; Still earned Southeast Defensive Player of the Week honors twice vs. LSU

After graduating, Art was the 2nd pick in the 1978 draft, just behind Earl Campbell. He immediately displaced Whitney Paul as the starter and held the position for the next ten years.

If you're old enough to remember him, the guy was a force against both the run and the pass. His career started before the era of tracking stats, but the Chiefs credit him with 992 career tackles in ten years and 73 sacks. So he averaged 100 tackles per year and 7 sacks as a 3-4 LDE. That's amazing.

What's more amazing is that he was pretty much the only top player on the front seven. Over his ten years and four pro bowls, here are the other Chiefs front seven players who made a pro bowl:

Bill Maas - 2 years, in 1986 and 1987.

That's it. For the first 8 years of his career, not a single front-7 player made the pro bowl alongside Art. In his last two years with the Chiefs, Maas made it.

Here is a list of all of the primary starters on the front seven during Art's 10 years in the league:

NT:

Bill Maas 4
Don Parrish 4
Dino Mangiero 1
Ken Kremer 1

RDE

Mike Bell 6
Sylvester Hicks 2
Dave Lindstrom 1
Pete Koch 1

LOLB

Tom Howard 3
Whitney Paul 3
Louis Cooper 2
Calvin Daniels 1
Ken McAlister 1

LILB

Jerry Blanton 3
Frank Manumaleuga 2
Aaron Pearson 1
Dave Rozumek 1
Dino Hackett 1
John Zamberlin 1
Scott Radecic 1

RILB

Gary Spani 8
Dino Hackett 1
Scott Radecic 1

ROLB

Charles Jackson 3
Tom Howard 2
Calvin Daniels 1
Jack Del Rio 1
Ken Jolly 1
Tim Cofield 1
Whitney Paul 1

In fairness, he had a kick**s secondary behind him, but come on. Look at that list. Other than a few years of Maas, no one on that list required game planning. Give me your best lineup out of the group and tell me how much help Art Still got.

So Art was a star, and he was the focal point of the front seven. He was also a noncomformist. He was well known for being a bad practice player, and embraced that. He was quoted as saying, "Well, common sense tells me that you've got to be some kind of super man to get beat up every day in practice and then play your best on Sunday."

He also became a vegetarian fruits and nuts kind of guy at one point, and his weight dropped from the 265 range to as low as 230 pounds. And get this: he still started at LDE in a 3-4 defense and played well. That's pretty incredible. Remember, he was 6'-7" and weighed less than most linebackers.

In 1988, the Chiefs drafted Neil Smith, and Frank Gansz was a rah-rah guy who didn't like guys that dogged practice. So he banished Art to Buffalo in a move that enraged me. You don't trade away Art Still. You just don't.

Here are excerpts about the story according to a newspaper article of the era: https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/102001863/


...he has been called disruptive, a bad influence on younger players, a poor practice player and "strange."

He missed only 13 games while with the Chiefs, earned four trips to the Pro Bowl, started 133 games and broke the team's record I for career sacks with 72. But at the same time, the former University of Kentucky AU-American has been marching to the beat of a different drummer. According to pay-television service Home Box Office, which recently profiled Still, he was traded because "certain habits" were bad for his teammates. Still laughed when he heard that. So did Fred Smerlas, the Bills' Pro Bowl nose tackle. So did Bruce Smith, their all-pro defensive end. So did linebacker Shane Conlan, the NFL's 1987 rookie of the year. As did [Walt] Corey.

"Strange?" asked Smerlas. "You can say that about anybody who makes his living putting on a helmet and running into people. "Arthur's not strange. He's a fun guy. Take double sessions during camp. I would say something to him and he'd say, 'Arthur's sleeping. I'm just a figment of your imagination.' "They say he's not a practice player, but what are you going to practice after being in the league 10 years?"

Smith calls the 6-foot-7, 255-pound Still a "nice addition." Conlan calls him a leader and hard worker. Corey says, "He does things you don't find in the stats. What difference does it make what he does in practice if he does it on Sunday?" The point is, these men are saying, Still has fit in immediately at Buffalo in personality as well as skill, and is a major reason for the Bills' 11-1 start.

[Still] said problems arose before Gansz was named head coach in 1987, when John Mackovic now at Illinois was in charge. "They wanted a different practice player," said Still, who played on UK's 10-1 team in 1977.

According to Gary Heise, director of public relations for the Chiefs, the Still trade was Gansz's idea. "At the time, he said the trade was in the best interests of the club. He wanted to give (rookie) Neil Smith more playing time," Heise said. Still also says he has been criticized for being unemotional, at practice as well as on. the sideline during games. Levy recently told the Buffalo News, "I don't recall that he's ever been a yell-and-holler and whoop-it-up kind of guy in practice. But I don't ever remember him being late for practice. I don't even remember seeing him miss five assignments in practice in all the years he played. He's always there and he's going to carry out what you do."

Still said he "was very uncomfortable" in his final years at Kansas City, and that football had become less fun for him. "I guess when you're losing you've got to find a scapegoat," he said. "A lot of fingers were being pointed instead of people evaluating themselves." The Chiefs reached the playoffs only once during Still's 10 years, had just two winning seasons and an overall record of 65-88. This year's team is 3-8-1. But he says football is fun again and that retirement is nowhere on the horizon.

As for being strange, Still says that tag probably comes from his unorthodox customs. He earns $550,000 a year and could afford the nicest digs in Buffalo, but instead has a modest home in which he and his wife and five small children all sleep in one room and on the floor.

Neil Smith was a good pick, but screw the Chiefs for trading Art Still away. He should have retired as a Chief. He did give the Chiefs a going-away gift, though. After ten years in the league, he still warranted a 5th round pick and an exchange of 8th round picks, and the 8th rounder ended up being Todd McNair, another player that I really liked.

All in all, Art started 133 games for the Chiefs and was named to four pro bowls, despite the fact that his Chiefs teams finished with a 65-87 record and appeared in one playoff game in ten years. Thirty years after leaving, Art Still remains one of the top pass rushers and tacklers in Chiefs history, and as a bonus he has scored one of only three safeties in pro bowl history.

He also made one of the longest plays in pro bowl history with an 83 yard fumble return that is one of the most fun plays you'll ever see. I really wish I could find a video of it, because it was awesome.

Let's offer a toast to Art Still, one of my favorite Chiefs ever.