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

[Rain Man]

#6 - Gary Green, CB, 1977. 10th pick.

Here are the Chiefs' 1st round draft picks in the 1970s before the Gary Green pick:

1970 - C Sid Smith (ranked 51st on my list)
1971 - WR Elmo Wright (ranked 39th on my list)
1972 - RB Jeff Kinney (ranked 46th on my list)
1973 –(Traded away for George Seals – anyone ever heard of George Seals?)
1974 – RB Woody Green (ranked 35th on my list)
1975 – (Traded away the pick plus Curley Culp for John Matuszak and a third round pick.
1976 – G Rod Walters (ranked 49th on my list)

So in other words, the Chiefs were beyond terrible at drafting in this time period. Far beyond terrible.

Buy maybe they got a sharp intern in 1977 or something, because Gary Green is not like these others. He was a star at Baylor University, which he chose as a result of their good student-teacher ratio and pro-style offense. This makes me wonder if he was a cornerback in high school or if he played offense. He was an all-American his senior year, and was a top-ten pick in an era when top-ten picks didn’t get invited to the draft. According to Gary, he just sat at home and waited for a phone call.

He arrived in Kansas City and immediately took over the LCB spot, lining up across from Emmitt Thomas at the RCB spot.

The Baylor web site has a nice quote from him about his rookie year: http://www.baylorbears.com/sports/m-...092209aab.html

As a rookie with the Chiefs, Green was playing with and against "guys that I idolized just one year earlier," he said.

"It was exciting and even a little scary at first. Because I'm standing there, getting ready to cover a wide receiver who for the last few years I've told all my friends, `Nobody can cover this guy.' And now all of a sudden, I'm standing there in front of this guy, realizing that if I can't cover this guy I'm probably not going to be around for very long."

Gary could cover them, though. He could really cover them.

Gary joined a defense, though, that had collapsed in on itself. In 1976, the Chiefs finished 5-9, with a defense that was ranked 25th in points and 27th in yards. Note that this was a 28 team league that included two first-year expansion teams, one of which was the 0-14 Buccaneers.

In 1977, there were still a few championship names. Jim Lynch and Emmitt Thomas were approaching the end of their careers, and the Chiefs talked Willie Lanier out of retirement for one final season. But the team was a mess. They went 2-12, Coach Paul Wiggin was fired in mid-season, and it was mostly the defense’s fault. The defense ranked 27th in points and 28th in yards. That couldn’t stop an elderly driver with a giant red light.

Oddly, though, it wasn’t the backfield’s fault, and they were pretty strong. You had Gary Green and Emmitt Thomas at the corners, and phenom safety Gary Barbaro in his second year at free safety. The defense was 14th in pass defense as opposing offenses contented themselves with running the ball down the throats of the weak front seven.

Marv Levy took over the next year, and the team was better, but not much. The arrival of Art Still pushed the run defense up to 18th, while the pass defense was 17th, and the team went 4-12. Despite the departure of the last of the defensive champions, the team improved to 7-9 in 1979 and then 8-8 in 1980. For the first time, the league recognized that Gary was a shutdown cornerback, and named him to the pro bowl for the first of three consecutive years.

In 1981, the Chiefs began building their nextgen defensive backfield, as Lloyd Burruss arrived. The moved up to 9-7 as Marv Levy continued his inexorable march to four consecutive Super Bowls. However, when the strike blew up the 1982 season and canceled half the games, the Chiefs fired Marv Levy because they didn’t want to go to four consecutive Super Bowls.

The backfield made an evolutionary leap in 1983. Free safety Gary Barbaro, a three-time pro bowler in his prime, bolted to the USFL, thereby completely destroying his Chiefs legacy and breaking the heart of a mid-Missouri Chiefs fan who was in college at the time. Barbaro was replaced by a backup punter named Deron Cherry who would build his own even greater legacy and mend the Chiefs fan’s heart. Further, the Chiefs drafted another left cornerback named Albert Lewis who was pushing for playing time, though Gary was still a true star and kept him on the bench.

But you can’t keep Albert Lewis on the sidelines, and the Chiefs needed help in other areas. They traded Gary before the 1984 season. According to an interview later with Gary, http://www.upi.com/Archives/1984/05/...9824452318400/

Green said he was given up so easily by the Chiefs 'because I was one of the most vocal players on the team and got into several confrontations with the coaches here. (Coach) John Mackovic wants blind followers. Anyone who represents leadership, they get rid of.'

It sounds like Gary wasn't really broken up about the trade. Here’s another interesting quote. The Chiefs made his dreams come true by trading him. http://www.baylorbears.com/sports/m-...092209aab.html

"Not winning, not making the playoffs in seven years at Kansas City was kind of disheartening," he said. "But Los Angeles was extra good for me. No. 1, they're always in the playoffs. No. 2, the weather in Los Angeles is a lot better the latter part of the season than in Kansas City. And then my best friend, Eric Harris, who was the right cornerback with the Chiefs, was traded there the year before. And my first cousin, David Hill, was an All-Pro tight end with the Detroit Lions and also got traded there the year before.

