Some positions got a complete overhaul this offseason. Tight end wasn't one of them. Coming off a disastrous 6-11 season in '25, it made sense that general manager Brett Veach would reconstruct most of the roster, but at tight end, the same names are being rolled back into the room in '26.
That's frustrated some fans, though the level of hoped-for investment is debatable. Some members of Chiefs Kingdom wanted the team to spend a first-round pick on a talent like Oregon's Kenyon Sadiq; others just wanted real competition for Noah Gray and Jared Wiley behind Travis Kelce. Instead, the only additions were undrafted free agents John Michael Gyllenborg and Mason Pline.
When surveying the free agent landscape, one name is a regular mention: former Los Angeles Chargers tight end Will Dissly.
It's not hard to see why the Chargers moved on. They upgraded with one of the NFL's best blockers in Charlie Kolar, then signed David Njoku to round out a room that already had Oronde Gadsden II. What's harder to explain is why Dissly is still available with training camps underway and the preseason about to begin. The Chargers cut him before free agency even opened, so there were no immediate compensatory-formula concerns to keep teams at bay. Five months later, Dissly is still a free agent.
The Chiefs haven't done anything at tight end this offseason, and Will Dissly remains an intriguing free agent to some fans.
For that reason, we reached out to Chargers expert and Bolt Beat editor Jason Reed to tell us more about Dissly's fall from grace. "Dissly quickly went from being a coaching-staff favorite due to his blocking ability to being borderline unplayable in 2025," said Reed. "It got so bad for the veteran tight end that pass-catcher Tyler Conklin, who had his own slew of issues and mistakes, received favorable playing time over the blocking specialist."
The turning point, per Reed, was a knee injury. "Dissly suffered a knee injury and was never the same throughout the 2025 season. Even after his recovery, he was a healthy scratch for weeks and probably wouldn't have seen the field again if it wasn't for a Tucker Fisk injury. It became clear why Dissly was a scratch once he returned to play; he was noticeably slower, struggled in his blocks, and looked like someone who just saw the NFL pass him by.
That doesn't mean that Dissly, who has eight years of NFL experience with the Seattle Seahawks and Chargers, is out to pasture just yet. Reed adds, "Perhaps a cleaner bill of health could bring Dissly back up to form. But at his best, he is a TE3/4 that can only be used as a blocking specialist in jumbo packages."
The lack of action on Dissly is telling, however, and the Chiefs have stood firm in the face of, well, everyone available at the position either way. For Kansas City, it might not be about Dissly. The operating principle seems to be rooted in a lot of optimism in the talent already in the room, anchored by Kelce's potential last go-around.
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