If you live in KC, you know we got some significant snow today. About noon, I get a call from Dusty inviting me to meet him and Kellie for lunch up at Wild Wings in Raytown. Yeah, like I'm gonna pass up lunch at Wild Wings. I'm like the post office when it comes to that place: nothing is keeping me away.
So, its now about 12:30. We're sitting on the upper tier in Wild Wings, where our Chiefs group usually sits for road games / post games during the season. And I look to my left, over towards the bar, to try to see the status on my second captain and coke ... and I see the TV on the wall is tuned into the NFL Network.
And the "breaking news" says it all: "Chiefs Trade for Matt Cassel".
Immediately, I motion to Dusty that he should check out the TV ... and within two seconds we're both texting away. Gregg eventually checks in with the news that we got Cassel AND Mike Vrabel for our second rounder (number 34 overall) in this year's draft.
(I should also probably note: Kellie is a huge broncos fan. Not your typical "steve wants to take a tire iron and beat them senseless" broncos fan, but a legitimate "wow, she actually understands football" broncos fan. There aren't many of those around. But anyways, she didn't take the news all that well. Hee hee hee ...)
Anyways.
My first thought was "are you friggin kidding me?"
My second thought was "wait, I've been here before ..."
And my third thought was "and last time, it worked out pretty well".
Because flash back to April 2001, the Friday before the draft. Me, Gregg and Jasson were headed to the old 54th Street Grill on College and Pflumm when the news broke that the Chiefs had traded for a franchise quarterback. We'd sent the 12th selection in the next day's draft to St. Louis for Trent Green.
Let this one sink in Chiefs fans. Eight years ago, we sent the 12th pick in the draft to our cross state rivals for a QB coming off a brutal knee injury, a QB who'd not proven he could stay healthy, and a QB who'd lost far more than he'd won in the league (although to be fair, the 98 Redskins team he QB'd was horrid).
All that QB did was start 81 straight games, reset the record books, and preside over one of the funnest and most potent offense of the decade. That's a pretty solid return for the 12th pick of the draft. Especially considering the guy St. Louis picked never amounted to anything.
Today? We sent a 2nd rounder to a conference rival for not only the QB who went 10-5 for them last year ... but a solid locker room presence LB as well.
As of this posting, Cassel does not have a new deal with the Chiefs. He is still under the one year franchise contract he signed with the Pats as far as anyone knows.
Which I think is the best part of this deal.
Because right now, we have nothing to lose.
Vrabel will give us 3 solid years at linebacker, barring horrific injury. The odds are, he'll start 42 of the next 48 games, he'll be a solid locker room presence, and maybe he can impart wisdom to DJ that's been sorely missing in his four years in the league so far. For that alone, this trade is a winner.
But with Cassel on a one year deal right now ... I like it. Let him prove he can do it in Todd Haley's system. Let him prove he can be respectable without Randy Moss and Wes Welker to throw to. If he does, you can give him a 7 year, 100 million contract in November. If he doesn't, you walk away after the season with no damage done, because we are so far under the cap that absorbing Cassel's franchise contract won't hurt us this year.
That, and no Chiefs fan thinks this is a bad gamble.
Seriously, we gain who our braintrust believes to our QB of the future. We gain a valuable linebacker who can, in essence, quarterback the defense. And we get them both for the 34th pick in the draft. Are you freaking kidding me?
(tim mcgraw voice) I like it! I love it! I want some more of it! I love this trade. Its yet another offseason home run out of One Arrowhead Drive.
And I can't wait to see what's next. Because the unsung part of this trade is that the Chiefs can do anything they want at the number 3 slot right now. Anything.
(I still advocate trading down into the teens and drafting Knowshan Moreno, if you can find a trading partner, but ...)
If you can't trade down, you can go defense with LB Aaron Curry from Wake Forest. You can go OL with Monroe from Virginia or Smith from Baylor. (Or if you trade down, you could possibly steal the sliding OL guy from Alabama whose name escapes me at midnight on a Saturday night after consuming a 12 pack of Coors Light).
Or you can go skill position and take a flyer on Michael Crabtree, to play the Larry Fitzgerald role in this offense. Or maybe we trade a 2010 conditional pick for Anquan Boldin to play that role.
The point is, there's so many options on the table, that its fun to be a Chiefs fan again. Hope has returned to One Arrowhead Drive.
And it friggin rocks.
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