The Kansas City Chiefs wrapped up their 2013 NFL Draft on Saturday, ending a three-day event filled with long hours of studying various draft trends, making life-changing phone calls and likely doing both with very little sleep.
"It's been a long three days," Chiefs general manager John Dorsey admitted during the post-draft press conference.
"We think we've helped this team. We think that the players we have selected and the ones we finished signing in free agency, I think you guys will appreciate their talents and them as people. I do have to thank the personnel staff and coaching staff for all the hard, tireless work they have done to make this really come about. Like I have always said, this is a collective effort, as the process has gone on, I think we made us better, that's all that counts. Now it's off to minicamp and then training camp; now the fun starts."
The same confidence that John Dorsey exuded in January, when he was hired as the sixth general manager in franchise history, reappeared on Saturday night, following the close of his first official NFL draft as GM.
As I walked with Dorsey out of the interview room, I asked him if he had given a grade to this particular draft class, with all seven rounds officially in the books.
"I don't think it's fair to make an evaluation or a grade instantaneously," Dorsey shared.
"I've always said, it takes about three years to evaluate a class and I think that's what we're going to do. Do we feel good, yeah, we do feel good; we think we've helped this team and that's what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to be able to take players to improve our roster and I feel we've done that this year, so now let's see at the next step, let's see how they play the game." Enter new Chiefs head coach Andy Reid, who like Dorsey was also hired in January, asked to lead this team on the field, ideally to the playoffs and beyond. However, for the free agency and NFL Draft seasons, if you will, coach has always said, it's Dorsey's gig to bring in the players, while he has the responsibility of 'coaching them up.'
"I sat back and watched John," coach Reid said of his involvement during the draft. "If he needed me to do something, I did it. I have a lot of trust in him, of his skills of bringing in good players; now comes the time where we have the opportunity to coach them up and that's where our focus will be as coaches."
It's been said that communication is the key to any relationship and that's just one of the reasons the duo of Dorsey and coach Reid works so well.
"Any time that the head coach and the general manager are on the same page philosophically, with an understanding (of) our terms of players, you couldn't ask for anything better," Dorsey admitted.
"Both guys come into work every day, they check their egos in at the door, they roll their sleeves up and they have one mission, to make the Kansas City Chiefs better, that's all we can do. Hopefully everyone in the organization understands that and follows our lead."
Without a doubt, this team is headed in the right direction.
