Is John Dorsey the Kansas City Chiefs real MVP?
The Kansas City Chiefs won their fifth straight game on Sunday when they held off the Buffalo Bills by a score of 30-22 in an ugly but important victory. Not only did the win give the Chiefs a winning record at 6-5 after starting the season 1-5, but it put them in the driver’s seat for a wild card playoff birth moving forward.
A lot of people deserve credit for the turnaround. People like Andy Reid and his coaching staff, Alex Smith, and the entire KC defense are probably the ones that get the most attention. However, you can make a strong argument that Kansas City general manager John Dorsey deserves as much credit for the turnaround as any other individual.
When people evaluate a GM they like to look at draft pick success (especially in the first round) and big-dollar free-agent signings. People can (and have) made cases against Dorsey using those criteria. His first two draft classes led by first-round picks Eric Fisher and Dee Ford have underwhelmed.
Dorsey traded away two second round picks for Alex Smith and despite a lot of fan dissatisfaction with the quarterback, Dorsey inked him to a big long-term deal. If you just stop there it would be easy to make the case that the 2015 Chiefs are winning despite of the job that Dorsey has done, not because of it.
However, the job Dorsey has done does not stop there. Yes, Dorsey has had some good moves that were highly publicized (re-signing Justin Houston, signing Jeremy Maclin, drafting Marcus Peters, etc.) but my argument for Dorsey being a potential MVP for this current team is mostly based off his moves that at the time received little to no fanfare.
The strength of Dorsey as a GM is his ability to fill out the bottom of a roster with guys that step up and contribute when given the chance. Below are 15 (yes, 15) players that Dorsey signed on the cheap that have helped contribute in some way this season. All of these players were either college free agents or cast offs from other teams. I thought about trying to rank them in importance but it started giving me a headache so I’m just going to go alphabetically.
Next: Looking at the moves