John Dorsey’s firing is a bad sign for the Kansas City Chiefs
It’s impossible to put a positive spin on the firing of Kansas City Chiefs General Manager John Dorsey.
When the Kansas City Chiefs fired General Manager John Dorsey, the only word I can think of to describe my reaction is shocked. I can’t ever remember a move that the Chiefs made that left me so dumbfounded. They have surprised me with moves I never thought they would make, like trading up to take Patrick Mahomes. They have frustrated me with signings or a lack thereof. They have both broken my heart and filled me with joy on numerous occasions. However, even when I didn’t fully understand what the Chiefs were thinking, I don’t think I would have ever described myself as dumbfounded, but that’s exactly how Dorsey’s firing left me.
Normally when big Chiefs news breaks, I’m all over Twitter with my two cents on the situation, but I think I’ve sent out two whole tweets since it happened. I wasn’t even sure if I should write about it this week. Between there already being a lot out there on the subject and not being able to really wrap my head around what happened, what in the world was I going to say?
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I’ve read about every credible report out there about what happened and why in order to understand it. I still don’t fully comprehend, but the reports I’ve found have not left me feeling any better about things. If you haven’t been reading my Chiefs ramblings since the early days, you may not be aware of my blogging origins. I started writing occasional fan posts over at Arrowhead Pride. These posts had one thing in common: a positive outlook. I literally adopted the Kool-Aid Man as my avatar because I was so frequently accused of always taking the Chiefs positive outlook.
While I’ve probably become a little more cynical as I’ve gotten older, I still consider myself an optimistic person, but I simply can’t find the positive side of this move. Before the firing, I considered John Dorsey to be one of the best GMs in all the NFL. While I would have admitted that his deals had put the Chiefs in a rough cap situation, I believed (and still believe) that the Chiefs have one of deepest and most talented overall rosters in the NFL. The only thing holding them back from a talent standpoint was the lack of an All-Pro caliber quarterback, and then he went out and traded up to draft a guy that we are all hoping will turn out to be one. By now you’ve seen others mention all the great players he drafted. You’ve heard people mention the great “off the scrap heap” signings he’s found that turned into productive players and even starters for the Chiefs.
Would it have been great if he could have built that deep and that talented of a roster and had tons of cap room to spare? Sure, but that would pretty much make him the best GM in the history of the NFL and as nice as that would be it seems like that might be setting the bar a little high.
Given the choice of a GM that can load a roster with talent and a GM that can guarantee plenty of cap space, you take the guy that can find talent ten times out of ten. Either the Chiefs fired a guy that built one of the best rosters in the NFL or the Chiefs don’t believe they have one of the best rosters in the NFL. There is no third option there. They either fired a guy they think was the GM that assembled an incredibly talented roster or they don’t think the roster is as good as we do. Both of those options suck for us Chiefs fans.
Here are some of the reasons that I am hearing on why the Chiefs may have fired John Dorsey.
1. He created a bad cap situation.
2. They didn’t like how he handled some player situations like Jeremy Maclin’s release and Eric Berry’s contract situation.
3. He butted heads with Clark Hunt or Andy Reid (or both) more than anyone realized.
4. He was wanting too much money in contract extension negotiations.
5. He had his eye on the Green Bay job.
6. He had issues with communication and management behind the scenes.
Here’s the problem I have. Even if every single one of those six points is true, EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. I still am not good with the Dorsey firing. The sum of those six parts still don’t equal the ability to find talented players for the Chiefs. There is no greater skill in a NFL front office. Yes, the cap situation needed dealt with. Then Clark Hunt should have sat Dorsey down and said, “You’re still our general manager, but we’re going to have (insert name here) be in charge of the cap and contracts, so you can focus all your time on finding talented players which we think you’re fantastic at.” Maybe Clark did that and Dorsey refused and that’s why this happened but there have been zero reports of that so far.
My only thought is that the Chiefs must believe that their scouting department is the reason for their talented roster and that it will continue to excel without Dorsey. I hope that is true but it is a hell of a risk to take, especially since they let Dorsey’s right hand man leave to become the GM in Indianapolis. Is the risk of losing that ability to find talent worth the reward of fixing the six issues listed above? I have my doubts.
I will give Clark Hunt some credit. Since he has taken over running the Chiefs he has gone out of his way to hire the best people available to run the Chiefs. We may now have a deep-seeded disdain for Scott Pioli, but when Hunt hired him he was the number one GM candidate on the market. When that blew up in his face he went out and hired Andy Reid the most coveted head coaching candidate on the market. So I think he has earned a little faith that he will go after quality people to ensure the Chiefs succeed. It just seems like the most coveted GM candidate on the market now is the guy he just fired.
The best possible outcome of this situation is that the Chiefs hire someone that is able to continue to keep the roster stocked with talent while improving the cap situation and improving the relationships with Hunt and Reid. The worst possible situation is that the new GM doesn’t improve the cap situation much at all AND fails to continue finding talented players as well as Dorsey did. The risk seems to outweigh the reward there in my opinion.
Being the positive person that I am I will certainly give the new GM every chance to prove his worth. That doesn’t mean I have to be happy that the old one was sent packing.
I hope the Chiefs hire someone great to fill their now open GM position. The roster, history, head coach, and promising new quarterback should make it a desirable job. However, you have to wonder if how the last highly successful GM was dismissed will give some candidates pause. Being the positive person that I am I will certainly give the new GM every chance to prove his worth. That doesn’t mean I have to be happy that the old one was sent packing after he played a major role in turning this franchise around and having about as successful of four year run as we’ve seen since the Len Dawson Super Bowl era.
I’ve heard some names mentioned as possible replacements but I’m not quite to the point where I’ve been able to go there yet. I’ve been too busy trying to figure out what happened with the old one. Maybe next week I’ll be able to move on to who the next guy might be (or maybe they’ll already have hired him).
Sorry I couldn’t put more of a positive spin on this move Chiefs fans. Maybe something more will come to light in time that will make this make more sense to me, but for now I remain dumbfounded. I hope I’m wrong but I just can’t see the upside right now. If you can see it I’d love for you to share it in the comments below.
As always, thanks for reading and GO CHIEFS!!!!!!!!