It’s an interesting exercise to think about the history of the Kansas City Chiefs at quarterback. These days, no other team in the entire NFL is as set at the position as the Chiefs, and unless something horrible happens, it’s going to stay that way for quite some time. An entire generation will watch the Chiefs and think of QB supremacy—what a beautiful sight!
The thing is, longtime Chiefs fans know the opposite feeling as well. They know what it’s like to watch one veteran reclamation after another achieve poor to middling results with occasional bursts of playoff hopes during mostly overlooked, mediocre stretches of team history.
Even just before Andy Reid arrived as head coach a decade ago, the Chiefs were mired in misery in the single most depressing stretch in team history, anchored by a two-win season in 2012, the early firing of Todd Haley as head coach, the lack of accountability for GM Scott Pioli, and the murder/suicide of Jovan Belcher. When fans are paying for planes to deliver messages asking for change, you know things have reached a low point.
With such a spectrum of quarterbacks in recent team history, we thought we’d have some fun during this offseason and rank every Chiefs quarterback since 1990 (because seriously, it was all quite unmemorable before that for quite some time). And let’s start with the best because A.) There are no surprises there, and B.) It feels like proper form to lead with the good news first.
1. Patrick Mahomes (2017 to present)
There can’t be any question as to who tops this list, and that’s because Patrick Mahomes would top every list for every NFL team except the New England Patriots. Ever since Mahomes entered the league in 2017, but especially after he took over the starting quarterback role in 2018, he’s been absolutely unstoppable—an instant legend who is breaking waves of new records every year.
It’s very likely that we’re all watching the greatest quarterback who will ever play in a Chiefs uniform, no matter how much longer the NFL perseveres as a sport or K.C. exists as a franchise. That makes this era—one filled with Most Valuable Player Awards, Super Bowl appearances, and winning 4 of every 5 games—a golden one for the Chiefs Kingdom.
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2. Alex Smith (2013-2017)
Let’s make one thing clear: In the aftermath of the Alex Smith trade to Washington (a very savvy move by a new GM in Brett Veach, by the way), there should have been much more pomp and circumstance around the five seasons he spent as the Chiefs starting quarterback. Instead, any appreciation for Smith was quickly drowned out by the overwhelming popularity and deafening emergence of the game’s best QB (see above).
Here’s what normally happens: a very good or even great quarterback retires, is traded, or moves on in some way, and there’s a solid period of time in which fans contemplate his contributions while the franchise somehow celebrates him. How many years after Joe Montana’s short stint did we all spend writing love letters to the guy, even years and decades later? A very good quarterback is hard to find, and they’re remembered fondly, like a camp crush who will forever have some of your heart.
Smith deserved such a stretch because he pulled the Chiefs out of one. One season after the Belcher disaster and the single worst season in franchise history, Smith had Kansas City back in the playoffs with the sort of play under center not seen since Montana. He won 50 of 76 starts, threw 102 touchdowns, and rushed for 10 more (while only throwing 33 picks). He also had the Chiefs positioned for their current run of greatness by mastering the AFC West and bringing stability and success to Arrowhead once again.
3. Joe Montana (1993-94)
During the early ‘90s, the Chiefs were basically the Indianapolis Colts of the last few seasons, a talented team content to wring out whatever a veteran quarterback had left to work with in his career. Just like the Colts have gone through the likes of Carson Wentz, Matt Ryan, and Philip Rivers to lead the offense in recent years, the Chiefs spent the first few seasons of the nineties rolling with the likes of Dave Krieg, Steve Bono, and Steve DeBerg.
If you look at the results, it’s hard to argue with the results for Marty Schottenheimer and his staff during that stretch, especially when the Chiefs were able to trade for Joe Montana in 1993.
The masterstroke move for Montana made the Chiefs a true national presence for the first time in decades—and maybe the only time before Patrick Mahomes arrived. Montana’s presence was the reason they would play in primetime, carry Super Bowl aspirations, and woo fellow players like Marcus Allen to middle America.
The "Montana Years" were only two in number, but they were great in stature. He went 17-8 as a starter and carried the Chiefs as far as the conference championship in ‘93. He won massive primetime matchups and made Kansas City realize what cheering for a real contender could feel like.
