Pete Rose, when asked whether anyone would ever break his major-league hit record of 4,256, laughed and shook his head and said one of my favorite sports quotes: "The first 3,000 hits are easy."

It's a little bit like that when looking through 200 NFL mock drafts. The first 150 or so are easy.

Every year, no matter what the economy may look like, the mock draft industry grows. It began in the early 1980s when it seemed as if the only person on earth who would actually take the time to predict what every NFL team would do was the illustrious draft guru Mel Kiper Jr.

And I came to believe it was called a "mock draft" because on draft day Kiper would mock anyone who did not pick the player he had selected for them in the first place.

After a while, people seemed to figure out that doing their own mock draft wasn't that hard. Oh, getting the actual picks right, yes, that might be hard, but that is not a requirement for mock drafts, and, anyway, nobody gets them all right. The fun is in the guessing. As the NFL draft became a monstrosity with draft previews beginning months before, with Mel Kiper now coming at us year round, picking mock drafts has become the April version of filling out an NCAA Tournament bracket.

So, Saturday morning in trying to figure out who the Chiefs will select with the third pick I scoured through 200 mock drafts. I looked at the renowned draftniks. I looked at the magazines. I looked at the Internet places called "Draft King" and "Draft Headquarters" and "Draft Daddy" and "Feel a Draft" and "Life Draft" and "Arts and Draft." Well, some of those are real.

After a while, yes, my mind was scrambled by talk of recovery speed and playing in space and explosion at the point of attack and players who have a good motor and field vision and good feet and bad feet and strong hands and weak hands and agility in the hips and on and on. And by "after a while," I mean that my mind was scrambled after looking at about 20 mock drafts. There were still 180 to go.

But I got through them because this is obviously a hugely important draft for the Chiefs. I have enjoyed what the Chiefs have done so far this off season. I don't know whether Matt Cassel is the answer at quarterback, but if GM Scott Pioli believes, hey, that's why Chiefs owner Clark Hunt hired him, to make those decisions. And I appreciate Pioli bringing in a bunch of old friends. I wrote about linebacker Monty Beisel at Kansas State, of course, and I covered linebacker Mike Vrabel at Ohio State, and — this is my favorite — I actually wrote about "new" receiver Bobby Engram when he was at Camden High in South Carolina. I was barely out of high school myself. This offseason has been like an episode of "This is Your Life."

Clearly, though, being right on the third pick in the draft will be as important as anything Pioli and his people will do this offseason. The two best wide receivers in football — Larry Fitzgerald and Andre Johnson — were third picks. Awesome left tackles Chris Samuels and Joe Thomas were third picks. Two of the best to ever play the game — running back Barry Sanders and tackle Anthony Munoz — were also third picks.

And so were busts Akili Smith, Bruce Pickens and Alonzo Highsmith.

So, this pick will be huge for the Chiefs' future. Who will it be? Well, if you very carefully listen to the clues dropped by Pioli, you can pretty much surmise that the player will be:

1. An offensive or defensive player.

2. Someone who upgrades the team.

3. Someone with a certain work ethic and a certain makeup.

4. A player who is smart and dependable.

5. Someone who can play football.

If you want more than that, however, you probably have to go to the mocks. So, what do the 200 mock drafts tell us?

Aaron Curry of Wake Forest will probably be the pick. Seventy-three percent of the mock drafts I searched predict that the Chiefs will select Curry. He is far and away the consensus choice of the mockers.

What would the Chiefs get with Curry? Well, the mockers seem to believe he is one of the top linebackers to come out of the draft this decade (Pro Football Weekly), and he will explode through iso-blockers in a phone booth (whatever that means, Scouts Inc.) and he's got great character (Mel Kiper) and he's a workout warrior (New NFL Draft), but it should be noted that the Chiefs have some doubts whether he fits in as a 3-4 linebacker (Don Banks at Sports Illustrated).

