mvn
Posted June 23rd, 2009 by mvn
Tags: Football, Kansas City Chiefs
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Chiefs Offseason Report Card: Free Agency - Offense

I’m having a really difficult time grading the Chiefs’ approach to free agency this offseason. On the one hand, I’ve always been a minimalist: I hate it when teams spend money for the sake of spending money and I despise it when fans treat average players like Max Starks and Rex Hadnot as if they were borderline pro bowl players. My theory has always been that if a player is at all valuable, particularly in today’s cap era, he will be protected by his team at all costs. When a player becomes available, they’re usually damaged goods, over-the-hump, never good in the first place, or a team cancer. 

That being said, Chiefs’ fans can’t help but feel as if the Chiefs didn’t do enough to address their needs. They knew they were rebuilding. They knew they had about a million and a half needs to fill. And yet, the Chiefs did relatively little. It would have been nice to see them make a play for Stacy Andrews or a stopgap like Tra Thomas. They didn’t, and it wasn’t because cap room was a concern. 
Then, you would expect that Pioli would surround Cassel with some weapons on offense. Instead, they traded their top “receiver” away for a measly 2nd round pick and picked up a stopgap WR in Engram. I’m all for trading older veterans for picks, but I don’t think it was appropriate in Gonzalez’s case. Cassel went from having a pretty solid receiver corps to an average one. 
And so, what has happened is that they are banking on Matt Cassel to be a success without any help. They are again going to cripple him with a subpar offensive line and will downgrade their wide receiver corps. I just don’t agree with the Chiefs’ approach to free agency on the offensive side. I love the move to bring in Cassel, but I don’t understand why the front office insisted on surrounding him with average talent. 
Grade: B-
If Cassel ends up being a huge success, this moves to an A- or even an A. 
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