Future murky in for Eric Berry, Eric Fisher and Dontari Poe
By John McCarty
The Kansas City Chiefs have done what I didn’t think was possible, they have both had a quality offseason and a poor offseason, all at the same time.
Positives: They addressed their right tackle issues with one of the better right tackles in football, and managed to keep most of the core intact on defense. They are relatively deep across the board, save for defensive back and outside linebacker. The Chiefs, at least for 2016, appear deep and set along both their offensive and defensive lines, at linebacker, and have developing players at wide receiver opposite of Jeremy Maclin. No player has of yet run afoul of the law in any ways. Sense that things are looking up.
Negatives: Their mismanagement of the Justin Houston injury from the previous season now leaves the probability the Chiefs will be without their best pass rusher for at least six games to start the season AND required them to pay a kings ransom to an aging and declining Tamba Hali.
They chose to franchise Eric Berry, while a really good strong safety, is not a true play maker (1o interceptions and zero forced fumbles in six seasons) and in doing so allowed Sean Smith to leave in free agency (they had no real hand in the fact he landed in Oakland). They lose a third round selection in this years draft as we all know to tampering from the previous off season. I will explain later in detail why losing that draft pick isn’t just a big deal, it’s crushing.
As we ready ourselves for what we believe and certainly hope will be a competitive 2016 football team, cap and contract issues could hinder this teams ability to maintain it’s core past 2016. We’ll explore.
Next: Looking forward