Chiefs general manager John Dorsey is trying to be prepared as possible for NFL Draft.
On Friday, with the NFL Draft less than a week away, Chiefs general manager John Dorsey took a break from final preparations to address the media, if only for a short while.
“We’ve been at it since about seven o’clock this morning,” Dorsey said. “You begin to narrow your choices down. Then you have to build in those hypotheticals, too.”
With the Chiefs picking No. 23 in the first round this year, those hypotheticals would be many. Picking that low, the Chiefs could see the board fall a number of different ways — particularly if the teams ahead of them choose to pass on the top tier of quarterbacks, which is distinctly possible due to the depth at the position and the number of tempting players at other positions.
“I think it’s a unique group,” Dorsey said of the quarterbacks. “As everybody knows, the quarterback position is the high premium. There are a lot of teams that need quarterbacks that are gonna do everything that they feel is best for their organization.
“But do I think there’s some depth here with the quarterbacks? Yeah, I do.”
If the top quarterbacks like Louisville’s Teddy Bridgewater, Central Florida's Blake Bortles and Texas A’s Johnny Manziel fall further than expected, the Chiefs could be sitting in a nice position. They could either take one of them, given Dorsey’s stated desire to take the best player available and coach Andy Reid’s penchant for collecting quarterbacks, or they could opt to trade the pick and collect more picks in a deep draft.
The latter option wouldn’t be bad, especially since the Chiefs lack a second-round pick due to the Alex Smith trade.
“I look at that as part of acquiring an All-Pro quarterback,” Dorsey said of Smith, who completed 60.6 percent of his passes last season for 23 touchdowns and seven interceptions. “I think that was pretty good compensation.”
Of course, when asked about a desire to trade down, Dorsey wasn’t offering any hints.
“A man told me once never pass up a good player,” Dorsey said. “But if I can acquire some additional picks in a draft that could or could not be deep, then I’ll do that.”
Dorsey said the Chiefs have anywhere from 150 to 175 names on their draft board this year, which is roughly the same amount they had last year, despite it being considered a weaker draft.
“Quality over quantity, that’s the way that it should be,” Dorsey said. “There are a lot of good football players in this draft, not only at the top of this draft, but I think from a value-based perspective, there are a lot of players to be had in every specific realm.”
Dorsey, however, knows the spotlight will be on the Chiefs' first-round pick. And at this point, he said, the Chiefs have managed to single out about four players they like that will be there when they pick.
The Chiefs’ work, however, is far from done. There are still more scenarios to go over, circumstances to consider. So rest assured, Friday’s press conference was but a short respite for Dorsey, who will sit with his staff over the next five days and attempt to be as prepared as possible.
“You have a wish list, but again, those things have to unfold in a perfect scenario,” Dorsey said of the players their considering taking in the first round. “It’s better to put a group of them together and all of the sudden if one falls, (you) don’t make an immediate reaction. ... When you make knee-jerk reactions and you haven’t thought all of these variables out, that’s when you’re going to make mistakes in this thing.”
This story was originally published May 2, 2014 at 7:40 PM with the headline "Chiefs general manager John Dorsey is trying to be prepared as possible for NFL Draft.."