4. Trent Green (2001-06)
Chiefs fans owe at least an indirect thanks to Rodney Harrison for one of the better offensive eras in recent team history. Without his preseason hit on Trent Green back in 1999, he’s definitely not the starting quarterback for the Chiefs two years later.
Green began his career as a backup quarterback for the Chargers and Redskins before taking a short leap to the CFL from 1993 to 1997. It wasn’t until 1998 that he took over the starting role for Norv Turner’s offense in the nation’s capital and put up 23 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. Washington offered him a four-year deal to stick around, but he left in free agency for the St. Louis Rams, who offered more money.
Then came the hit. Harrison took out Green’s knee, and he was lost for the year. A backup named Kurt Warner was tasked with stepping in, and that was that.
The Chiefs traded their first-round pick at No. 12 overall in the 2001 NFL Draft for Green, and he went on to carry the team through some impressive seasons in the early aughts. Green threw 118 touchdowns in parts of six seasons with K.C., won 48 games, went to two Pro Bowls, and took the team to the postseason on two occasions.
Green still calls Kansas City home to this very day and speaks glowingly of the city, the fan base, and the franchise.
5. Elvis Grbac (1997-2000)
If this list is going to generate any controversy at all, this might be a point of contention. That’s because Elvis Grbac and Rich Gannon go hand-in-hand here, and some revisionist history is likely going to have some readers frustrated at seeing Grbac so high in the rankings.
For the sake of review, Grbac was a new face on the scene for the Chiefs in ‘97 brought in to compete with Rich Gannon to be the starting quarterback following Steve Bono’s departure. Grbac won the battle and had the Chiefs at a 7-2 record before a collarbone injury cost him six games. In that span, Gannon led the Chiefs to a 5-1 record while looking better with each passing week.
When Grbac came back, there was a choice to be made, but Marty Schottenheimer went back to Grbac—not only for that season but in the bigger scheme. Gannon was let go and allowed to sign with the Oakland Raiders, with whom he went on to deliver a Super Bowl appearance in 2002, when he also won the NFL’s MVP award.
Still, Grbac was a solid quarterback for multiple seasons in K.C., and he even went to a Pro Bowl in his final season (2000), in which he threw 28 touchdowns—at the time, the second-highest total in franchise history. Maybe there was a better choice to make, but Grbac proved to be a good option as well, even if the achievements weren’t there.
6. Steve DeBerg (1988-91)
It’s actually quite amazing that Steve DeBerg is remembered for anything positive at all in Kansas City.
For any NFL fans who remember him outside of K.C., DeBerg was a mediocre quarterback stuck on miserable teams. He went 1-10 as a starter in his first season and 2-13 in his second. Outside of Kansas City, DeBerg’s teams went 22-66 (yes, 22 wins and 66 losses), and yet he found employment again and again.
Somehow the tide turned for DeBerg in his four seasons with the Chiefs. His previous high in wins in any season was 5 with the Buccaneers in ‘84, but he eclipsed that total and then doubled it twice while in K.C. His record with the Chiefs was 31-20, and a guy who never sniffed a single Pro Bowl was voted No. 6 overall in the MVP race. He even took the Chiefs to the postseason in two of those four years and landed a Wild Card win over the Raiders in ‘91.
7. Steve Bono (1994-96)
If you’re reading through a history of Chiefs quarterbacks like this and notice several mentions of the San Francisco 49ers, you’re onto something. For a long stretch, the Chiefs’ front office has been enamored with any signal caller who has ever played for or had any association with the Niners—and it even worked out once, twice, or four times.
Take Steve Bono, for instance. The Chiefs traded for him to back up Joe Montana in '94, and after Montana was injured (and ultimately called it quits), Bono was able to keep the good times rolling in K.C. with a stellar 13-win season in 1995. Bono went to his only Pro Bowl that season for the AFC. He also went 8-5 as a starter in 1996. Once again, however, his only postseason appearance featured a single miserable performance that continued the organization’s woes in the playoffs.
The fact that Bono has been at No. 7 for the Chiefs over such a long stretch of time speaks to just how bad this list will get before we’re done. (Sorry, Steve.)
8. Kyle Orton (2011)
Let me beat you to the question: How can Kyle Orton rank this high in Chiefs QB history when he was only under center for three games and on the roster for a month? Is this an error? A misprint? An entry to make sure that someone is actually reading all of this?
