Chiefs John Dorsey handled the difficult 2014 offseason unbelievably well. - Page 3

Direckshun · 12-25-2015, 05:47 AM

The Chiefs faced a difficult offseason following the 2013 playoff meltdown. After GM John Dorsey's spending spree in the 2013 offseason, the Chiefs had a half dozen premier free agents getting ready to hit the market, no cap room to sign any of them (or any incoming free agents of any renown), and no second round pick due to the Alex Smith deal. How do you make a team betterwhen you're set to lose so much talent and have so little resources to replace them?

Now, I'm not an NFL General Manager, and y'all better be glad I don't run the Chiefs, because I must have ran three dozen simulations of that offseason for the Chiefs before it arrived, and every one of them had the Chiefs doing their damnedest to stay afloat replacing our departing players with free agents from the Salvation Army and midround draft picks. The intense spending spree of 2013 now looked like it had hopelessly hamstrung the Chiefs, who at this point would just have to hope to stay afloat until cap space opened up in future years.

John Dorsey, however, is an NFL General Manager. And armed with few draft picks and a shoestring budget, he totally dismantled my expectations of what can be accomplished by a Chiefs team that knows exactly what it's doing.

Let's start with the free agent departures, because this part is astonishing. The Chiefs limited budget meant that they would ultimately have to wave bye-bye to left tackle Brandon Albert, starting guards Jon Asamoah and Geoff Schwartz, playmaker Dexter McCluster, run stopping extraordinaire Tyson Jackson, starting linebacker Akeem Jordan, starting free safety Kendrick Lewis, dynamic kick returner and dime safety Quentin Demps, and would eventually cut Pro Bowl corner Brandon Flowers. Whatever you think of some of the players individually, that is objectively a lot of talent to replace. Once these players left Kansas City, they all went to sign contracts with new teams for a combined $100 million. ($140 million if you count Flowers' new deal this past offseason.)

That's right. John Dorsey allowed $100 million in talent to walk out the door, with roughly a tenth of that in cap space with which to replace said players. It was impossible to imagine a world where the Chiefs emerged from this offseason stronger than they were entering it, missing this much talent.

So armed virtually no money, Dorsey's free agent signings were meager, but solid, it's crazy to see how much he built the team for 2014 (and 2015!) with so little:

Franchise QB Alex Smith was boxed in to a four year extension at a "middle class" pay rate for QBs.
Stud safety Husain Abdullah was re-signed.
Valuable reserve safeties Kurt Coleman and Daniel Sorensen were brought in, and Kelcie McCray was traded for by throwing impending-bust guard Rishaw Johnson at the Buccaneers.
Underrated starting linebacker Josh Mauga was ushered in by DC Bob Sutton.
Underrated interior passrusher Vance Walker was inked.
Nickel corner Chris Owens was signed, which paid dividends until the last month of the year.
Prototypical third down back Joe McKnight was given a chance.
OL Jeff Linkenbach and ILB Joe Mays did very little in limited action, but were signed for pennies on the dollar.
The one disastrous signing from this entire offseason of bargain bin shopping was guard Mike McGlynn, whom the Chiefs started at left guard for most of 2014, providing nightmares to any Chiefs fans who love to watch offensive line play.

Several of these players are still helping the Chiefs today in Abdullah, Sorensen, and Mauga.

Now, it is worth mentioning that the Chiefs' limited cap space arguably did cause them to lose out on free agent WRs Emmanuel Sanders and DeSean Jackson. But by otherwise refusing to make any ridiculously-structured, ultra-back-loaded contracts that would have saddled the Chiefs' cap in future years, the cap came mostly clean in 2015, allowing the Chiefs to pay studs OLB Justin Houston, WR Jeremy Maclin, and DE Allen Bailey bundles of cash in the coming year and still have close to $30 million in clean cap space in 2015.