"So I got a chance to go to a team that's always in the playoffs; the No. 1 or 2 market in the United States, so the publicity was a lot better; and I got a chance to play with my first cousin and my best friend. And both years, we ended up losing in the playoffs to the eventual Super Bowl champion."

In the end, Gary Green played for seven years with the Chiefs, making 99 starts and earning three pro bowls. He was a shutdown cornerback who was rarely challenged.

If you’re doing the math, you might question why I rank Gary this high. 99 starts is a smaller number than 9 guys who I ranked below him, and the previous five guys on my list all had more pro bowls. So why is Gary this high?

Here’s the reason, and it’s a good one. After 7 years and 99 starts, Gary was traded to the Rams for a 1st round pick and a 5th round pick. Gary was a first-round pick and we got back more than we paid for him. That, my friends, is a great first round pick.

(If you’re curious, the 1st round pick became John Alt, too. Brilliant move. Our 1977 first-round pick paid benefits to the team up to 1996. Gary played two seasons with the Rams, earning one pro bowl.)

Here's Gary Green and Gary Barbaro bringing home the coveted Lombardi Trophy. No, wait, that's the Governor's Cup. Almost the same thing.



But seriously, he was really good, one of the best Chiefs cornerbacks ever, and we've had a lot of great ones.

[stumppy]

5 to go, woohoo.

I try not to think about who's left or what order they'll be placed. I like opening this thread and getting my happy surprise.

Great thread Rainman.

[Rain Man]

#5 - Eric Berry, SS, 2010. 5th pick.

The numbers speak for themselves, folks. During the five full seasons that Eric has played, he's been named to five pro bowls and 3 all-pro teams. That's about as good as it gets.

Now, a naysayer would point at the fact that he's been with the team for seven seasons, but come on. Getting cancer doesn't mean you're injury prone. He got cancer, killed it and took the canoli, and came back sooner than anyone thought possible. Many of us thought his career was over at the time, or that he would come back as a lesser player, but he was right back in his starting spot the next season and hasn't missed an all-pro awards ceremony since.

And the other season he missed? Man, that one stings. I had scored a trip to Hawaii with my wife for some conference she was working at, and I had just run the Maui Half-Marathon in a very good time. Morale was high. I went back to the hotel, showered, and we went out to breakfast at a sports bar to watch the Chiefs. (Games are on early in Hawaii.) It was the third freaking play of the season. The third play! Eric was minding his own business in the end zone when some cheap-shot Buffalo Bill dove into the side of his knee. It destroyed my ka pomaikai for the rest of the day. But it wasn't Berry's fault, and he came right back the next year.

So my point is, Eric Berry is a great player, and if not for a couple of flukes he would be even more lauded and decorated. NFL players ranked him as the 13th best player in the NFL in 2017, and he continues to ascend. He is officially the creme de la creme, the top 1 percent of NFL players who themselves are the top 1 percent of athletes.

So what makes Eric great? It's easy to get lost in numbers on these things and view all safeties as equal, but let's remember that Berry is, for all practical purposes, a strong safety. They don't get as many opportunities for interceptions. So let's compare Eric Berry to five other strong safeties who are generally seen as the top strong safeties of the past 30 years: Carnell Lake, Troy Polamalu, Leroy Butler, Darren Woodson, and John Lynch.

In production per game played, here's where Eric ranks on key metrics:

Tackles - 2nd
Interceptions - 3rd
Forced fumbles - 6th
Sacks - 2nd

He's in the top half on three of those four metrics, and none of the other five players can beat that. And remember, these are not just average players, but the top strong safeties of the past three decades.

(Darren Woodson blows them all away in rapes per season, but that's not an official NFL statistic so I'm not counting it.)

What's more, Eric really comes through in the clutch. Of his 14 interceptions, he averages - AVERAGES - 27 yards per return. That's mind blowing. In contrast, the next highest figure on our list of six is Leroy Butler, who averaged 14. When Berry gets the ball, he's flat-out dangerous and a threat to score. I mean, come on. This is a guy who won a game against the Falcons on a 100-yard two-point conversion when his team didn't even have the ball. It's unprecedented. (That may be one of my favorite plays of the decade just for sheer shock value. I went from "Cripes, we're going to lose", to "Well, that was a nice pickoff", to "WTF is happening?" to "What does this mean?" to "Wait a minute, we're ahead?" all in the course of 12 seconds.)

But the story of Eric Berry can't be told via mere numbers. We've all seen him take on a guard on the edge and still make the tackle. We've all seen him keep Marcus Peters from spiraling off into deep space after a mistake. A few of us have seen him secretly do good deeds: http://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt...155982384.html. He stops the run, stops the pass, makes big plays, and leads the team on a white stallion, even if he's secretly afraid of white stallions.

If we look at the average careers of top-ten drafted safeties, we can probably expect only 2 or 3 more years from Eric, and they'll probably be all-pro years. But I have a feeling that we'll have him longer than that, so he could keep climbing up this list.

