Who knew the Kansas City Chiefs would be a major player in the first couple of days in free-agency? The funniest part, they haven’t signed a free agent yet! All it took was a trade—albeit a huge trade—to move the Chiefs from laughing stock to a team that could easily go .500 next season. The Kansas City Chiefs acquired Matt Cassel and Mike Vrabel from the New England Patriots for a 2nd round pick in the upcoming draft. With such a strong move to start the rebuild and a last place schedule (and see the Raiders twice next year) and they might be this year’s version of the Miami Dolphins.
Forget free agency, this is the biggest pick-up of the off season
There was a lot of hope among the fans in Kansas City that Scott Pioli and Todd Haley would take all of the extra cash they had under the cap and go on a huge spending spree. Well, even though they didn’t land Albert Haynesworth or Bart Scott, they have certainly gone a long way to spending some of that excess cash. Not only were they able to fill that Arrowhead Stadium sized hole at quarterback, but they were able to bring in some veteran leadership for their defense in the same trade. As talented as Matt Cassel proved to be last season, the leadership qualities that Pioli was able to add to his team in one trade is as important as anything I’ve seen. This would be the anti-Kellen Winslow trade.
But wait, there’s more! Not only were the Chiefs able to grab a starting quarterback and linebacker in the same trade, they only gave up their 2nd round pick. I know that draft picks are held at the highest premium at the NFL (I might be the biggest defender of building through the draft), but how often do you get a starting quarterback that can lead your team TOMORROW in the 2nd round.
On top of that, they get to hold onto their 1st round pick (3rd overall). All of the sudden, the Chiefs have quite a few more options. Instead of being forced to grab the Stafford/Sanchez leftovers at #3, they can address one of the other 789234 holes on their team. If they don’t trust Tyler Thigpen and still choose to go the quarterback route in the draft (which would be surprising at this point), then rookie they draft will not be expected to learn the system and make the jump in a single year. That being said, they are free to work on that offensive line now.
In one move, the Chiefs were able to create a lot more flexibility than a 3-13 team usually has. Do they want to grab a skill position guy in the draft or free agency? Do they want to trade Larry Johnson (who is clearly on the backside of his career) for draft picks to help build their foundation? Since they’ve addressed both their quarterback AND leadership problems in one move, these are questions that Pioli will actually be able to address this off season.
It’s been tough to be a Chiefs fan in the last few years. After a few seasons with Top 5 draft picks, this has to be the best day in a long, long time! I’ll give them their day today—because tomorrow they’ll wake up and realize there is still a lot of work to do. But hey, you have to start somewhere; and this is a hell of a start.
Matt Reitz
Matt Reitz is an NHL Writer for ProHockeyTalk on NBCSports and the Editor-In-Chief here at ViewFromMySeats.com. When he's not shoving a mic in the face of NHLers or explaining why home teams should wear white, he's usually trying to figure out what song to play next on his iPod. It's a never-ending job.
