CBS posts Chiefs ‘Franchise Five’ without any current players

CBS Sports released their Franchise Five for the Chiefs without any current players.

In many ways, it’s hard to argue with the list.

CBS Sports released their Franchise Five for the Kansas City Chiefs this week—a sort of Mt. Rushmore list comprising the “five most impactful people” to the franchise—and it’s steeped in the team’s history. However, it’s also missing any single piece of the team’s most recent Super Bowl win—only the second such achievement in team history.

Before we dive in, here’s the full list.

1. Len Dawson, QB
2. Tony Gonzalez, TE
3. Hank Stram, HC
4. Derrick Thomas, LB
5. Bobby Bell, LB

The list itself is a bit divisive for this Chiefs fan, at least, because it’s easy to see both sides.

On the negative side of things, it seems insane to not include Patrick Mahomes in this equation. Have the Chiefs ever employed the single greatest player in the National Football League? The Chiefs have that very player who is not only an elite talent on the field, but he’s delivered the ultimate team prize and remains a hero off the field as well for his civic engagement and leadership.

Or what about Andy Reid? If the term here is “impactful,” then by that metric, how do you not include a guy who captained a turnaround from last-place team who picked first in the draft to playoff contender and ultimate Super Bowl champ. The Chiefs have been the very model of consistent success since Reid’s arrival and that’s true both before and after Mahomes.

That said, who would you potentially remove from this list? Should Reid trump Hank Stram as the head coach represented? It’s hard to take away from Stram’s tremendous run of success and longevity with the team. And for Mahomes, he’s still on his rookie deal. As much as we all want to project the best for him, NFL history has more than a few examples of players who put together a great season or even two before succumbing to injury or something else that removed from rankings such as this.

In the end, it’s hard to fault CBS’ list. There are arguments to be made to include more current players, but recency bias has been set aside here for a concrete list of franchise greats. That’s hard to beat.