It’s officially downtime for the Kansas City Chiefs. From now until training camp begins in late July there are no “organized” team activities. Players will gather to workout together like Jamaal Charles and Derrick Johnson who will gather with a group in Austin at the University of Texas where they both once played their college ball. However, that’s something they do on their own. Like these two, most Chiefs players will be taking care of business by improving during downtime.
While those kinds of unofficial Chiefs gatherings are encouraging there are questions that remain facing general manager John Dorsey, questions about rifts in the roster. So, it’s prudent for us to explore, just exactly how the Kansas City Chiefs could be improving during downtime.
Improving an organization may not be what the typical fan really thinks the process is. 30 years ago I ran an organization which employed over 100 people inside the space of one calendar year. When you think about the 53 permanent spots on the roster and how John Dorsey is constantly rotating the last five to ten positions, the number of employees we had to deal with weren’t that different. Having interviewed, hired, then trained each one of those people, the workload is way beyond your standard 8-to-5 workload.
The point is, the next five to six weeks is not going to be down time at One Arrowhead Plaza.
A point I addressed during the build up to the draft, which bears reminding here, is that the job of John Dorsey and his minions has not merely been to rank every possible player which could be taken in that draft… but it to rank every player on every team in the league so if they become available via trade, they don’t have to scramble to see if they’d rather have their eggs sunny side up. Now that each team in the league has reached out… following the draft… and signed a number of undrafted free agents, enough to fill their current rosters to 90… the job of evaluating may have grown again.
Add to this process the re-evaluation taking place based up the Chiefs experience with their new “undesirable 37” (90 minus 53). If you go back and look at the past three years of draft picks the Chiefs have taken… only one, FB Braden Wilson, did not get an opportunity to make the “desireable 53” man roster. Of course K.C. severed ties with a number of players since last year but they’ve also signed an equal number. Which means, that if the Chiefs keep everyone they drafted in this year’s draft, they’ll be reducing the number of others competing for a job to 28 players.
The holes that remain in the roster will likely not be filled by one of these 28 gentlemen. Consequently, there is work to be done during this break so let’s take a look at what some of that work might entail.
Next: Busting the Justin Houston/Chase Daniel Connection