Chiefs: John Dorsey onto the next puzzle

What will the 2016 team look like? Draft numbers 28, 59, 91 and a big free agency signing… should help answer that question to a great degree. It’s a puzzle that the Kansas City Chiefs general manager John Dorsey can’t even tell you for sure how it will turn out.

Not to worry, we’ll solve it here today. You’re welcome. No, really, no problem.

Of course everyone has their own method for solving a puzzle. Many like to start with the 4 corner pieces of a puzzle. That’s kind of what we’ll do here. In fact, these four important pieces… draft numbers 28, 59, 91 plus the biggest free agent signing… should tell us much of what can be expected out of next year’s team.

Since in most cases those early round selections… and a big free agent… are the biggest impact players, players you can hopefully count on right away, it’s crucial that the Kansas City Chiefs score touchdowns on those picks, rather than just field goals when making those decisions. The Chiefs improving draft record over the past three years should have fans feeling comfortable sicking Dorsey onto the next puzzle.

Let’s review by looking back at what John Dorsey has done with these four important puzzle pieces in the past three years, which may be helpful in projecting what he’ll do this offseason.

First of all, we must recognize that Dorsey’s offseason plan depends on free agency determining what he’ll do on draft day to a large degree. In fact, the inverse may also be true: Dorsey will attempt to project what he can get accomplished in the draft first… then work backwards to make sure he gets the right players signed, or re-signed, as the case may be, in free agency.

If the Chiefs plan on building on the success of 2015 they’ll need both the free agency period and draft day weekend to end up being winners… at least winners that are as big as the 2015 offseason when they netted Jeremy Maclin, Marcus Peters, Mitch Morse and Chris Conley with those four cornerstone puzzle pieces.

This year those four spots will be counted on to not only “fill” some open positions, but to significantly improve the roster. Although John Dorsey has had success in signing undrafted free agents, counting on the success of those kinds of additions is harder to project than when an asteroid might inadvertently destroy Earth and life as we all know it. Just trying to keep things cheery.

Next: Looking at the history