Never underestimate Eric Berry.

[Hydrae]

The two point conversion return for the win has to be one of the greatest plays in NFL history, not just the Chiefs. And to do it at his home town in front of mom and dad added a nice touch too. Oh, and don't forget the earlier pick-6. Game of a lifetime.

[Psyko Tek]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Heh. I meant to mention that. He went #15, and the #16 pick was Jerry Rice. Dammit, Carl!

please delete that post
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[Rain Man]

#4 – Ed Budde, LG, 1963. 8th pick.

“For he loved the Chiefs so much that he gave them his only son, so that the Chiefs will have everlasting left guards.”

We’ve all heard the stories about Otis Taylor, and how the Chiefs’ representative pretended to be a magazine interviewer and then snuck him out a window to steal him from the Dallas Cowboys’ bodyguards. But Otis wasn’t the only player who was involved in intrigue during the great bidding wars of the AFL and NFL.

The AFL draft took place before the NFL draft, and the Chiefs sent a representative to Budde’s house after the Chiefs drafted him. The guy took Budde and his wife to dinner, then sat in the car outside their house all night to be sure that no NFL teams came calling. The next day he took the Buddes to all three meals, then flew them to Buffalo to watch a game.

When they came back, the Eagles had drafted Ed, and he was a businessman, so he brushed off the Chiefs to meet with the Eagles. However, the Chiefs guy spent another night in the car outside his house, to make sure he didn’t leave with the Eagles. Eventually Budde signed with the Chiefs (who were actually still the Texans at that point), and he later reported that it was because of his admiration for Fred Arbanas. Arbanas made the winning sales pitch to him about how the team was full of good guys, and that the Chiefs’ believed in running a wide-open offense, which sounded fun to Ed.

His arrival with the Chiefs actually wasn’t his first encounter with a Chief, by the way. When he played for Michigan State, he played both offense and defense as needed. They played Minnesota, which featured future Chief Bobby Bell, who also played on offense and defense. Bobby Bell lined up with future Viking great Carl Eller on the offensive line on one play, because apparently Carl Eller also played offense and defense. (Those were different times.) Eller and Bobby Bell were assigned to double team Ed Budde. Bell reported that Budde dug in and the two of them were only able to push him back a couple of yards. So they called the same play again, with the same result. Bell reported that he and Budde joked about those plays during their playing years – two Hall of Famers, both playing opposite their famous NFL positions, were trying to block Budde, who was playing opposite his famous NFL position, and not succeeding.

Before joining the Chiefs, Ed had one final interesting college story. He was named to the College All-Star team (basically All-American), and the All-Stars traditionally played the NFL champion in an exhibition game. Ed Budde was named the offensive captain of the team, and the all-Stars beat the 1962 Green Bay Packers, who are often termed the most powerful team that Lombardi ever fielded. So yeah, Ed Budde was good.

Ed joined in a time of unusual tragedy for the Chiefs, and he almost joined them as a retired uniform of pathos. Stone Johnson died as the result of an on-field hit during Budde’s rookie season, and Mack Lee Hill died during a routine knee surgery in the middle of Budde’s second year. Fred Arbanas was blinded in one eye in a random street attack in that same year, and at the end of Budde’s rookie year he was hospitalized with a fractured skull when someone hit him over the head in a bar with a lead pipe. (Len Dawson came over to his house and helped care for his kids, which is yet another reason why Len Dawson is the Ultimate Chief.)

If you want the back story, Budde was in the Bagdad Lounge at 3712 Broadway in Kansas City when he got into an argument with a 220-lb. guy named John Vito Calia, a bartender (at a different bar) who lived at 1105 East Sixty-second street in Gladstone. They got into an argument near the entrance of the bar, and Ed punched Calia in the mouth. A fight started, and Calia's friend, 190-lb. beer truck driver Gus Charles Fasone, 27, of 1307 East Fifty-eighth street leapt into the fray. Running to the back of the bar, he grabbed an 18-inch lead pipe, then ran back to the fight and nailed Ed in the head several times. When Ed went down, Calia kicked him in the face several times. Ed had to have surgery, and Calia and Fasone were charged with assault with an intent to kill. I can't find out whether they were convicted or not, but four years later Fasone was arrested for being a strong-arm guy for a bookie against losing bettors, so I'm guessing he wasn't an innocent victim. I found Calia's obituary from his death last year, and it sounds like he was a solid citizen. Apparently neither of the guys had a police record at the time that this happened.

But Ed survived his lead pipe attack, and treated defenders as if he himself carried a lead pipe. Working side by side with Jim Tyrer, he formed a dominant left side for more the majority of the AFL’s existence. He was a seven-time pro bowler (two in the NFL, five in the AFL) and a two-time AFL all-pro, and is one of eight Chiefs who were named first string on the All-Time AFL team. (You would never guess the whole list, though – Jim Tyrer, Ed Budde, Fred Arbanas, Jerry Mays, Bobby Bell, Dave Grayson, Jerrell Wilson, and Johnny Robinson.)