However, it should be mentioned that John Dorsey was just getting started. Check out this draft class from 2014, even without a 2nd rounder due to Alex Smith:

Promising pass rusher Dee Ford in the first round.
Promising corner Phillip Gaines in the third round.
Electric playmaker De'Anthony Thomas in the fourth.
Starting linemen Zach Fulton and Laurent Duvarney-Tardif in the sixth round.
WR Albert Wilson and RB Charcandrick West signed as undrafted free agents, which is a stupidly ridiculous haul.

All of these players are contributing to the Chiefs now, significantly so, though Gaines and Thomas are battling injury.

It's worth summarizing for emphasis: With little cap space, $100 million in departing free agents, and no second round pick, John Dorsey made the Chiefs a better team in 2014.

Almost every team needs those splashy free agency signings to help put it over the top. But those quiet offseasons, where teams confidently stuck to the plan and didn't make any egregious errors out of impatience or impertinence, are just as important, and Dorsey aced it.

chiefzilla1501 · 12-25-2015, 04:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OnTheWarpath58

And with all that said...

If they don't win a playoff game - or two - or God forbid **** up and miss them all together somehow - it won't matter.

Competitive regular seasons should be the floor at this point. Winning consistently in January is the mark of a successful organization.

No problems debating that with you. We've disagreed a lot but you always keep it respectful. Like above.

You're right. Has Dorsey been the best negotiator? Did he take good advantage of his draft picks and the comp picks he brilliantly got? Is he banking too much on Alex Smith? Will his loyalty to every coach on staff pay off? I don't know. But those are separate issues to me. I sense those are the main issues you're hung up on.

I believed last year that Dorsey had an excellent offseason last year. And considering how many grenades I took, like I always do for some reason, I'm going to gloat a hit.

Red Dawg · 12-25-2015, 04:35 PM

Teams that win year in and year out have continuity. We should keep Andy and Dorsey as long as possible. I do hope they grab a young QB prospect this year. But getting rid of Smith after next season should not mean the coach and GM should go. Especially not Doesey who is well connected and respected in the NFL. I hope he stays for 20 years.

scho63 · 12-25-2015, 04:36 PM

Aside from building depth with many no name players, the greatest thing Dorsey has done is let "so called" talent walk and I see no one really doing anything great on other teams that we let go.

chiefzilla1501 · 12-25-2015, 04:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saccopoo

Considering that this is going to be our third straight winning season with Smith as our QB and what looks to be the second appearence in the playoffs in three years, I'd say we got a goddamn bargain considering what Smith signed for.

And for this system and what he's done with it, I would hardly consider Smith "middle of the road." Maybe the best QB in the NFL for what Reid runs and it's really taken two plus seasons to finally get this ship righted and playing to their potential. And that's still with a questionable receiving corps and a continually rotating offensive line that's starting two rookies (Morse and LDT) and a guy at RT (Jah Reid) who was discarded by what is currently the worst team in the NFL (Ravens).

I mean, the guy got internal organs ruptured he was getting hit so much and so hard last season playing behind what might have been the worst line in football while throwing to the worst receiving corps in NFL history. And he still got us to a winning season.

Smith has been a ****ing stud if you ask me.

Well, I'd lighten up on the praise. He deserves every bit of credit for being an effective QB this year especially given his weapons. But I hardly think reids system includes the defense basically scoring or gift wrapping scoring opportunities at least twice a game.

I hope like hell you're right. But I'm very cautious in my praise for now.

**RealSNR** · 12-25-2015, 06:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

This is too polite. Just call people out for being stupid.

Cp wanted jairus Byrd and DeSean jackson
Most bitched about not bringing back Albert and schwartz
Cp criticized the hell out of anyone who praised the last offseason for being conservative
Cp marginalized the value of comp picks
Cp all demanded a restructure of hali
And to boot, in their tantrum, most of the forum claimed last year's team would be lucky to win 4 games

Dorsey has made some missteps. But they aren't close to the missteps of the dumbass armchair qbs, most of whom call people out the loudest but then squeak a mouse fart when it comes to owning up to mistakes.

