The trade to bring over Anthony Sherman to the Kansas City Chiefs was former general manager John Dorsey’s most underrated move.
At the time, it was a swap of fringe roster players, two names who would have potentially been cut before active rosters were due. More than six-years-later, it’s the trade that keeps on giving for the Kansas City Chiefs as Anthony Sherman continues to serve as an important cog in the team’s prolific offense.
This time of year provides us with the perfect time to reflect back upon the trade that brought Sherman to Kansas City, perhaps the most underappreciated move of former general manager John Dorsey’s tenure with the team. After all, it is the most patriotic of weeks on the American calendar, anchored by our July 4 holiday as we celebrate freedom and fireworks. No one does it better than the man they call Sausage.
Javier Arenas was a former second-round pick of the Chiefs with GM Scott Pioli, a man who had traded away Hall of Fame tight end Tony Gonzalez to the Atlanta Falcons in order to ultimately draft Arenas. The end result was a depth corner and low-impact punt returner who, four years later, had little use for new GM John Dorsey.
In May of his first offseason with the team, Dorsey sent Arenas packing to the desert in Arizona in return for Sherman, the third fullback on the roster for the Chiefs that offseason. Dorse had already drafted Braden Smith in the sixth round and the Chiefs had holdover Patrick DiMarco (remarkably still active with the Buffalo Bills), but decided he’d not yet found what he wanted for Andy Reid‘s offense. That search was over the moment Sausage came to K.C.
Arenas would play one season in Arizona and part of another in Atlanta before finding himself outside of the NFL. Sherman, meanwhile, will join the Chiefs for his seventh season with Andy Reid’s offense this fall. He’s played in a total of 96 regular season games in K.C. where he’s been named a second-team All-Pro by the Associated Press in 2014 and made his first Pro Bowl this past season, where his 3 catches for 92 yards and 4 rushes for 11 yards and 1 touchdown should have won him the Pro Bowl MVP award.
This holiday week makes us thankful for a lot of things as we reflect with family and friends, but here’s hoping we all raise a glass and toast the arrival of Anthony Sherman in K.C.