KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Maybe it was the 48 sacks he saw his Philadelphia quarterbacks endure last year during a disastrous 4-12 season that cost him his job. Maybe it was the 40 sacks he saw on tape when he took over the 2-14 Chiefs in January.
Whatever the reason, head coach Andy Reid made a blocker the first choice of his partnership with general manager John Dorsey in running the Hunt Family franchise, grabbing offensive tackle Eric Fisher with the initial selection of the 2013 NFL Draft.
“You are getting a very athletic player, a smart kid, he can play any position along the line and loves to play the game,” Reid said. “From a coaching standpoint and from John Dorsey’s standpoint, we felt he would be a real nice fit for our football team and also the city of Kansas City.”
Drafting offensive tackles is not sexy, and it’s not the type of move that will help the Chiefs sell more tickets, and they have many to sell. But when an NFL team finds a 6-7, 305-pound young man with nimble feet and a nasty disposition, it’s impossible to walk away from the opportunity to add him to the roster.
Thus the Rochester, Mich., native and product of Central Michigan University became the No. 1 pick as the Chiefs finally got something out of their horrid performance from last season.
“I can’t wait to get into Coach Reid’s system and learn it and start playing it,” said Fisher. “I really liked what they exposed me too during the workout and I think I can transition between offenses. I played in two different offenses in college.”
It was the attitude Fisher displayed in a workout in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan for Reid, Dorsey and offensive line coach Andy Heck that sold the head coach on the young man.
“He is focused; you just get that sense that he’s with you, that’s what we felt when we worked him out,” Reid said. “There was no nonsense. There were a couple of things that I wanted to see going into that workout from a coaching standpoint. You want to go in and see if he can handle your coaching. “What are your problems, let’s see if we can’t fix a couple of them here” and how does he adjust to that. Even though it’s not live, you present that to them and see how they handle it.
“He handled it well. He handled parts of the offense we gave him very well. He’s not lacking for gigabytes; he’s got enough of that where he can hang with you. We felt good about it.”
Where will Fisher play, left tackle or right tackle? Listen to Reid and the head coach makes it sound like he might play guard.
“Position doesn’t matter to me,” Reid said. “Never has. I remember when we took Shawn Andrews one year (2004 with Philadelphia) with our No. 1 pick. He was a left tackle, but he played at guard because I had a couple of veteran tackles. He eventually moved out to tackle. That doesn’t bother me. You need them all.”
The question comes up because still hanging in the air is the status of five-year starter at left tackle Branden Albert. The Chiefs and Miami Dolphins have been in trade discussions for weeks on Albert’s future. The teams agreed to take a break for the first day of the draft.
Within that first round, the Dolphins may have scuttled any chance of the trade when they gave up a second-round choice (No. 42) to move up in the round to draft outside linebacker Dion Jordan.