Brain Fertilizer

It's official. The 2007 NFL season has begun. A clean slate. A new beginning. Everyone is a potential Super Bowl champion. Every team has the potential to earn the #1 pick in the 2008 draft. Pre-season is, in the final analysis, meaningless; stats are erased, and the standings reset at zero. How will the Chiefs do? What is Herm thinking and planning? Well, it's not all guesswork. There are few things we know from perusing recent interviews and articles.

It's official. The 2007 NFL season has begun.

A clean slate. A new beginning. Everyone is a potential Super Bowl champion. Every team has the potential to earn the #1 pick in the 2008 draft. Pre-season is, in the final analysis, meaningless; stats are erased, and the standings reset at zero.

How will the Chiefs do? What is Herm thinking and planning? Well, it's not all guesswork. There are few things we know from perusing recent interviews and articles.

Five Things We Know (all links point to the source articles; all emphasis mine):

1) Drummond is not part of the passing game. We are only four deep at the WR position.

Q: What is Bowe's role going to be?

EDWARDS: "His role is going to be he's in the rotation. He's going to play a lot along with [Jeff] Webb. All four of those guys are going to play. Now, we will do different things and as we start playing you will see it all come to fruition. We've got to block 'em when we throw them the ball and when we throw it they've got to catch it too. He's involved in the offense. He and Webb will be involved in the offense, no doubt about it. They need to be. No different than the two defensive players we drafted. They're involved in our defense. They're in our rotation. I think you've got to do that with this football team at this point. When you've got some talent and you draft guys you've got to let them play."

2) Turk McBride is ready to contribute, but not to stand out. The coaches saw enough to keep him around with the expectation of future improvement, obviously, as he wasn't cut.
However, please note the depth chart:

Turk McBride is the only 3rd string player on the D-line, and Jimmy Wilkerson will play ahead of him in the rotation. That isn't a huge vote of confidence. On the other hand, Herm said:

"Now, we'll go with a seven man rotation [along the defensive line] and when Jared comes back it'll be eight man. All those guys will play probably 25 to 30 plays, which is good for us. We couldn't do that last year defensively."

That means Turk is already considered better than Sims was last year.

3) Herm is a cerebral coach who analyzes everything. Furthermore, he intends to score TDs when he gets in range, and plans on his defense holding the opponents to FGs. Burn this into your memory:

"Generally you get the ball around 12 possessions [a game] unless you turn the ball over a bunch. Out of those 12 possessions probably five times you're going to be inside the Gold Zone [inside the opponent's 30-yard line]. What do you do when you're there? Do you score touchdowns or kick field goals?

"We kind of structure our practice that way, the way we think. Players have to think like coaches and at the end of the day they have to know you only touch the ball this many times. Just start counting. Within those possessions you get about six plays when you average them all out. You might go on a 12-play drive, but there might be a three-play drive. Generally it's about six plays for every possession. Know the situations and where you're at."

That's analysis and number-crunching worthy of Dick Vermeil.

4) The Chiefs are going to aggressively headhunt the rest of the NFL to assemble the most talented, deepest team, stocking the team with young players who don't command big salaries. There will be competition every year at every position. If the Chiefs are successful, this will set a new trend in player acquisition, in the same way that the Patriots set a trend with using marginal veterans in specific, limited roles. The Patriots got the most out of their roster with age/experience. The Chiefs intend to get the most out of their roster with youth, energy, and speed:

"What we've done this year is we've had another draft at the back end of our 53," Edwards said. "We've added three guys we liked leading up to the draft, guys who went elsewhere. When they became available and we claimed them (on waivers) we were able to add three more draft choices from this year's class. That gives us 10 draft picks from 2007 on our roster.

"And we are getting them for free, they aren't costing us anything. Can they play? Can they help us? We'll find out. But you can't find that out unless they are here."

5) The other teams better watch their back. Herm seems to have gotten more value out of the 53-man cut-down than any other team has in recent history. We should be able to see if it pays off by the end of the season.

"...you always have another hand that you're playing. You're always playing poker. They were actually trying to sneak him through on the practice squad. We kind of anticipated that and it kind of worked out for us."