Kyle Orton’s tenure was short but oh, so sweet, and if you have to ask about the serious nature of this, then you’re showing your age. Because it wasn’t that long ago, and if you were there, you’d remember well the feeling of having someone like Orton under center.
Remember this: the Chiefs were somehow competing for an AFC West title in a miserable offensive year in 2011. The wheels were coming off of the Todd Haley-Scott Pioli regime, but the Chiefs were a stubborn team with real talent on defense, and they wouldn’t go away quietly. A man named Tyler Palko was starting real games for the Chiefs despite being one of the worst QBs in league history to ever earn that many starts, and the Chiefs Kingdom was desperate to see someone—anyone?!—play quarterback instead of Palko (who was in for an injured Matt Cassel).
Forget how Orton performed with the Bears, Broncos, or anyone else after his stint with the Chiefs. What matters is that K.C. claimed Orton off waivers and inserted him as the starter for the final three games of the season. In his first game, the 13-0 Packers came to town and lost their first game! It was the most thrilling moment for Chiefs fans in years. From there, Orton would lose a close game to the Raiders but topple the Broncos to end the season.
K.C. wouldn’t make the postseason, but they won two of their last three and looked far more legitimate with at least someone with a fair level of talent at quarterback, showing what could be if the powers-that-be would only go shopping. Orton was a minor blip in the franchise’s overall timeline, but it was a breath of fresh air in a season of misery.
9. Rich Gannon (1996-98)
Speaking of Gannon, for those who want to criticize the Chiefs for allowing him to get away to the Raiders, it’s important to remember the context. No one should have seen Gannon’s late-career development coming at all.
Gannon came to Kansas City as a 30-year-old veteran fresh off missing a full season with a shoulder injury. Before that, Gannon had an uninspired three-year run as a starter with the Vikings, and no team was ready to hand him a starting role of any kind. The fact that he could compete with Grbac was about the best scenario he was going to get.
Even in K.C., he backed up Steve Bono for two seasons before competing against Grbac for the starting role, and if he was such a lock, K.C. would have known it before anyone else in that span. Suffice it to say, his ascendance with the Raiders is a minor miracle and a wonderful story (for Raider Nation, at least). For the Chiefs, however, he was fine with a stretch of very good, and that lands him here on our countdown.
10. Matt Cassel (2009-2012)
No one could have known at the time that when Bernard Pollard took out Tom Brady in the Chiefs vs. Patriots game that opened the 2008 season, Kansas City Chiefs fans would get a closer look at the man who would soon be their starting quarterback for the next four years. Matt Cassel took over for Brady in that single game and went on to surprise the entire NFL by maintaining the Patriots’ winning ways in relief of Brady with a 10-5 record and 21 touchdown passes.
The following spring, the Chiefs proved able to land a big fish when they hired Scott Pioli. It’s important to pause here and at least emphasize as much as we can that Pioli was the exec du jour in the NFL. He was the right hand of Bill Belichick in a league desperate to mimic New England, and yet it also felt like he didn’t want to leave Foxborough. There is no modern example, but newer Chiefs fans should know that it was a huge deal for Clark Hunt to get Scott Pioli to move to Kansas City.
In his first move as GM, Pioli traded his second-round pick at No. 34 overall for Cassel and linebacker Mike Vrabel. He also traded away Tyler Thigpen, Cassel’s primary competitor, and the Cassel era was set to begin.
Unfortunately, we all know how this story ends. When an organization removes transparency and accountability, horrible events usually follow and it wasn’t long before the Chiefs could not longer contain the dumpster fire the franchise became in Pioli’s years. It even got so bad that some fans appeared to cheer a hand injury to Cassel in his fourth and final season in K.C.
Cassel did go to one Pro Bowl and a one-and-done postseason appearance in which he completed 9 of 18 passes and threw 3 interceptions against the Baltimore Ravens. Cassel had a tough road in K.C. handed to him, but he also didn’t help himself too much.
11. Chad Henne (2020)
This is such a feel-good entry.
Chad Henne is not in any way, shape, or form a hero for any NFL team in the normal sense of the word, but ask anyone in the Chiefs Kingdom what they think of Chad Henne, and you’ll likely get the sort of inflection and energy saved for some of the most beloved players in a team’s history. That’s what it’s like to root for the Chiefs in this golden era.