While exact figures aren’t available, he started more than 160 games and was with the Chiefs for 14 seasons. He was the starter for his first twelve seasons before injuries knocked him out for most of his final two seasons. He retired just three seasons before his son Brad arrived to take over the job.

As an aside, I've seen this painting in different places over the years, and I have no idea about its provenance. Does anyone know anything about it?



I presume it's from this photo:



Here's Ed pulling out to lead a sweep in Super Bowl IV.

[Rain Man]

#3 – Derrick Thomas, OLB, 1989. 4th pick.

Marilyn Monroe. Buddy Holly. John Belushi. When talented people die young, it robs us all of the rest of their story.

Here’s what we know about the unfinished story. Derrick holds the all-time record for sacks in a game with 7, and he also holds the second-highest total with 6. He has one of the ten best sack seasons in NFL history with his 20 sacks in 1990. And when he beat St. Peter's blindside at the pearly gates, he was ranked in the top ten all time in sacks. 18 years later, he’s ranked 16th all time.

So how would the story have progressed? We know that his career was past its prime at the end, but in his last few years he was still averaging more than 10 sacks per season, which is a level to which most linebackers aspire. (We'd been spoiled by his earlier years.) He’d made no noises about retiring, so if he’d played 2 more years at that pace, he’d currently be ranked 5th all time. He was pretty much a lock to do that. Four more years, and he’d likely currently be ranked third all time behind Reggie White and that Bills guy who refused to retire no matter how bad he was sucking.

Even in its unfinished state, he still had a stellar career. 11 seasons with the Chiefs, 157 starts, 9 pro bowls, and 2 all-pro selections. That’s a win for any first-round draft pick.

Of course, Derrick’s success was not a shock. I remember the 1989 draft. It was pretty certain that Aikman and Mandarich (ha!) were going early, and the rumor mill had the Chiefs interested in Derrick Thomas, Broderick Thomas, and Deion Sanders. (Barry Sanders was also available, but Marty had no interest in little running backs. He probably viewed Barry as 5th round talent.)

I remember reading about the prospects, and I was wowed by Derrick Thomas. The guy had 27 sacks his junior year. The argument for Broderick Thomas was that he had a similar number of hurries, but come on. In the NFL, college sacks become hurries and college hurries become nothing. I definitely wanted Derrick over Broderick, and fortunately Marty and Carl agreed. (Bless you, Carl!). And you always take a 27-sack guy over a cornerback, even if the cornerback is kind of fast. So I was thrilled when we took Derrick over those other two guys.

By the way, if you’d like to know the official NCAA (FCS) records, they started observing sack records beginning in the Year 2000. The official record holder for single-season sacks is Terrell Suggs with 24. Derrick Thomas had 27 in 1988. The official career record is again Suggs with 44. Derrick Thomas had 52 in his career. So we know two things: Derrick Thomas is the best pass rusher in college football history, and Terrell Suggs wishes he was as good as Derrick Thomas.

And then I remember the first game watching him play – you didn’t have to be a football expert to see that he was going to be amazing. I distinctly remember watching him that first game and thinking, “Holy cow, look at that new guy’s first step.” Everyone was saying that.

The Chiefs had been picking up good players around him, but true Chiefs fans know the truth: the moment that the Chiefs rose from the dead was the moment that Derrick Thomas set foot on the Arrowhead turf. He turned the entire franchise around, and for that a grateful nation of tailgaters will forever thank him.

Now, I’ve talked about sacks a lot, and there's a reason for that. We remember that time that Derrick got the interception, and that was great, but he was a pass rush guy at his core. There are some people who complain about this, and pound the table that he was one-dimensional. These are likely the same people who complain about the lack of legroom on the SR-71 Blackbird, or the fact that Beethoven wrote very little music for the sitar. Those people are stupid.

Was Derrick a specialist? Yes. He was a specialist because he was one of the best people in the world at that one thing, and it would be ignorant to use him for any other purpose. Time, space, and situation didn’t matter. If he had been born in the Ice Age, he would’ve been the caveman who sprinted around the mammoth’s left side and brought it down from the blind side. It’s what he did.

The most intriguing story for Derrick may center more on what might have been, though. Imagine him playing four more years, which was quite feasible. He was replaced over the next few years by a devil’s brew of Lew Bush, Donnie Edwards, Mike Maslowski, and Shawn Barber. What if he had played those years?

2000 – He likely wouldn’t have been a difference maker for Gunther’s 7-9 team.

2001 – Dick Vermeil rode into town with a 6-10 record, but began putting together that greatest offense in Chiefs history. Greg Robinson began assembling the worst defense in Chiefs history, but Derrick might’ve slowed that down.

2002 – Dick had the team up to 8-8 with Maslowski at ROLB. Derrick might’ve had them in the playoffs.

2003 – Ah, 2003, that magical year. Imagine the scenario.

