This is a point I’ve made numerous times and I feel compelled to go on the record once more, as I sense the growing frustration made over the relative inactivity of the Chiefs during the opening days of free agency.
Stories like letting Chambers walk are frustrating enough, to say nothing of the fact that the Chicago Bears have apparently spent the Chiefs’ entire payroll on three free agents. Yeesh.
It’s maddening to most fans, and that’s understandable. We want the Chiefs to “win,” whatever the competition may be. The Chiefs are at the table with more money than any other team in the league right now, which is great because this was intended to be one of the most insane spending offseasons we’d expect to see. So other than a failed effort for Anquan Boldin, the Chiefs have sat on their hands, reluctant to drastically overpay for any talent, refusing to offer paydays for castoff veterans in their twilight years like King Carl did (with maybe one exception), and hesitant to spend any of their Draft picks to bring in new blood. That’s why we see stories popping up on Arrowhead Pride begging the Chiefs to be more aggressive. I don’t have to explain this to you.
But that lack of aggression, as I have early and often in the offseason, serves us well. January 15th:
"There is perhaps no more important offseason for the Chiefs rebuilding effort than this offseason, because it is so rife with problems. The lack of an agreement between the players and the league likely means that almost all meaningful free agents will be held onto by their current teams. The few players that do make it to the market will have the entire league competing for them.This means that these players will likely be vastly overpaid in accordance to their ability — which is fine if a team is one or two pieces away from a championship run. But if a team is in the budding stage of rebuilding, as we are, every dollar we overpay today is a dollar we can’t pay when we’re looking for the final pieces in a couple years. The less we participate in this offseason’s free agency pool, the better."
My opinion doesn’t change simply because some of the players that were available looked pretty good. Julius Peppers, Carlos Dansby, Anquan Boldin, etc. It’s free agency, there are players that look great every year. I guarantee you, 12 months from now, the Chiefs blogosphere will be drooling over someone else, determined that whoever he is will be an essential part to our 2011 Super Bowl run.
You have to think in longer terms.
We have a lot of money now, but that doesn’t justify making the top free agent safety the highest-paid safety in NFL history. We have a lot of draft picks now, but that doesn’t justify spending two picks that we sorely need to obtain any one player. This offseason offers exactly zero good deals for teams like us. Not forcing a deal is more than simply being cheap or conservative, it is being smart.
You have to readjust your thinking — we don’t have Carl Peterson anymore. We are not in the middle of a rebuilding process, where we just need to start restocking talent. This is a complete reconstruction, and in the budding stages of it.
This is going to take a while, but when we get to the point where this team is playoffs- and Super Bowl-competitive, it will be able to stay there longer because it’s avoided making deals like the ones we’ve been seeing in this offseason’s shark-infested waters.