Ricky Stanzi: Lake Catholic Cougar, Iowa Hawkeye, Tremendous American, and Now a Kansas City Chief

Ricky Stanzi began his football career as a junior high signal caller for the St. Mary’s of Mentor Knights, and he will continue that career as a member of the Kansas City Chiefs. 

The local Lake Catholic High School product, and former Iowa Hawkeye Quarterback, was taken with the fourth pick of in the 5th round yesterday, 135 overall.

If Stanzi’s ability to continue the marked improvement he demonstrated over his four year career in Iowa continues, the ESPN future documentary “The Stanzi Seven” is not out of the realm of possibilities.  

With four QB’s off the board at the conclusion of the 1st round on Thursday, three more were selected before KC ended up nabbing Stanzi.

Stanzi heads to KC  now and will look to compete for the back-up spot behind former 7th Round pick Matt Cassel.  Cassel never started a game during his college career at USC, and recently signed for major dollars to be the Chiefs starter after successfully filling in for Tom Brady during a stretch with the Patriots a few seasons ago.

As a senior at Iowa, Stanzi threw for 3004 yards, 25 TD’s, and posted a passer rating of 157.  His biggest improvement over the season before was in the turnover department, throwing only 6 INT’s in his senior campaign as opposed to 15 as a junior.

In talking about improving his game in that area specifically Stanzi, who’s also a proud American, has said the only thing that feels worse to him than throwing an interception is watching someone burn the American flag.  Hopefully he doesn’t have to experience either of those things during his time in the NFL.  

On Saturday, Stanzi talked about the opportunity to join the Chiefs:

“I am just very excited to be on an NFL team, especially the Chiefs with their great tradition,” Stanzi said. “I am just excited to be part of the team, and I am ready to go to work.”

“I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to the predictions or where you may go.  I have just tried to work hard throughout the whole process and let teams get to know me. Wherever you end up, you join that team, and I am just very excited for that opportunity.”

Congratulations to the Kansas City Chiefs, they got a good one here.

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Another Cleveland area prospect selected yesterday was Copley’s Delone Carter.  

As a senior RB at Syracuse, Carter ran for 1,233 yards and scored 9 times.  In his four year career he ran for a total of over three thousand yards, and scored 24 TD’s on 646 carries as an Orangemen. 

The Colts selected Carter with the 22nd pick of of the 4th round yesterday, as they looked to improve their rushing attack which was ranked 32nd overall last season.

Said Colts vice chairman Bill Polian on the pick of Carter:

“He’s a different style of back than we’ve had in some time here.  He’s much more of an inside slam-bang kind of runner than we’re used to having, and brings what we think is a much-needed skill set that we’ve been lacking.”

Congrats to the Colts as well, you can never have too many Cleveland area guys on your roster.