It will be a highly-anticipated offseason for the K.C. Chiefs as they have many holes to fill and a lot of resources to try and do it. A lot of the improvement will come from spending large amounts of money in free agency and utilizing top-100 picks in the upcoming NFL Draft.
After coming up short of a Super Bowl appearance, the Chiefs have found themselves regressing if you go by definition. They won the Super Bowl in 2019, lost it in 2020, and didn’t even make it in 2021. That’s regressing. So, what do the Chiefs have to do to get back there?
One of the factors that separate that 2019 championship team from the last couple is that the front office was able to hit a few home runs when it came to the smaller roster moves. I look at acquisitions like the Eric Murray for Emmanuel Ogbah trade, the Damien Wilson signing, Bashaud Breeland, etc. That team also had a pretty good draft on top of things.
The KC Chiefs need to nail the small moves this offseason
I would say the last few offseasons by the front office have struggled to reach the standard of the 2019 offseason. They went all-out and win-now that year. They were willing to take some risks and go for everything. I’m not saying that they weren’t trying to win but there did seem to be a subtle decrease in aggressiveness to make those low-risk, high-reward moves, or the ones they made simply didn’t work out.
In 2020 they had just won the Super Bowl so they rightfully brought everyone back to see if they could do it again. No big splashes. In the 2021 offseason, we saw the offensive line overhaul but it seemed as if they doubled down on the offensive line and left a lot of other needs unsatisfied. The safety market had a lot of quality veterans for cheap for example and instead of jumping in they casually stuck with Sorensen for another year.
looking a little closer at this past offseason, I myself became very concerned when the Chiefs were bringing in a handful of free agents and they were walking away from Arrowhead without a deal. Melvin Ingram was a big one that got away. The Chiefs were able to make up for that later but I think a lot of people underestimated the impact he could’ve had before the team traded for him at the deadline.
People shook it off saying, “Who cares? It isn’t like he’ll be the difference between the playoffs and no playoffs”. How about K’Waun Williams? The slot cornerback for the San Francisco 49ers left Kansas City without a deal and no one really thought much of it but you know what this team really could have used this past season? Slot corner depth. Because the team went on to trade for Vikings cornerback Mike Hughes and he was less than stellar. Yeah, the Chiefs can’t force those guys to say yes but a better backup plan when plan A or B falls through seems customary.
These bottom-of-the-depth chart moves about which people typically don’t care as much need to be attacked differently than they have been recently this offseason. Instead of just bringing Ben Niemann back by default, maybe bring Damien Wilson back who can actually do more things at an NFL level than Niemann? I don’t know. Just a thought.
The Chiefs have needs this offseason and it’s likely they won’t address them all in the first couple waves of free agency and the draft. That said, let’s hope the Chiefs get a little more active in the bargain bin period of free agency or post-draft trades. Don’t hesitate to bring in a veteran and just see what he has left for little to no money.
Kansas City has relied a lot on high-end talent to get the job done for the most part during their past playoff runs but creating more depth and nailing those low-risk moves should be a goal for Brett Veach and the Chiefs this go around.