Pete Rose, when asked whether anyone would ever break his major-league hit record of 4,256, laughed and shook his head and said one of my favorite sports quotes: &#8220;The first 3,000 hits are easy.&#8221;</p><p>It&#8217;s a little bit like that when looking through 200 NFL mock drafts. The first 150 or so are easy.</p><p>Every year, no matter what the economy may look like, the mock draft industry grows. It began in the early 1980s when it seemed as if the only person on earth who would actually take the time to predict what every NFL team would do was was the illustrious draft guru Mel Kiper Jr.</p><p>And I came to believe it was called a &#8220;mock draft&#8221; because on draft day Kiper would mock anyone who did not pick the player he had selected for them in the first place.</p><p>After a while, people seemed to figure out that doing their own mock draft wasn&#8217;t that hard. Oh, getting the actual picks <em>right</em>, yes, that might be hard, but that is not a requirement for mock drafts, and, anyway, nobody gets them all right. The fun is in the guessing. As the NFL draft became a monstrosity with draft previews beginning months before, with Mel Kiper now coming at us year round, picking mock drafts has become the April version of filling out an NCAA Tournament bracket.</p><p>So, Saturday morning in trying to figure out who the Chiefs will select with the third pick I scoured through 200 mock drafts. I looked at the renowned draftniks. I looked at the magazines. I looked at the Internet places called &#8220;Draft King&#8221; and &#8220;Draft Headquarters&#8221; and &#8220;Draft Daddy&#8221; and &#8220;Feel A Draft&#8221; and &#8220;Life Draft&#8221; and &#8220;Arts and Draft.&#8221; Well, some of those are real.</p><p>After a while, yes, my mind was scrambled by talk of recovery speed and playing in space and explosion at the point of attack and players who have a good motor and field vision and good feet and bad feet and strong hands and weak hands and agility in the hips and on and on. And by &#8220;after a while,&#8221; I mean that my mind was scrambled after looking at about 20 mock drafts. There were still 180 to go.</p><p>But I got through them because this is obviously a hugely important draft for the Chiefs. I have enjoyed what the Chiefs have done so far this offseason. I don&#8217;t know whether Matt Cassel is the answer at quarterback, but if GM Scott Pioli believes, hey, that&#8217;s why Chiefs owner Clark Hunt hired him, to make those decisions. And I appreciate Pioli bringing in a bunch of old friends. I wrote about linebacker Monty Beisel at Kansas State, of course, and I covered linebacker Mike Vrabel at Ohio State, and &#8212; this is my favorite &#8212; I actually wrote about &#8220;new&#8221; receiver Bobby Engram when he was at Camden High in South Carolina. I was barely out of high school myself. This offseason has been like an episode of &#8220;This is Your Life.&#8221;</p><p>Clearly, though, being right on the third pick in the draft will be as important as anything Pioli and his people will do this offseason. The two best wide receivers in football &#8212; Larry Fitzgerald and Andre Johnson &#8212; were third picks. Awesome left tackles Chris Samuels and Joe Thomas were third picks. Two of the best to ever play the game &#8212; running back Barry Sanders and tackle Anthony Mu&#241;oz &#8212; were also third picks.</p><p>And so were busts Akili Smith, Bruce Pickens and Alonzo Highsmith.</p><p>So, this pick will be huge for the Chiefs&#8217; future. Who will it be? Well, if you very carefully listen to the clues dropped by Pioli, you can pretty much surmise that the player will be: