Try this one on for size…
Disgraced Chiefs bad boy Tyreek Hill was one of the worst draft picks ever.
That according to recently departed Lawrence Journal World sports editor Tom Keegan…
Amazing how sports media suck ups can suddenly grow a pair when freed of the obligation to write home team schmooze stories. The odds of Keegan nailing KC’s hallowed Chiefs to the wall the past several years when he was passing out attaboys in Lawrence:
Would you believe, zero?
Ah, but now that Keegan is safely ensconced in Bean Town – home of Chiefs rivals Tom Brady and the New England Patriots – he flat laid the pipe to KC’s favorite sports franchise.
“NFL doesn’t need once convicted, twice accused talent in its ranks,” shouts another headline above Keegan’s column in the Boston Herald.
“Every list of NFL draft busts brims with quarterbacks chosen in the first round: Rick Mirer, Heath Shuler, Ryan Leaf, Tim Couch, Vince Young, JaMarcus Russell, Tim Tebow and Johnny Manziel,” Keegan begins. “The misses never stop.
“But not all the worst picks in NFL history were taken on the first day. Sometimes they’re selected in the fifth round, even though the scouting reports scream to run in the other direction as fast as possible.”
To wit:
“Chiefs receiver Tyreek Hill, a first-round talent taken in the fifth round, was one of the worst picks in the history of an NFL draft loaded with bad choices.”
Hold it right there…
Hill’s days with the Chiefs are likely numbered and clearly he won’t be going out in style, but win-loss wise, Hill’s three years with the team were beyond stellar. As evidenced by the fact that prior to his child abuse controversy the team was on the verge of making him one of the highest paid players in the NFL.
Still the strident tone of Keegan’s scold was likely sure to tickle the fancy of the Patriots fans Keegan now serves.
Including the part where he lambasts former Chiefs GM John Dorsey (now running the show for the Cleveland Browns) for drafting both fellow abuser Kareem Hunt and Hill while bogusly asking Chiefs fans to “trust” his judgement.
“Dorsey eventually moved on to the Browns and couldn’t snap up talented Chiefs running back Kareem Hunt, cut after a video of him abusing a woman went public, fast enough…” Keegan writes. “Hill has been barred by the Chiefs from participating in offseason training activities and undoubtedly eventually will be cut, at which point it will be interesting to see if Dorsey welcomes the fastest player in the NFL onto the Browns. If he does, will he be callous and arrogant enough to ask reporters to ‘trust us in this thing?’ ”
Keegan writes with a edge seldom-to-never seen in his tepid Journal World sports columns about KU basketball and the like:
“If the legal system doesn’t take the issue out of the NFL’s hands, look for commissioner Roger Goodell to come down on Hill as hard and as soon as the league’s army of lawyers allow him to do so.”
That’s telling them, Uncle Tom.
All of that said, Sports Illustrated disagrees with Keegan’s rant.
“The Chiefs drafted Hill in the fifth round in 2016,.” the mag writes. “They got one of the best playmakers in football for three years, at an extremely below-market salary. They will have to part ways soon, but in a football sense – though obviously not a moral one – the Chiefs benefited from the transaction…
“Right now the only risk in drafting a player like Tyreek Hill is in the pick – usually a low one – and the public fallout. The Chiefs figured both were worth it. Even today, after a week of nasty headlines, they were probably right.”
Please see Shawnster’s great post in the previous article. Needs to go here also as well as sent to Keegan.
“in a football sense… the Chiefs benefited from the transaction”
– ‘also-ran’ nonsense… unless “football sense” includes attaboy, participation trophy and ‘missed it by that much’ Maxwell Smart-ism, everything that falls short winning (let alone getting to) a Superbowl (fallout relation non-football aspect, death knell.)
“Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing” was not originated by Vince Lombardi, but he affirmed that truth and did so more efficiently anyone football: three straight Championships/five in seven years/almost a sixth, unmatched annals pro football.
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The SI writer’s quote espouses a sentiment defines as it separates winner from loser, also ran from Champ. To wit, President of Baseball Operations Los Angeles Dodgers Andrew Friedman, 2016 LAT:
“I don’t define a season a failure if you don’t win a world championship. I just don’t subscribe to the notion that there’s one success story, and 29 failures in any given season.”
Three years later 2019, ‘Ofer five not so Handy Andy’ and the Dodgers still haven’t won an Championship 30 years (Chiefs fans, staring out from under 50, doubtless green with envy.) ‘But we got there – yeah, can’t win if you’re not in’ goes the losers lament. No doubt made easier swallow case Dodgers being augmented the highest annual turnstile MLB ongoing and largest player payroll most if not all Friedman’s half decade there, lala land.
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Birds do it – bees do it – good gawd even the Royals do’d it – Patriots, Eagles, Broncos, Seahawks and Ravens too, just the last five years… the Chiefs and Dodgers can’t do it. Shy doing it? Another swing and a miss where dreams die, place no ‘end’ justification or ‘means’ can assuage.
Relief? Here in Kansas City, we spell it: i-s n-o-n-e (all plumb done run out ‘wait till next year’s already). To save time, expectation and the Greek tragedy – in lieu chiefs – watch ‘Leaving Las Vegas’, or for faster relief:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0VO_Q80OXk
😎