NFLWeird But True

It’s Been A Quarter Century Since A Quarterback The Kansas City Chiefs Drafted Started And Won A Game For Them

This is one of those stats that really makes you question your faith in humanity. How could any professional sports team have a front office so incompetent that it hasn’t been able to draft a marquee player capable of winning a game for 25 years running? Then again, the Kansas City Chiefs.

It’s not like the Chiefs haven’t drafted quarterbacks, they have. Ten of them. And not a single one has won a game for Kansas City. It’s an amazingly awful statistic, and just in case you don’t believe it, here are all 10 with their draft year and career starts for the Chiefs:

Ricky Stanzi/2011/0

Brodie Croyle/2006/10**

James Kilian/2005/0

Pat Barnes/1999/0

Steve Stenstrom/1995/1*

Steve Matthews/1994/1*

Matt Blundin/1992/0

Mike Elkins/1989/0

Danny McManus/1988/0

Doug Hudson/1987/0

*-each won  starting for other teams, **-appeared in wins, but did not start

The last homegrown Chief to give the team a W was Todd Blackledge (drafted in 1983) on September 13, 1987, a 20-13 victory at home against the San Diego Chargers. Since, just misery and more misery.

You have to try really hard to stake your future in so many quarterbacks, only to have none of them win a game for your team. At least early in the draft, decisions to draft quarterbacks are not made lightly. They are the cornerstones of your franchise and should be developed as such. Done right, you shouldn’t have to be drafting one every 2.5 years. Having to draft at that clip is enough of a warning sign that something is going wrong in the scouting department, but one of these guys had to have stuck, right?

Nope, not one single stinking one. They tried it in spurts too, drafting one each year from 87-89 (after Blackledge left) and three out of four years between 92-95 (after the previous three didn’t take). They had a nice lull in the early 2000s when Trent Green gave the organization stability for some time, but he left, retired shortly thereafter, and since then it’s been quarterback hell. Nothing they’ve done has worked. Does Ricky Stanzi start this week and break the spell? Maybe, but definitely not.

[Getty Images]

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