Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Rant of the Week: Royals and Quarterbacks



It is time for the inaugural “Rant of the Week,” seen only here on Royal Revival. And since this is the first one, I guess I should explain its purpose. Heck, I’ll even give a mission statement: The goal for this weekly-to-whenever-I-get-around-to-it post is to inform, entertain, and, most importantly, complain. Nothing is sacred. Nothing is safe. If something ticks me off, you’ll hear about it here. My rants do not represent the thoughts of the other writers, mostly because they aren’t clever enough to come up with them themselves. Prepare yourselves.

I am SICK and TIRED of the Kansas City Chiefs not having a quarterback. A real quarterback. A quarterback bred, drafted, and homegrown for the sole purpose of restoring the Chiefs to glory. Scratch that; BRINGING glory to Kansas City. I’ve never seen a Kansas City team do ANYTHING. I’ve never seen a playoff game for the Royals. I’ve watched the Chiefs blow it in the playoffs. I’ve even watched Sporting KC lose in the playoffs, turning into the next victim of this strange Kansas City curse hovering over our sports teams.

Players have come and go, some of which were great, some of which are future Hall of Famers in their respective sports. But never the title. Never the glory. But what a few Royals fans know, or at least remember,is that one of Kansas City’s teams could have been a dynasty. All it takes is a little hindsight and a little stretch of the imagination.

Before I start here, I want to acknowledge that none of the other writers for this blog are Chiefs fans. That being said, I don’t care. The Chiefs were close to being great so many different times during the 90s, and for that entire decade, the team was winning with a musical chairs rotation of quarterbacks with brief glimpses of stardom coming from a beyond-washed-up Joe Montana and a you-can’t-lose-your-job-because-of-injury-so-Elvis-freaking-Grbac-is-still-our-starter Rich Gannon. But if the Chiefs had just corroborated with the franchise they share a parking lot with (upcoming rant by the way), there is no telling what could have happened.

What am I talking about might you ask? Let’s go back through the Royals draft picks through the years. As General Manager in 1979, Joe Burketook John Elway in the 18th round of the MLB draft in 1979. In that same draft, the Royals took Dan Marino in the 4th round.

Fast-forward to 2011, Dayton Moore and the Royals took Bubba Starling, future quarterback of the Nebraska Cornhuskers, in the first round, plucking him away from college football and a chance for an NFL career. But let’s not forget former Royals GM Allard Baird picking up Brandon Weeden in the 2005 Rule 5 Draft as well as Moore taking a flyer on former Dolphins and West Virginia Mountaineers QB Pat White.

In that same time frame, the Chiefs have drafted: Steve Fuller (1979-1st Round), Bob Gagliano (1981 – 12th Round), Todd Blackledge (1983 – 1st round), Doug Hudson (1987 – 7th Round), Danny McManus (1988 –11th Round), Mike Elkins (1989 – 2nd Round), Matt Blundin (1992 – 2nd Round), Steve Matthews (1994 – 7th Round), Steve Stenstrom (1995 – 4th Round), Pat Barnes (1997 – 4th Round), James Kilian (2005 – 7th Round), Brodie Croyle (2006 – 3rd Round), and Ricky Stanzi (2011 – 5th Round).

Essentially what I’m saying is that the Royals are better at drafting quarterbacks than the Chiefs.

How can this be? How can the Chiefs be THIS bad at drafting QBs and the Royals be THAT good at drafting QBs? It’s embarrassing. Imagine how great the Chiefs could have been if Joe Burke had walked across the parking lot, walked up to Jim Schaaf’s office, – the GM at the time for the Chiefs –kicked down the door, and said “Listen here you dumb mothertrucker, I’m taking over this whole draft process and you’re gonna like it!”

Heck, Burke wouldn’t even have had to draft for the Chiefs. Just give the Chiefs his draft board. Sure, the Chiefs might have got a lot of wasted draft picks going towards players built to be speedy outfielders or defensive second basemen, but they also could have gotten one of the greatest quarterbacks of a generation: Dan Marino (John Elway was off the board when he entered the NFL Draft, but the Chiefs took Blackledge over Marino, something that wouldn’t have happened if Burke was in charge).

This lack of success in drafting a QB is laughable, embarrassing, and apparently, avoidable. As a return for the Royals help in drafting, I’m sure the Chiefs could throw a former USC pitcher with a 9.35 ERA.Boom, pitching problem solved. Ace found. 

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