The Kansas City Chiefs don’t need to do much in free agency

This time of year its easy to get caught up in the frenzy of free agency speculation but the Kansas City Chiefs don’t really need to do much this offseason.

It’s that time of year. Fans of the Kansas City Chiefs (and every other NFL team) have officially gone into full armchair GM mode and the online community is ablaze with speculations, predictions, mock drafts, and free agent wish lists.

If I’m being honest, I love this time of year. It’s not quite as good as the actual season, but for me, the months leading up to free agency and the NFL draft are more interesting than anything else going on in sports at that time (although I am definitely enjoying the AAF). It’s always fun to try and predict what your favorite team will do. Who will they draft? Who will they cut or re-sign? What free agents will they target? It’s basically the sports equivalent of a little kid coming up with their Christmas list and then trying to guess what’s in the presents under the tree.

This is a safe space, so if you’re like me, it’s okay to admit if you’re obsessed with it all. I am. I love looking over the salary cap and contractual information to see what cap space they have to work with and which guys they may be looking to part ways with. I love going over lists of pending free agents to see which ones might be a good fit for the needs that the Chiefs have. I love watching tape of draft prospects to see which ones I think the Chiefs should target. It’s an addiction really.

Here’s the problem: we love this process so much that sometimes we lose touch with reality because we’re so swept up in the offseason frenzy. Over the past couple of weeks I feel like many in the Chiefs Kingdom are so caught up in it all that they are starting to set themselves up for disappointment. The ones I’m particularly worried about are those that seem obsessed with the Chiefs trying to clear as much possible cap space as possible heading into the looming free agency period.

In the last several days alone I’ve seen Justin Houston, Eric Berry, Daniel Sorensen, Xavier Williams, Dustin Colquitt, Eric Murray, Demarcus Robinson, and Reggie Ragland all proposed as cuts to clear cap space plus letting almost every pending free agent walk  (including Dee Ford). Now, while cutting all those players (and not re-signing any) would leave the Chiefs with roughly $65 million in cap space (Berry would have to be cut post-June 1 to maximize his savings) it would also leave Kansas City with a ton of holes on their roster to fill.

Now, if the Chiefs were a losing team that was trying to start fresh and rebuild their roster that would make a lot of sense. When a new coach and general manager come to town they often clean house and bring in a bunch of new players to turn things around. However, Andy Reid and Brett Veach aren’t new to Kansas City. The Chiefs aren’t in rebuild mode. In fact, they had the best record in the AFC last season and were a Dee Ford penalty away from going to the Super Bowl.

I know, I know, the defense was a mess and if you want to argue that the defense should be blown up and rebuilt from the ground up you can at least make a logical argument for that. Here’s the thing though. The Chiefs want to win the Super Bowl next season. Yes, they brought in a new defensive staff but a major reason for that is because they likely believed that Bob Sutton wasn’t getting the most out of the talent they had. I would also guess that a big selling point for hiring new defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo is that he believed he could win with guys the Chiefs already had on the roster.

Do you really believe that a team that was this close to going to the Super Bowl is going to hire a new defensive coordinator who comes in and says “Okay, I’ll take the job but we’re going to have to blow this thing up and start over.” No way, the Chiefs aren’t looking for drastic changes—just some adjustments and maybe an upgrade here or there—and I believe that’s exactly the right call. It may not make for the most exciting offseason in team history, but if it leads to a Super Bowl run, then who cares if we were bored during free agency in March?