Henne came to Kansas City with one of the most important backup quarterback roles ever: to shepherd the first few years of Mahomes' career. While Alex Smith is respected for how he handed over the torch, Henne has also earned loads of credibility for his presence behind and beside Mahomes as the veteran voice and occasional sub when Mahomes went down with minor injuries.
No one will ever forget "Henne’s drive" from this last postseason, and it was indicative of the way that the veteran quarterback would often perform for the Chiefs in relief of Mahomes. No one was ever going to mistake him for the starter, but Henne would always do just enough to move the chains, score the points, and stretch out the time of possession. In the process, Henne will always receive a hero’s welcome pretty much anywhere in K.C., even if he was never the biggest hero on the field.
12. Dave Krieg (1992-93)
Back when Dave Krieg was a quarterback option for teams in the NFL, the Chiefs used to be in the same division as the Seattle Seahawks, a position that gave them a front-row seat to what Krieg could do on the field. After the short Steve DeBerg era, the Chiefs decided to turn to Krieg to see what he could do for Marty Schottenheimer’s offense.
The flavor du jour for the Chiefs in those days was aging quarterbacks, and it appeared no one had any time to teach a new quarterback anything. Looking back, it’s almost laughable the lengths to which the Chiefs organization went to avoid taking a chance on anyone at the position.
For his part, Krieg did have 10 wins in his first season in K.C., but a ratio of 15 touchdowns to 12 interceptions doesn’t look good, and neither does the drop of 10 percent in his completion rate from his previous season in Seattle. That next offseason, the Chiefs would go fishing for a superstar in Joe Montana, and Krieg was soon relegated to the bench for his second and final year in Kansas City.
13. Tyler Thigpen (2008)
Boy, this one is quite a mixed bag.
On paper, Tyler Thigpen’s stint with the Chiefs (and his entire NFL career) is as forgettable as any. He won only one of his 11 starts for Herm Edwards and showcased unimpressive metrics in most categories. He played only a handful of years in the league, mostly as a backup or third-tier option. He was a seventh-round pick who made it farther than most in such a category.
For those who watched Thigpen, however, there was something far more exciting at work—something a bit more difficult to describe to those who weren’t around. He was inconsistent as hell and prone to turning the ball over. Yet he was also capable of carrying the team on long touchdown drives and making the occasional throw or run that would completely stymie the defense.
In a world in which the competition was Brodie Croyle and Damon Huard, the athleticism of Thigpen was something to behold and gave Chiefs fans real hope that there might be some unearthed gem if only given more playing time. In the end, the mistakes were simply too numerous to allow the Tyler Thigpen experiment to continue, but for a brief period of time, Chiefs fans were ready to pin their hopes on the potential of this Coastal Carolina product. That’s worth remembering from a period in which hope of any kind was hard to find.
14. Matt Moore (2019)
Matt Moore had good reason to believe his career was over before he heard from the Chiefs.
During the summer of 2019, Moore was already one full season out of the NFL, with another year ready to start. He’d practiced his last reps with the Miami Dolphins at the conclusion of the 2017 season, and being clearly in his mid-thirties likely wasn’t helping his stock at all. Moore had taken a position as an assistant coach for a high school football team when Brett Veach came calling. Moore’s name was on a shortlist for the position, and the Chiefs were in need of some help.
For the Chiefs, the loss of Chad Henne to injury late in training camp brought myriad questions with it, knowing that Mahomes was great but also young. Instead of leaning on Chase Litton or Kyle Shurmur, the Chiefs decided to keep both sidelined by importing another veteran to be Mahomes’ primary backup.
Moore would end up staying for a couple of seasons in Kansas City, and they were good ones. Moore would win a Super Bowl ring with the team in his first year, and some of that success should be credited to him as he filled in admirably for Mahomes at midseason—first in a close loss to the Green Bay Packers and then in a gutsy win over the Minnesota Vikings. In both games, Moore played well enough to keep the Chiefs competitive, and fans were pleased with the results.
Moore was nothing more than depth during the insanity of a COVID-affected 2020 season, but his veteran presence was so helpful in a pinch when the Chiefs needed it.
