2. Tony Gonzalez to the Atlanta Falcons
On the surface, it doesn’t seem like a horrible deal to trade a tight end—even a very good one—for a second-round pick. It also doesn’t sound bad for a horrible team clearly in need of a rebuild to trade their star veteran player for some further help. But looking back, even the context cannot keep this trade from being one of the worst trades in Chiefs history.
The Chiefs didn’t officially trade Gonzalez until the spring of 2009, but stories that came out years later noted that the Chiefs nearly traded the Hall of Fame tight end to either the Packers or Eagles back in 2008. In fact, it was a done deal until then-GM Carl Peterson decided he wanted a second-round pick instead of the third-with-a-player offered by both teams. Suddenly Gonzalez was stuck in K.C. for another year and was tired of the losing.
It makes sense in a way for the Chiefs to have traded Gonzalez given that they were a 2-win team in 2008 and a 4-win team in 2009. A star tight end was not moving the meter for success and perhaps it was a good way to give him a chance to make the postseason. However, when Scott Pioli honored Gonzalez’s trade request in the spring of 2009 to trade him to the Atlanta Falcons, few could have predicted that Gonzalez would play another half-decade in the NFL.
The Chiefs ended up using that pick on Javier Arenas, a diminutive cornerback known for his top speed and return prowess. In three years as the primary kick and punt returner in K.C., his longest return of any kind was 36 yards (with no touchdowns for his credit). He was then flipped for fullback Anthony Sherman shortly after John Dorsey replaced Pioli in 2013.
Maybe if the pick had been better utilized, this trade would look a lot less one-sided. (Carlos Dunlap, Golden Tate, Emmanuel Sanders are just a few of the names taken after Arenas.) But losing the best tight end in NFL history for so many years for a specialist of all things is the least effective investment, which is why it lands here on our list.