Dorsey was right to go light last offseason. We significantly cleaned up our cap situation. We earned a ton of comp picks. And we improved a lot of positions on the cheap that we could have spent a shitload of money on. And not panicking on dumbass restructures like Hali gave us leverage to negotiate an ultra friendly contract this year. Period.

Milkman made a post about this earlier.

"CP is stupid" is a popular thing to say around here because a few folks were in favor of certain moves that turned out to be bad.

Even if the percentage of people who believe that is only 10%... if they're vocal enough, all of a sudden "CP wanted ______" is the truth.

chiefzilla1501 · 12-25-2015, 07:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RealSNR

Milkman made a post about this earlier.

"CP is stupid" is a popular thing to say around here because a few folks were in favor of certain moves that turned out to be bad.

Even if the percentage of people who believe that is only 10%... if they're vocal enough, all of a sudden "CP wanted ______" is the truth.

I'm not shy about this one. I get called stupid a lot around here. To the annoying point where I don't even enjoy posting here anymore.

You can feel free to look up each of those topics and where I stood on these things. Not only am I criticized, I'm flat out gang tackled on those topics above with a rape stick. I enjoy arguing with people here and appreciate people who don't agree with me. At least, I used to. But lately it's gotten personal and I get called out for shit I said three years ago by people who don't own up to their own shit. See above. So yeah, I'm going to gloat about this one. I could just bump all these threads but I'm not gonna go there.

**The Franchise** · 12-25-2015, 07:57 PM

Pretty easy to call people stupid when you don't have an opinion yourself. Not talking about one specific person. Just the group of people who bash people for their opinions on players when they sit there with the opinion of "whatever *insert GM* does is fine with me".

NJChiefsFan · 12-25-2015, 08:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RealSNR

Milkman made a post about this earlier.

"CP is stupid" is a popular thing to say around here because a few folks were in favor of certain moves that turned out to be bad.

Even if the percentage of people who believe that is only 10%... if they're vocal enough, all of a sudden "CP wanted ______" is the truth.

Definitely a quick way for people to act like they were the only ones to see the light.

ThaVirus · 12-25-2015, 08:39 PM

Everyone who sticks their neck out there will be wrong on occasion. Even if it's something horrendously off the mark- who cares?

One time, during the beginning of the 2013 season, I complained that Jamaal didn't run hard enough. In retrospect it was probably offensive line issues but whatever. I felt what I felt and made the comment.

You know how many ****s I give about being wrong? Not a single one.

ThaVirus · 12-25-2015, 08:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

I'm not shy about this one. I get called stupid a lot around here. To the annoying point where I don't even enjoy posting here anymore.

You can feel free to look up each of those topics and where I stood on these things. Not only am I criticized, I'm flat out gang tackled on those topics above with a rape stick. I enjoy arguing with people here and appreciate people who don't agree with me. At least, I used to. But lately it's gotten personal and I get called out for shit I said three years ago by people who don't own up to their own shit. See above. So yeah, I'm going to gloat about this one. I could just bump all these threads but I'm not gonna go there.

Don't be a little bitch, bro. It's just words on a screen.

I enjoy reading your posts and appreciate the fact that you never get personal. So keep posting.

Saccopoo · 12-25-2015, 08:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ThaVirus

Everyone who sticks their neck out there will be wrong on occasion. Even if it's something horrendously off the mark- who cares?

One time, during the beginning of the 2013 season, I complained that Jamaal didn't run hard enough. In retrospect it was probably offensive line issues but whatever. I felt what I felt and made the comment.

You know how many ****s I give about being wrong? Not a single one.

O.city · 12-25-2015, 08:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ThaVirus

Everyone who sticks their neck out there will be wrong on occasion. Even if it's something horrendously off the mark- who cares?