Overall, the feeling about Curry is that he is preposterously strong, he grew up around the game (his father Reggie Pinkney played for the Lions and Colts), he had a great senior year (he won the Butkus Award as the best linebacker in college football) and he was great at the combine and he looks like an ideal middle linebacker in the Ray Lewis mold. The only apparent knock is that he has not shown a great knack for rushing the quarterback and, of course, the Chiefs were the worst pass-rushing team in the history of professional football last year.

Does that matter? I would guess not. Curry does seem to fit Scott Pioli's ideal.

If it isn't Curry, the mockers think the pick will be Texas defensive end Brian Orakpo (9 percent).

Orakpo has a rocked-up physique (Pro Football Weekly) and the athletic ability to play linebacker in a 3-4 defense (Pro Football Draft Guide). His technique needs some refining (Scouts Inc.), but he has the potential to create havoc (Sports Illustrated) and he is highly intelligent and well-liked (NFLDraftScout.com). The questions about him seem to be his durability (Mel Kiper) and that his effort level goes up and down during a game (numerous sources).

One thing almost everyone seems to agree on is that Orakpo can go and get the quarterback. That's his advantage. But almost everyone also seems to agree that Curry is the better overall defensive prospect. So here we go, it comes down to whether the Chiefs will choose their player based on ability or based on the team need. Fortunately, someone asked Pioli this very question: Do you draft based on ability or need? His answer was quite telling:

"I have always felt that it's a combination of those two things," he said.

Third on the mockers' list for the Chiefs is Virginia offensive lineman Eugene Monroe. It's interesting Monroe was a teammate of Chiefs tackle Branden Albert. Well, interesting is one way to say it: How do you explain that Virginia had two NFL first-round picks on their offensive line (not to mention defensive end Chris Long, who was taken second overall in last year's draft) and lost to Wyoming by three touchdowns? Baffling.

Monroe is excellent in pass protection (Scouts Inc.), and he has excellent feet (NFLDraftCountdown.com), and he has no problem digesting the playbook (I don't think they mean this literally NFLDraftScout.com). Unfortunately, he's not explosive or nasty (Pro Football Weekly) and there are those who think he is simply not physical enough in the running game (Scouts Inc). My favorite comment about him also comes from Pro Football Weekly and if it seems like I'm quoting from the Pro Football Weekly magazine a lot, well, it's because the magazine — which is only slightly larger than a Reader's Digest — costs $19.99. Seriously. I have to get my money's worth.

Anyway, the comment about Monroe: "Comes from a family of 16 kids and could have more distractions pulling on him."

Those are the three main choices. But there are some who think the Chiefs could go after Boston College defensive lineman B.J. Raji, who seems to be the consensus choice as best defensive tackle in the draft. We all know the Chiefs have had real issues finding defensive tackles in the past. They wasted the sixth pick on Ryan Sims back in 2002, and even though it's too early to make absolute judgments, there are plenty of skeptics who believe that last year's No. 1 pick Glenn Dorsey will not become the player the Chiefs envisioned. Still, it would be surprising if the Chiefs took a defensive tackle just one year after taking Dorsey.

Several mockers have the Chiefs taking Texas Tech receiver Michael Crabtree, but surprisingly no one I have seen has them taking Missouri receiver Jeremy Maclin, who I think potentially could be even more of a game-changer. Crabtree is bigger and stronger, but Maclin is just so fast and has such great vision. It probably doesn't matter: I don't think the Chiefs will draft a receiver in the first round.

And finally, a couple of mock drafts have the Chiefs taking LSU defensive lineman Tyson Jackson with that No. 3 overall pick. That would be a big surprise ... there are a few mock drafts that don't even have Jackson going in the first round. But it's worth nothing that Jackson seems to be durable and versatile, can play any of the defensive line positions, and when Pioli was with the New England Patriots they were famous for taking players who could do a lot of things and were not necessarily high on everyone else's mock draft boards.

Conclusion: The Chiefs are definitely set up to take Curry, the near-unanimous choice as the best defensive player in the draft, and that's the likely bet. But, absolutely, they could go for the big pass rusher. Or they could try to bolster that offensive line. Or they could go for a surprise pick at No. 3.

What will they do? You know as well as I do: Pioli will probably trade the pick away. And I'll have wasted all that time looking at mock drafts.