MAY 25 (morning)--During the Chiefs most recent mini-camp, I strolled to the end of the practice field to watch Mike Solari work with his offensive linemen. Solari is one of the best offensive line coaches in the National Football League and like all successful coaches, his No. 1 job is as a teacher.

On this May afternoon, he was working with a group of young blockers, most of them rookies getting their first taste of professional football. The drill emphasized pass blocking and Solari kept stressing to these NFL puppies the importance of maintaining their balance when sliding into a pass protection position. He talked to them about not reaching with their arms, because it left them off-balance. He talked to them about keeping the defensive linemen's hands off them, so they wouldn't be pulled into a bad position.

The more Solari talked about balance, the more it made sense, not just for an offensive lineman, but for an entire football team. In today's NFL, it's the team that maintains its balance that will be in the best position to win.

Today, I speak specifically on the issue of personnel and the need for teams in the NFL to maintain a balance between draft picks, free agents and players developed from within. They must do this while continuing to deal with that nasty bugger known as the salary cap.

The team ends up in a bad
position against the cap when it reaches
for a player, because when teams
reach, generally it's for an expensive player.

In fact, because of the cap, it's vitally important that a team not get unbalanced when going after personnel. Invariably, the team ends up in a bad position against the cap when it reaches for a player, because when teams reach, generally it's for an expensive player.

The Chiefs did that with Chester McGlockton in 1998. Everyone in the NFL and around Arrowhead Stadium knew of McGlockton's dour personality and his unwillingness to play at top speed for more than a few plays a game. But by that '98 season, Marty Schottenheimer was reaching coaching desperation. Everything that he and Carl Peterson tried had not moved the Chiefs to the championship level. The 1997 Chiefs were coming off a 13-3 season. They seemed on the cusp.

So Marty reached for McGlockton, a free agent who cost the Chiefs a second-round draft choice in compensation. He reached for a player with the type of personality he despised. He reached for a player that he hoped would be the final piece of the defensive puzzle.

We all know how the thing worked out. The Chiefs crashed and burned in '98, going 7-9 and leading to Marty taking a two-year sabbatical from NFL coaching. McGlockton wasn't much of a factor in '98, since he suffered a back injury that limited his playing time. Over the next two years, he was relatively healthy and unproductive.

The fans and media enjoy the situation when a team reaches for talent. It makes nice headlines and gets people talking. And, it's the No. 1 thing a team in today's NFL has to guard against. Every team makes personnel mistakes. Before the salary cap, those mistakes were released and the bleeding stopped. Today, a mistake can cost a team for two years before it's wiped off the books. For instance, the Chiefs will still be using salary cap money this season for Dan Williams, who hasn't worn a Chiefs uniform since November 26, 2000.

More of these decisions will come in the next week as NFL teams reach June 1st. Several veteran players of note will be released because of the size of their salary cap numbers. By releasing them after June 1st, teams will be able to spread out the cap hit over this year and next year. Releasing them before June 1st means the cap hit comes entirely in 2002.

Several of these players are of interest to the Chiefs, receivers like Antonio Freeman and Keenan McCardell. There are a lot of factors in how deep the Arrowhead interest will be in either player: money, age, production, the future, the cap, etc.

No matter what's decided, the Chiefs will need to stay in balance, with the roster and with the cap.