One time, during the beginning of the 2013 season, I complained that Jamaal didn't run hard enough. In retrospect it was probably offensive line issues but whatever. I felt what I felt and made the comment.

You know how many ****s I give about being wrong? Not a single one.

good thing.

Amirite

**mlyonsd** · 12-25-2015, 09:03 PM

Dorsey knows his shit more than any Chief GM that I can think of.

**DaFace** · 12-25-2015, 09:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RealSNR

Milkman made a post about this earlier.

"CP is stupid" is a popular thing to say around here because a few folks were in favor of certain moves that turned out to be bad.

Even if the percentage of people who believe that is only 10%... if they're vocal enough, all of a sudden "CP wanted ______" is the truth.

Yep, it's a good point. Unless there's a poll that at least quantifies it, it's impossible to know what "CP wanted."

**SAUTO** · 12-25-2015, 09:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ThaVirus

Don't be a little bitch, bro. It's just words on a screen.

I enjoy reading your posts and appreciate the fact that you never get personal. So keep posting.

This

12-25-2015, 05:47 AM
Direckshun __ Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Springpatch Casino cash: $2033447	John Dorsey handled the difficult 2014 offseason unbelievably well. The Chiefs faced a difficult offseason following the 2013 playoff meltdown. After GM John Dorsey's spending spree in the 2013 offseason, the Chiefs had a half dozen premier free agents getting ready to hit the market, no cap room to sign any of them (or any incoming free agents of any renown), and no second round pick due to the Alex Smith deal. How do you make a team betterwhen you're set to lose so much talent and have so little resources to replace them? Now, I'm not an NFL General Manager, and y'all better be glad I don't run the Chiefs, because I must have ran three dozen simulations of that offseason for the Chiefs before it arrived, and every one of them had the Chiefs doing their damnedest to stay afloat replacing our departing players with free agents from the Salvation Army and midround draft picks. The intense spending spree of 2013 now looked like it had hopelessly hamstrung the Chiefs, who at this point would just have to hope to stay afloat until cap space opened up in future years. John Dorsey, however, is an NFL General Manager. And armed with few draft picks and a shoestring budget, he totally dismantled my expectations of what can be accomplished by a Chiefs team that knows exactly what it's doing. Let's start with the free agent departures, because this part is astonishing. The Chiefs limited budget meant that they would ultimately have to wave bye-bye to left tackle Brandon Albert, starting guards Jon Asamoah and Geoff Schwartz, playmaker Dexter McCluster, run stopping extraordinaire Tyson Jackson, starting linebacker Akeem Jordan, starting free safety Kendrick Lewis, dynamic kick returner and dime safety Quentin Demps, and would eventually cut Pro Bowl corner Brandon Flowers. Whatever you think of some of the players individually, that is objectively a lot of talent to replace. Once these players left Kansas City, they all went to sign contracts with new teams for a combined $100 million. ($140 million if you count Flowers' new deal this past offseason.) That's right. John Dorsey allowed $100 million in talent to walk out the door, with roughly a tenth of that in cap space with which to replace said players. It was impossible to imagine a world where the Chiefs emerged from this offseason stronger than they were entering it, missing this much talent. So armed virtually no money, Dorsey's free agent signings were meager, but solid, it's crazy to see how much he built the team for 2014 (and 2015!) with so little: Franchise QB Alex Smith was boxed in to a four year extension at a "middle class" pay rate for QBs. Stud safety Husain Abdullah was re-signed. Valuable reserve safeties Kurt Coleman and Daniel Sorensen were brought in, and Kelcie McCray was traded for by throwing impending-bust guard Rishaw Johnson at the Buccaneers. Underrated starting linebacker Josh Mauga was ushered in by DC Bob Sutton. Underrated interior passrusher Vance Walker was inked. Nickel corner Chris Owens was signed, which paid dividends until the last month of the year. Prototypical third down back Joe McKnight was given a chance. OL Jeff Linkenbach and ILB Joe Mays did very little in limited action, but were signed for pennies on the dollar. The one disastrous signing from this entire offseason of bargain bin shopping was guard Mike McGlynn, whom the Chiefs started at left guard for most of 2014, providing nightmares to any Chiefs fans who love to watch offensive line play. Several of these players are still helping the Chiefs today in Abdullah, Sorensen, and Mauga. Now, it is worth mentioning that the Chiefs' limited cap space arguably did cause them to lose out on free agent WRs Emmanuel Sanders and DeSean Jackson. But by otherwise refusing to make any ridiculously-structured, ultra-back-loaded contracts that would have saddled the Chiefs' cap in future years, the cap came mostly clean in 2015, allowing the Chiefs to pay studs OLB Justin Houston, WR Jeremy Maclin, and DE Allen Bailey bundles of cash in the coming year and still have close to $30 million in clean cap space in 2015. However, it should be mentioned that John Dorsey was just getting started. Check out this draft class from 2014, even without a 2nd rounder due to Alex Smith: Promising pass rusher Dee Ford in the first round. Promising corner Phillip Gaines in the third round. Electric playmaker De'Anthony Thomas in the fourth. Starting linemen Zach Fulton and Laurent Duvarney-Tardif in the sixth round. WR Albert Wilson and RB Charcandrick West signed as undrafted free agents, which is a stupidly ridiculous haul. All of these players are contributing to the Chiefs now, significantly so, though Gaines and Thomas are battling injury. It's worth summarizing for emphasis: With little cap space, $100 million in departing free agents, and no second round pick, John Dorsey made the Chiefs a better team in 2014. Almost every team needs those splashy free agency signings to help put it over the top. But those quiet offseasons, where teams confidently stuck to the plan and didn't make any egregious errors out of impatience or impertinence, are just as important, and Dorsey aced it.
Posts: 59,693