15. Nick Foles (2016)
Shortly after the 2015 NFL season, Nick Foles was ready to call it quits. Then he got a call from Andy Reid.
After his first four seasons, Foles was reportedly ready to retire, but the Chiefs needed a backup for Alex Smith, and a familiar face was enough to convince him to come down off the vocational ledge, despite his frustrations after being ousted by the L.A. Rams. He signed a two-year deal (with that second year as an option) with K.C. to back Alex Smith.
That single season was a good one for Kansas City, and Foles played a nice Henne-esque part in the middle of it as he replaced Smith in a midseason win over the Indianapolis Colts and then went on to start and beat the Jacksonville Jaguars the following week. In those games, he tossed three touchdowns with zero interceptions and kept the Chiefs in business toward a 12-4 season.
Fortunately for Foles, much greater things awaited him on the other side of a potential retirement and his short stint in K.C. After declining the Chiefs’ option, Foles went on to be the Super Bowl MVP for Doug Pederson and the Philadelphia Eagles in his second stint with the team.
16. Chase Daniel (2013-14)
Somewhere along the way, Chase Daniel became the example. For quarterbacks who are good enough to provide some insurance without threatening in any way the pecking order of a team’s depth chart, there is some solid money to be made for minimal effort—and Chase Daniel is their poster child.
Daniel, a Mizzou product, has pocketed nearly $42 million in his NFL career. In that same span of time, he’s made only five career starts. That’s a lot of money from teams to sit there as veteran insurance only to never really have to shoulder much in the way of responsibility. Not a bad gig.
It was three years in New Orleans and the next three in K.C. Three were quick seasons spent in Philly, back in New Orleans, and Detroit. He banked two more in Chicago and last season in L.A. with the Chargers. All the while, he’s largely just sat and cashed paychecks while waiting for action.
As for his time in K.C., Daniel was brought on board at the same time as the team traded for Alex Smith in a bid to completely overhaul the quarterback position after years of frustration. He didn’t play much, but he was part of a package that at least righted the ship.
17. Mark Vlasic (1991)
Mark Vlasic is an interesting footnote in the history of Chiefs quarterbacks.
The former fourth-round pick of the San Diego Chargers kept winning backup jobs behind Steve DeBerg and Dave Krieg in the early ‘90s (over such other luminaries as Matt Blundin or Mike Elkins). Late in his first season in K.C., back in ‘91, Vlasic stepped in for an injured DeBerg (a fairly common occurrence) and played well under center in close divisional contests. He kept the chains moving, minimized mistakes, and even led the Chiefs to a win over the Chargers in Week 14.
Marty Schottenheimer decided to give Vlasic the start against the 49ers the following week, and the Chiefs’ history might read just a bit differently if Vlasic hadn’t gotten injured so early in the game. Instead, DeBerg reclaimed his role in a frustrating loss to Steve Bono and the Niners, and that was it. When Vlasic did get a turn in the postseason, he threw four interceptions against Buffalo, and that was it.
Vlasic would last another year in K.C., but he would never play another NFL snap.
18. Brady Quinn (2012)
Brady Quinn won three total games in his first three years in the league after being drafted in the first round of the 2007 NFL Draft by the Cleveland Browns. From there, he would be traded for Peyton Hillis and spare change to the Denver Broncos, where he wouldn’t earn a single snap for the next two years.
So it only makes sense for Brady Quinn to start half of an entire season for the Chiefs in 2012, right?
It’s a chicken-and-egg situation. Quinn was doomed from the start for a Chiefs team devoid of talent and led by toxic characters at every level of the organization. The Chiefs were doomed because they were led by Quinn. If anything, we should give Quinn credit for helping usher in the greatest era of Chiefs football by making Clark Hunt so desperate that he did everything he could to turn things around.
Side note: While we’re handing out credit, Quinn was also the quarterback who went out and won a game against the Carolina Panthers in the wake of Jovan Belcher’s suicide at Arrowhead. His words after the game were quite meaningful, and they deserve another viewing here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e938bu3wEr8
19. Warren Moon (2000)
Of all of the names on this list, this one is most likely to elicit an "Oh, yeah!" from Chiefs Kingdom, a lost bit of trivia that will have long-time fans even remembering that Moon ever played for the franchise in the first place.