It would have been Derrick’s final season. The offense was a Priest-powered Messerchmidt, gunning down everything in its path. Without Derrick, the actual 2003 team started out 9-0, then fell apart when … get this … linebacker Mike Maslowski went down for the season. The Chiefs had the #1 offense in the league, and all they had to do was stop the Colts once. Once. But no.

Now imagine that team with Derrick. They wouldn't have fallen apart at the end. They would have gotten home field. Derrick would have stopped at least one drive against the Colts. The Chiefs would’ve then dragged New England into the LOUDEST STADIUM ON EARTH like an ermine dragging a rabbit into its den. Derrick’s final Arrowhead appearance would have eaten their inexperienced team alive in what would have been one of the most memorable games in franchise history. After that the Panthers would have been an afterthought. Confetti starts falling, we see that inimitable Derrick Thomas smile as he hoists the Lombardi, and then he gets into the Super Bowl MVP car, fastens his seat belt, and drives off over the horizon.

We really deserved that ending.

[jjchieffan]

Awesome write up. I have been looking forward to this one. DT was my favorite Chief.

[Rain Man]

#2 - Tony Gonzalez, TE, 1997. 13th pick.

In 1997, the talent pool was terrible. If you look at the 1st round that year ... well, let's put it this way. Rae Carruth was taken #27, and in a redraft he would move up significantly.

The Chiefs held the 18th pick in the draft, and at this particular moment in time, Carl was a genius. He saw that the talent pool was terrible, but there was one shining jewel amidst all the manure. So he put together a huge package for the Oilers, who held the 13th pick. He gave them the #18 pick, along with a 3rd round, 4th round, and 6th round pick to move up to #13. He also got back a 4th rounder that he used to draft quarterback Pat Barnes, so don't ever say that Carl didn't draft quarterbacks.

But Pat Barnes wasn't the target. With the #13 pick, Carl selected a suave and smooth Cal basketball player named Tony Gonzalez.

As with all franchise tight ends, you don't throw them into the game immediately, so Tony didn't start a single game during his rookie season. The quarterback was 49er castoff Elvis Grbac, so Marty went with the veteran 49er castoff Ted Popson at tight end. Popson got more receptions as the starter, but Tony got more yards and eventually proved to Marty after a year that he should start over Ted Popson. (Marty REALLY didn't like starting rookies.)

Tony won the starting job in 1998 and began building his reputation, and then he lit up the afterburners in 1999. For the next ten years, the NFL never went to Hawaii without him, and he was named an all-pro five times.

When one thinks of Tony G, one thinks of stability. Once he got the starting job, he missed only two starts in the next 11 season and from his third season on he had only one season below 70 receptions. But the Chiefs were not necessarily stable for Tony. He played under four head coaches, including Marty (1997-1998), Gunther (1999-2000), Dick (2001-2005), and Herm (2006-2008). Truth be told, Tony treated the Chiefs better than the Chief treated Tony.

Along the way, though, Tony set record after record after record. For the Chiefs, he holds the record for most receiving yards, most receptions, and most receiving touchdowns, and it's not even close. In fact, he almost has more receptions (916) than the second and third place Chiefs combined (Bowe with 532 and Henry Marshall with 416). He ranks 2nd all-time for the Chiefs in touchdowns (behind only Priest Holmes), and he's the only Chief in history to gain more than 10,000 yards from scrimmage. And who can forget the winning touchdown he scored against the Broncos in 1997 (which the NFL took away because screw the NFL but we know he caught it).

On a broader scale, he had 4 1,000 yard seasons, the most ever by a tight end. He has three of the top 12 single-season reception yard totals by tight ends in NFL history. He has the most receptions and receiving yards by a tight end in NFL history, and it's not even close. No tight end has ever scored more touchdowns, either, and none could dunk the football afterwards.

And it's not even the tight end position where he excels. Here's a complete list of every player in NFL history with more receptions than Tony Gonzalez:

1. Jerry Rice.

Here's a complete list of every player in NFL history with more receiving yards:

1. Jerry Rice
2. Terrell Owens
3. Randy Moss
4. Isaac Bruce

And Tony could block, too. Remember that. He was the tight end when Priest Holmes was scoring touchdowns by the dozen.

So what did we have here? We had a guy who averaged 76 catches per year for 12 years. He excelled in every phase of the game, and his preparation set an example for his teammates. Of course, he was also undeniably handsome and polished, so he lived a catbird's life. In the offseason, he had a condo in Huntington Beach where he would go surfing. And then when he was done surfing he would go home and receive what must be amazing sexual services from October Gonzalez, and he was so cool that he didn't even have to marry her to get them.



So sure, maybe he was a little rude sometimes on autograph requests, but let's just face the truth. He's better than us. He's better than us in every way. He's richer, more handsome, more athletic, he went to a better school, and my guess is that he probably makes a more tasty chocolate chip cookie than we do. We should just be glad that he let us watch him for all those years, because he is without a doubt the coolest dude that any of us have ever been affiliated with.