12-25-2015, 04:35 PM	#32
Red Dawg Going home eventually Join Date: Dec 2002 Casino cash: $1192858	Teams that win year in and year out have continuity. We should keep Andy and Dorsey as long as possible. I do hope they grab a young QB prospect this year. But getting rid of Smith after next season should not mean the coach and GM should go. Especially not Doesey who is well connected and respected in the NFL. I hope he stays for 20 years. __________________ If you're not first you're last!
Posts: 33,176

12-25-2015, 04:36 PM	#33
scho63 Politically Incorrect Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Scottsdale, AZ Casino cash: $-980000	Aside from building depth with many no name players, the greatest thing Dorsey has done is let "so called" talent walk and I see no one really doing anything great on other teams that we let go. __________________ *"The only difference between sex for free and sex for money is that sex for free costs you a WHOLE LOT more!"* ~Redd Foxx~ ~~2018 2019 2020 20212022 2023~~ 2024 Adopt a Chief - Clark Hunt and Brett Veach "The men who drafted Patrick Mahomes"
Posts: 55,130

12-25-2015, 07:57 PM	#37
The Franchise Most Valuable Villain Join Date: Dec 2006 Casino cash: $2065047	Pretty easy to call people stupid when you don't have an opinion yourself. Not talking about one specific person. Just the group of people who bash people for their opinions on players when they sit there with the opinion of "whatever insert GM does is fine with me".
Posts: 92,316

12-25-2015, 08:39 PM	#39
ThaVirus Searching.. Join Date: Sep 2007 Casino cash: $-1867631	Everyone who sticks their neck out there will be wrong on occasion. Even if it's something horrendously off the mark- who cares? One time, during the beginning of the 2013 season, I complained that Jamaal didn't run hard enough. In retrospect it was probably offensive line issues but whatever. I felt what I felt and made the comment. You know how many ****s I give about being wrong? Not a single one.
Posts: 47,054

12-25-2015, 09:03 PM	#43
mlyonsd Supporter Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Spink, SD Casino cash: $-2266238	Dorsey knows his shit more than any Chief GM that I can think of.
Posts: 39,481