Why an Eric Berry return makes no sense for the Chiefs

It sounds good to think of Eric Berry coming back for a Super Bowl run with the Kansas City Chiefs, but that’s an unlikely reality for fans rooted in fantasy.

A somewhat logical path can be formed between Points A and B, at least on the surface, for those wanting to draw the line between Eric Berry as a free agent option and the Kansas City Chiefs. It goes something like this:

• The Chiefs just lost their starting free safety in Juan Thornhill with a torn ACL.
• The Chiefs have a former All-Pro safety still sitting as an available free agent.
• Berry has had all kinds of time to rest and heal from his nagging foot/ankle injuries.
• Steve Spagnuolo is an ideal coach to resurrect Berry’s career and use him in aggressive ways.

That all sounds well and good, again on the surface. Every Chiefs fan who is over the age of, say, 12 will have a soft spot in his or her heart for Berry, the single most courageous and inspirational player in recent Chiefs history. (Joe Delaney might be the other historic contender.) At his best, he was a legend both on and off the field and history will remember him as such.

Unfortunately that’s where he’s likely to stay: in the past.

Yes, the Chiefs have lost Juan Thornhill and could potentially be open to signing a safety if they don’t like the thought of going to war with only Armani Watts and Kendall Fuller filling that role. Yet even if a player is signed, it won’t be Berry. It simply makes no sense based on, well, anything we actually know to be true about Berry at this stage of his life.

The last time we saw Berry, he was unable to even practice or play while dealing with severe issues with his foot and ankle. He played in two games in 2018 and a single game the year before that. They say a player’s best ability is his availability and Berry had little of that when he was 29, let alone now at the age of 31.

Furthermore, we’ve never once heard a single word from Berry in terms of readiness. Most players who maintain an interest in returning to the field will show clips of workouts on social media. They’ll use agents as town criers wearing digital sandwich boards telling everyone that they are, indeed, ready and available for workouts. But what have any of us heard from or even about Berry at this point? Nothing.

A quick look at Eric Berry’s Instagram shows fans asking him in the last 24 hours to consider coming back. They are comments on a picture of Berry in a Chiefs uniform. The actual post itself is from 268 weeks ago. Yes, two hundred and sixty eight weeks ago. That’s well over 5 years if you want the math delivered to you differently. Berry’s Twitter is similarly dated, the last post coming in 2014.

In short, if Berry were even interested in playing again in the NFL, there would be buzz and posturing. There would be workouts and agentspeak. We’d have heard rumors before fans could even ask the question. Instead, we have an aging player with a long injury list who’s gone dark in every possible way, a recluse from the game that once put him squarely in the spotlight.

The most likely move by the Chiefs at this point will be to sit on the options already in house and move forward with them. Yet even if the Chiefs bring in an outsider, Berry is very unlikely to be an option. The narrative simply doesn’t have any basis in reality at this point.