At some point it became clear that he was slumming with us, and he forced a trade. It’s easy to frown at him for that, but you have to remember that he was finishing up his 12th season and his coach was Herm Edwards. Can you blame anybody for trying to get traded off of a Herm Edwards team? What was perhaps even more amazing, and what really shows his value, is that he was a tight end entering his 13th season, and we still got a 2nd round pick for him in a trade. I doubt that that's ever happened in the NFL before or since.

He gave Atlanta five more seasons, which was two seasons more than we got from Javier Arenas, but then Arenas was traded for a stocky fullback. Every time you watch Anthony Sherman run down a kick 20 years after the 1997 draft, that’s a little gift from Tony Gonzalez to you. Because let's face it: Tony is better than you.

[Pitt Gorilla]

Should have been a catch (given the rules at the time). You know it, I know it, everybody knows it. F Denver.

[UK_Chief]

Love gonzo!!!

[Rain Man]

#1 - Buck Buchanan, DT, 1963. 1st pick.

To get a feel for the impact of Buck Buchanan, recall that he was 6-7 and his weight was generally listed at 270 to 280 pounds. To put that into perspective, here are the heights and weights of the guards and centers of the other AFC West teams in 1963, his rookie year.

Chargers
LG 6-1, 242 lbs,
C 6-2 240 lbs
RG 6-1 250 lbs

Broncos
LG 6-2, 245 lbs.
C 6-3 260 lbs
RG 6-3 247 lbs.

Raiders
LG 6-0 240 lbs
C 6-2 255 lbs.
RG 6-2 245 lbs.

Add to that the fact that Buck was blazing fast with a 10.2 100 yard dash time, and the Chiefs had a game-changer. Buck alone changed the balance of power in the AFL, because there was no one else like him.

So how did the Chiefs get this game changing talent? Recall that the Chiefs drafted him during the height of the AFL-NFL draft wars. In the exact same draft, as we saw earlier, the Chiefs had a guy sleeping in his car in front of Ed Budde’s house.

There were several reasons, good and bad, so let’s start with the bad.

In 1963, the NFL was still pretty racist. In 1946, the Rams were the first NFL team forced to bring on black players as part of their move to Los Angeles. They were planning to use a publicly funded stadium, and black leaders cited Supreme Court rulings that the Rams either had to integrate or the city would have to build a separate but equal stadium for black football players.

Once the Rams integrated and broke the race barrier, most other teams followed suit. Except the Redskins, of course, because the Redskins were racist as all get out. The Redskins refused to sign black players, and convinced the rest of the league to limit their signings of black players. Eventually, the federal government forced the Redskins to sign black players in 1962 on the threat of expelling them from their own publicly funded stadium.

So when Buck came of age, all NFL teams had black players, but the rumor was that there were informal quotas of about five blacks per team. The NFL didn’t spend much time scouting black players, particularly at all-black schools, so they were out of touch.
In the meantime, our beloved Lamar Hunt had a policy of watching all of the games that took place in the Cotton Bowl, and Grambling University was one of the schools that he saw. He believed that there was a lot of talent in the black schools, so he hired a scout, Lloyd Wells, specifically to concentrate on them. And that’s where they found the legendary Buck Buchanan.

Several things then happened at once. NFL teams knew about Buck Buchanan, but they couldn’t find him. Lamar Hunt had generously offered Buck an apartment in Dallas, and conveniently hid the location of that apartment from other teams. Then Lamar drafted Buck with the #1 pick overall in the AFL draft in 1963, which made him the first black athlete in any sport to be selected with the first overall pick. In contrast (and maybe in part because they couldn’t find him), Buck was the 265th pick of the NFL, taken in the 19th round by the New York Giants. But I think the bigger reason was that the NFL simply didn’t scout Grambling, and didn’t know what Buck represented.

But Buck knew the score. As quoted in the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/17/sp...s.html?mcubz=0 , he said

"At that time, I was the first player from a small black school drafted in the first round," Mr. Buchanan once recalled. "It said a lot for a player from the Gramblings, the Prairie Views. That was important to me."

That commitment to black players, along with the signing of Buck Buchanan, undoubtedly helped the Chiefs win the hearts of the core of their greatest teams. Guys like Otis Taylor, Emmitt Thomas, and Willie Lanier joined the team in subsequent years from small black schools, and the Chiefs were the first team in pro football to have a roster that was more than 50 percent black. It’s impossible to deny that this infusion of talent wasn’t critical to their championship runs.

And now here’s a good piece of trivia for you. Buck was actually drafted three times during this period. The Chiefs selected him #1 in 1963, the Giants selected him 265th in 1963, and Vince Lombardi’s Packers mistakenly drafted him 238th in the 17th round of the 1962 NFL draft. At the time, NFL teams didn’t have a lot of rigor in their drafts and Buck was not yet eligible, so the NFL forfeited the Packers’ pick after they figured it out.