Warren Moon is, of course, known to football fans as the longtime Oilers legend who is a member of both the Canadian Football Hall of Fame (with a stellar run in Edmonton) and the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton. He didn’t even start playing in the NFL until the age of 28, but he lasted 17 full seasons with the Oilers, Minnesota Vikings, Seattle Seahawks, and Chiefs.
For his final two seasons as a professional quarterback, Moon turned in his only two years as a backup in Kansas City, which means the Chiefs are the only team who employed him who never knew what it was like to watch him work as arguably the most productive quarterback to ever play the game (the dude threw 435 total touchdowns in his professional football career).
As a sign that it was time to hang it up, Moon got a late-season start against the Chargers in 2000, and the Chiefs lost by a single point despite a miserable showing from Moon (12 completions on 31 attempts, 1 interception). It’s a small but sad anecdote about an otherwise glorious career—and it’s unfortunate that none of the heroics happened in K.C.
20. Damon Huard (2006-07)
Damon Huard went on to have quite the NFL career for a guy who went undrafted in 2006 and didn’t even play for a single team in what should have been his rookie season. After sitting out that ‘06 campaign, the Miami Dolphins came calling with an offer the following spring and ended up winning the QB3 role just a couple of weeks into the ‘07 season.
After three more years in Miami, where he made only six total starts, he went on to back up Tom Brady in New England for another three seasons, where he would make zero starts, before finding his way to K.C. in 2004. It was here that he’d find a home for the next half-decade.
The fact that the Chiefs gave Damon Huard far more opportunities to start than ever before says so much about the quality of the team in those years, especially later on. Huard wouldn’t play a single snap for his first two seasons with the Chiefs, but after Trent Green went down with a concussion, Huard stepped in with surprising results. The Chiefs responded with a three-year extension that offseason and traded Green to the Dolphins.
While Green might have come close to finished himself, Huard was an abysmal option as a starter for the Chiefs. Despite that strong showing in relief of Green, Huard barely beat out replacement-level competition in the next couple of seasons, put up middling production, and kept the Chiefs from making any real noise.
The Chiefs finally cut ties with Huard after five seasons when Scott Pioli came on board as the team’s new GM and traded for Matt Cassel.
21. Tyler Palko (2011)
For all the nice things one can read about Tyler Palko the man, Tyler Palko the player was never going to get the job done.
Palko is the perfect example of "just because he got it done on one level…", because he graduated from Pitt as the best quarterback in team history not named Marino. He was able to earn slight NFL attention from teams like the Saints and Steelers as practice squad fodder in between attempts for more playing time with the CFL and UFL before landing with the Chiefs as a reserve/futures signing in 2010.
Palko would find his way onto the active roster by season’s end and earn a few minutes of real snaps late in a meaningless game. From there, he somehow served as Matt Cassel’s primary backup in 2011 and started four games that year. If you were watching the Chiefs during that time, you’ll know that four minutes was too much for Palko, let alone four games.
Really, we’re underselling this. Palko took forever to throw the ball a very limited distance because of a weaker arm. He was a man so good at telegraphing his passes that Samuel Morse would have blushed. And here’s where the Palko story gets weird: the Chiefs let him start a full quarter of a season in a very winnable year in the AFC West.
The Chiefs would finish 7-9 but could have claimed a division title without much effort if only Scott Pioli had actually gone shopping at the quarterback position. Instead, he hamstrung Haley as a coach with a QB who manufactured two touchdowns in four games.
22. Brodie Croyle (2007-10)
This one hurts.
Before making a first-round investment in Patrick Mahomes in 2017, the only time the Chiefs had invested anything in the first three rounds of any draft since 1992 was when they selected Brodie Croyle out of the University of Alabama in 2006 at No. 85 overall. He was the most excited about any QB's potential for an entire generation of fans, and yet the guy couldn’t win a single game. Not. A. One.
Yes, in case you’re too young to know anything but the Andy Reid era for the Chiefs, K.C. selected Croyle in 2006 and proceeded to give him only 10 total starts. In that span, he went 0-10 over the course of five seasons as he could not wrestle away a starting role from the dregs of Chiefs history—many names you’ll see elsewhere on the list—like Damon Huard and Tyler Thigpen.
Gotta feel for Dwayne Bowe in all of this, by the way.