John Dorsey’s departure makes no sense at all for anyone
By Matt Conner
The Kansas City Chiefs and general manager John Dorsey parted ways on Thursday. Whoever takes over has big shoes to fill.
On Thursday, Chiefs Kingdom was stunned by the news that John Dorsey and the franchise had decided to part ways. It’s a nice way of saying that Dorsey was forced out or made demands that couldn’t be filled. Either way, no matter who is at fault or how things went down, there’s simply no way that the move makes sense for anyone.
From the actual news to the timing to the other offseason moves, there’s simply no reason for John Dorsey to leave Kansas City. The stability of the team, including the front office, has been a major talking point all season. As other teams have made drastic moves, the Chiefs have joined franchises like the Pittsburgh Steelers, New England Patriots, Seattle Seahawks as models for continuity and dependable leadership.
Even more, the culture of the Chiefs has always been professional with a chemistry and camaraderie highly spoken of by everyone involved, including players and coaches. Yet this season, there’s been the first bits of drama. Jeremy Maclin mentioned the lack of respect felt by the front office after he was released. Maybe there were fractures that just now surfaced? It’s hard to know without direct testimony from the parties involved and everyone is too professional to let us in on it.
The timing of this move also makes zero sense. Why leave in mid-June? The Chiefs will not only have few executives to select from versus one year from now, but where will Dorsey go? It’s hard to imagine this ends well, at least as smooth as it was with Dorsey, for anyone at this point.
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(Side note: There’s one instance in which Dorsey leaving makes any sense, if the Green Bay Packers gave him an official offer to take over for Ted Thompson. In this case, Dorsey has a homecoming he’s likely desired for a long time—don’t forget, he was with them since the ’90s. If Dorsey decided to use that leverage to ask for big money, maybe Clark Hunt decided to let him go.)
The timing also doesn’t make sense given the personnel losses already absorbed by the Chiefs. Chris Ballard was allowed to walk to the Indianapolis Colts to become their general manager without having John Dorsey locked up to a long-term deal. That’s now looking like a serious mistake, given the tremendous early work that Ballard has done in Indy. Marvin Allen went to Buffalo. Perhaps the addition of Tim Terry from the Packers helps to absorb the loss.
Most importantly, Dorsey had employed his most aggressive offseason ever. He’d planned his future out with the Chiefs, laying the foundation for his legacy in lockstep with Andy Reid. He’d made decisive moves in the draft for Patrick Mahomes and Kareem Hunt on offense. He’d restocked the defensive line with Chris Jones and Tanoh Kpassagnon in successive years. He had a bright young secondary ready to blossom. The Chiefs were a contender in the present with an unknown ceiling. That’s just no time to walk away.
There’s simply no way to explain Dorsey’s exit at this point, at least from a perspective that makes sense. He’s one of the single best talent evaluators in the business and anyone denying this is trying to be sunny-side up. Up until now, the Chiefs moves could be trusted even if we didn’t understand them. This one, however, removes any benefit of the doubt and then some.