In Super Bowl I, this actually caused some controversy. When a reporter asked Lombardi his opinion about Buck, Lombardi commented that he liked Buck enough to draft him. This led to an argument when the reporter swore that the Giants drafted Buck, but Lombardi wouldn’t back down. The following day, Lombardi apologized and said he was wrong, but he actually wasn’t wrong. He did indeed draft Buchanan, but he did it a year too early.

Regardless of all that, Buck joined the Chiefs and wrought havoc upon the land. Other teams couldn’t control him, and they had to actively game plan against him. Lombardi said in Super Bowl I that Buchanan was the guy that they were most worried about, and the lore is that the Raiders drafted guard Gene Upshaw purely to face off against Buck Buchanan. But none of these plans worked. Buck dominated, and the result was Super Bowl IV.

Overall, while records are not precise, Buck may have started more games than any other first-rounder in Chiefs history (as many as 177), which is all the more impressive when you consider that he played in 14-game seasons and he played defensive tackle. He collected 8 pro bowls and 4 all-pro nods over the course of 13 seasons with the Chiefs, which given his performance record seems like fewer accolades than he deserved. But recall the era in which he played. He was competing against Hall of Famers like Bob Lilly and Alan Page and Merlin Olsen and Mean Joe Greene every year.

Buck was the fourth Chiefs player who entered the NFL Hall of Fame, sadly just a week after being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.

So we know that Buck was good, but how good was he? Stats weren’t widely available from his era.

Well, here are three examples of why Buck Buchanan is the best-ever first-round draft pick of the Chiefs. Aside from helping to clear the runway for other players from small black schools, let’s look at how he’s been viewed by history.

As a first bit of evidence, Sports Illustrated in 2006 wrote an article about the ten most revolutionary defensive players in NFL history: https://www.si.com/photos/2006/11/21...ensive-players . The ten players they profiled were:

Lawrence Taylor
Deion Sanders
Deacon Jones
Ronnie Lott
Dick Butkus
Reggie White
Mel Blount
Brian Urlacher
Buck Buchanan
Bob Lilly

Look at that list. Look at it! Buck Buchanan is on that list as one of the ten defensive players who most changed the game via his performance on the field. That's impressive.

As a second bit of evidence, Sports Illustrated held an all-time NFL draft a few years ago (or maybe last year – I can’t figure out the date). https://si.com/specials/mmqb-nfl-all...t-results.html
They brought together 11 football people and that idiot Dan Fouts to draft 26 players per team for 12 teams. Setting aside the fact that Dan Fouts had no idea how to draft a team, we see that Buck Buchanan was the 96th pick. In other words, he was identified as one of the top 100 players in NFL history.

And last but not least, what's the name of the award that goes to the best Division 1-AA defensive player? It’s the Buck Buchanan Award. He was so good that they named the award after him. What more proof would you want?

I hereby conclude that Buck Buchanan is the top first-round pick in Chiefs history.

[Nickhead]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

#1 - Buck Buchanan, DT, 1963. 1st pick.

To get a feel for the impact of Buck Buchanan, recall that he was 6-7 and his weight was generally listed at 270 to 280 pounds. To put that into perspective, here are the heights and weights of the guards and centers of the other AFC West teams in 1963, his rookie year.

Chargers
LG 6-1, 242 lbs,
C 6-2 240 lbs
RG 6-1 250 lbs

Broncos
LG 6-2, 245 lbs.
C 6-3 260 lbs
RG 6-3 247 lbs.

Raiders
LG 6-0 240 lbs
C 6-2 255 lbs.
RG 6-2 245 lbs.

Add to that the fact that Buck was blazing fast with a 10.2 100 yard dash time, and the Chiefs had a game-changer. Buck alone changed the balance of power in the AFL, because there was no one else like him.

So how did the Chiefs get this game changing talent? Recall that the Chiefs drafted him during the height of the AFL-NFL draft wars. In the exact same draft, as we saw earlier, the Chiefs had a guy sleeping in his car in front of Ed Budde’s house.

There were several reasons, good and bad, so let’s start with the bad.

In 1963, the NFL was still pretty racist. In 1946, the Rams were the first NFL team forced to bring on black players as part of their move to Los Angeles. They were planning to use a publicly funded stadium, and black leaders cited Supreme Court rulings that the Rams either had to integrate or the city would have to build a separate but equal stadium for black football players.

Once the Rams integrated and broke the race barrier, most other teams followed suit. Except the Redskins, of course, because the Redskins were racist as all get out. The Redskins refused to sign black players, and convinced the rest of the league to limit their signings of black players. Eventually, the federal government forced the Redskins to sign black players in 1962 on the threat of expelling them from their own publicly funded stadium.

So when Buck came of age, all NFL teams had black players, but the rumor was that there were informal quotas of about five blacks per team. The NFL didn’t spend much time scouting black players, particularly at all-black schools, so they were out of touch.
In the meantime, our beloved Lamar Hunt had a policy of watching all of the games that took place in the Cotton Bowl, and Grambling University was one of the schools that he saw. He believed that there was a lot of talent in the black schools, so he hired a scout, Lloyd Wells, specifically to concentrate on them. And that’s where they found the legendary Buck Buchanan.

