PFF names top five most valuable Chiefs of the last decade

Pro Football Focus ranked the top five Chiefs of the last decade. How’d they do?

The conclusion of the decade brings with it a plethora of rankings and rosters related to “All-Decade” content. For history buffs and analytics-minded folks, this exercise is both exciting and excruciating, as compiling the data and rankings for such a large window is often an tedious and trying experiment.

Pro Football Focus, one of the leading football analytics camps, is among those releasing their decade rankings for various categories, including the top five overall Chiefs based on “PFF WAR”, essentially what analytics say about how valuable a player was to their team(s).

This is a strong list from the team over at Pro Football Focus.

Upon initial observation, it is incredible to think that in just two years as a starting quarterback during the decade, Patrick Mahomes is already the second most valuable Chief of the decade. In theory, analytics-driven data taken over the course of a decade will massively weight players who worked the majority of the time span. For Kansas City, this would mean we would think that players like Derrick Johnson, Eric Fisher, Dustin Colquitt (who was the only player with the team during the entire decade) would have a decided advantage over some of the relative newcomers.

Yet it is a fair ranking. Alex Smith won more games as a starting quarterback over a five year span than any quarterback in team history. Patrick Mahomes is the first Chief to ever win league MVP. And as we move down the list, Travis Kelce is the first tight end to ever record four consecutive seasons with 1,000 receiving yards or more. Meanwhile, Tyreek Hill has changed the entire scope of the offense and Eric Berry, at his peak, was one of the top safeties in league history.

How would we rank the top Chiefs of the past decade?

Even still, there are other players who we might consider for such a ranking list, if we were making one that was a little more subjective, rather than purely driven by the numbers. We might consider Jamaal Charles, who had one of the best statistical decades of any Kansas City running back ever. We may also consider future Chiefs Hall of Famer Derrick Johnson, who not only served as a emotional leader of the defense for much of the decade but also posted over 100 tackles five times during that span.

Putting together such a ranking is far from a perfect science. Some special consideration has to be given to players who were integral to the Chiefs Super Bowl LIV victory, and without a doubt, who was “integral” is subjective. Positional value is an important factor, and how important a position is relative to another is purely a matter of opinion. Finally, longevity is an important consideration as well, for us.

So, how would we rank the top Chiefs of the years from 2010-2019, in terms of their value to the team?

1. Patrick Mahomes
2. Jamaal Charles
3. Alex Smith
4. Derrick Johnson
5. Travis Kelce
6. Eric Berry
7. Eric Fisher
8. Dustin Colquitt
9. Tyreek Hill
10. Chris Jones

Honorable mentions should go to Just in Houston and Tamba Hali. Both of whom were among the best pass rushers in football at times during the decade.

Be sure to let us know how you’d rank the Chiefs of the last decade in the comments below!