Several things then happened at once. NFL teams knew about Buck Buchanan, but they couldn’t find him. Lamar Hunt had generously offered Buck an apartment in Dallas, and conveniently hid the location of that apartment from other teams. Then Lamar drafted Buck with the #1 pick overall in the AFL draft in 1963, which made him the first black athlete in any sport to be selected with the first overall pick. In contrast (and maybe in part because they couldn’t find him), Buck was the 265th pick of the NFL, taken in the 19th round by the New York Giants. But I think the bigger reason was that the NFL simply didn’t scout Grambling, and didn’t know what Buck represented.

But Buck knew the score. As quoted in the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/17/sp...s.html?mcubz=0 , he said

"At that time, I was the first player from a small black school drafted in the first round," Mr. Buchanan once recalled. "It said a lot for a player from the Gramblings, the Prairie Views. That was important to me."

That commitment to black players, along with the signing of Buck Buchanan, undoubtedly helped the Chiefs win the hearts of the core of their greatest teams. Guys like Otis Taylor, Emmitt Thomas, and Willie Lanier joined the team in subsequent years from small black schools, and the Chiefs were the first team in pro football to have a roster that was more than 50 percent black. It’s impossible to deny that this infusion of talent wasn’t critical to their championship runs.

And now here’s a good piece of trivia for you. Buck was actually drafted three times during this period. The Chiefs selected him #1 in 1963, the Giants selected him 265th in 1963, and Vince Lombardi’s Packers mistakenly drafted him 238th in the 17th round of the 1962 NFL draft. At the time, NFL teams didn’t have a lot of rigor in their drafts and Buck was not yet eligible, so the NFL forfeited the Packers’ pick after they figured it out.

In Super Bowl I, this actually caused some controversy. When a reporter asked Lombardi his opinion about Buck, Lombardi commented that he liked Buck enough to draft him. This led to an argument when the reporter swore that the Giants drafted Buck, but Lombardi wouldn’t back down. The following day, Lombardi apologized and said he was wrong, but he actually wasn’t wrong. He did indeed draft Buchanan, but he did it a year too early.

Regardless of all that, Buck joined the Chiefs and wrought havoc upon the land. Other teams couldn’t control him, and they had to actively game plan against him. Lombardi said in Super Bowl I that Buchanan was the guy that they were most worried about, and the lore is that the Raiders drafted guard Gene Upshaw purely to face off against Buck Buchanan. But none of these plans worked. Buck dominated, and the result was Super Bowl IV.

Overall, while records are not precise, Buck may have started more games than any other first-rounder in Chiefs history (as many as 177), which is all the more impressive when you consider that he played in 14-game seasons and he played defensive tackle. He collected 8 pro bowls and 4 all-pro nods over the course of 13 seasons with the Chiefs, which given his performance record seems like fewer accolades than he deserved. But recall the era in which he played. He was competing against Hall of Famers like Bob Lilly and Alan Page and Merlin Olsen and Mean Joe Greene every year.

Buck was the fourth Chiefs player who entered the NFL Hall of Fame, sadly just a week after being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.

So we know that Buck was good, but how good was he? Stats weren’t widely available from his era.

Well, here are three examples of why Buck Buchanan is the best-ever first-round draft pick of the Chiefs. Aside from helping to clear the runway for other players from small black schools, let’s look at how he’s been viewed by history.

As a first bit of evidence, Sports Illustrated in 2006 wrote an article about the ten most revolutionary defensive players in NFL history: https://www.si.com/photos/2006/11/21...ensive-players . The ten players they profiled were:

Lawrence Taylor
Deion Sanders
Deacon Jones
Ronnie Lott
Dick Butkus
Reggie White
Mel Blount
Brian Urlacher
Buck Buchanan
Bob Lilly

Look at that list. Look at it! Buck Buchanan is on that list as one of the ten defensive players who most changed the game via his performance on the field. That's impressive.

As a second bit of evidence, Sports Illustrated held an all-time NFL draft a few years ago (or maybe last year – I can’t figure out the date). https://si.com/specials/mmqb-nfl-all...t-results.html
They brought together 11 football people and that idiot Dan Fouts to draft 26 players per team for 12 teams. Setting aside the fact that Dan Fouts had no idea how to draft a team, we see that Buck Buchanan was the 96th pick. In other words, he was identified as one of the top 100 players in NFL history.

And last but not least, what's the name of the award that goes to the best Division 1-AA defensive player? It’s the Buck Buchanan Award. He was so good that they named the award after him. What more proof would you want?

I hereby conclude that Buck Buchanan is the top first-round pick in Chiefs history.

you are not wrong

where does the todd stand, i think i missed that ranking

[patteeu]

Great thread. Great write-ups.

[oldman]

Thanks, Rainman for the trip down memory lane. It's too bad many on this board aren't old enough to have seen many mentioned play. I had the chance to meet some of those early 70s Chiefs and they were, to a man, great guys.