What Went Right
The Chiefs re-signed Eric Berry. It's difficult to imagine the Chiefs realizing an enormous amount of surplus value on the six-year, $78 million deal Kansas City gave its star safety to stick around for years to come. Berry will get $42.5 million over the first three years of his contract, which blows away the safety market. It's a reminder of how leverage and cost-controlled years work. Harrison Smith, who was one year from free agency and could have been franchised the following season, got $28.8 million over the first three seasons of his deal. Tyrann Mathieu, who is nominally a cornerback when healthy, got up to $32.5 million. The Dolphins gave Reshad Jones $33 million over the first three years of his new contract.
The Chiefs realistically didn't have the ability to franchise Berry for a second time, given their cap situation, so they had to pay over the odds to keep him. Berry wouldn't have cost anything close to this after the 2015 season, and the Chiefs are paying for a 2016 campaign in which Berry was one of the best defensive backs in the league. Because he's turning 29 in December, this is almost certainly an overpay.
And yet, how do you not re-sign Berry if you're the Chiefs? He's been a first-team All-Pro three of the past four seasons, with that streak interrupted only by the combination of a high ankle sprain and Hodgkin lymphoma, the latter of which Berry beat into remission. Berry's in the prime of his career, beloved in Kansas City and playing at a Hall of Fame level. If you're ever going to overpay a non-quarterback ...
They handled the Dontari Poe situation well. On the other hand, the Chiefs saved some money by reading the market effectively on Poe. Kansas City didn't lock up the defensive tackle to a long-term deal, allowed him to play out his fifth-year option and then didn't slap Poe with the franchise tag, which would have guaranteed the Memphis product $13.8 million on a one-year contract. Poe ended up finding only a one-year, $8 million deal with the Falcons. The Chiefs managed to fill their ensuing hole at nose tackle by signing Bennie Logan to a similar one-year pact.
They anticipated the market in locking up Laurent Duvernay-Tardif. Duvernay-Tardif, 26, gets a lot of novelty attention as a French-Canadian medical student who also happens to play guard in the NFL. Lost in the shuffle is that he has emerged as a real talent, forming one of the better right sides of a line in football alongside 2016 free-agent signing Mitchell Schwartz.
Duvernay-Tardif was a bargain as a sixth-round pick entering the final year of his rookie deal. The Chiefs could have waited to sign him to an extension, but they rightly saw that the guard market was about to skyrocket in free agency and acted accordingly. In February, they locked up Duvernay-Tardif with a five-year, $42.4 million deal that will pay him $26 million over the first three years of his deal. That's less than the Broncos are giving Ronald Leary ($27.3 million) and significantly below what the Browns handed to top free-agent Kevin Zeitler ($38 million). It's also what the Chiefs did by signing Schwartz last year; the $19.8 million Schwartz will bring home over the first three years of his deal isn't in the same ballpark as the $29.5 million Rick Wagner picked up from the Lions, and Schwartz is the better player.
What Went Wrong
The Chiefs went all-in for Patrick Mahomes II. I already wrote about Mahomes and why he might have his best chance of succeeding in Kansas City by virtue of Andy Reid, who has made useful quarterbacks out of far less talented passers in the past. It's too early to judge Mahomes as a prospect, and it will be for years. You can understand why the Chiefs would go out of their way to try to find their quarterback of the future before they have a blank slate under center too. General manager John Dorsey was in Green Bay, where he was the director of college scouting when the Packers chose Aaron Rodgers in the first round of the 2005 draft despite the presence of Brett Favre on the roster. That worked out OK.
Like Mahomes, Rodgers had question marks, as Bob McGinn documented at the time. The biggest difference between the two, at least right now, is what it cost to get them. Rodgers was taken with the 24th pick in the 2005 draft. Despite suspecting that Rodgers was a franchise quarterback and knowing that he had been in line to go No. 1 overall, general manager Ted Thompson stayed put and didn't trade away multiple first-rounders. He grabbed Rodgers with the pick he held heading into the draft weekend.
Had the Chiefs stayed put and grabbed Mahomes at No. 27 overall, drafting a quarterback would probably have been something for the "What Went Right" section. Instead, the Chiefs moved from 27 to 10 by trading away their third-round pick (the 91st selection) and a juicy 2018 first-round pick. By Chase Stuart's draft value calculator -- even if we assume the Chiefs make it to the second round of the playoffs and finish with the 27th pick again -- the haul Kansas City sent to Buffalo was worth 33.1 points of draft capital. Dorsey basically sent the equivalent of the first overall pick (34.6 points) to the Bills to nab Mahomes.
The margin for error is a lot lower with the first overall pick than it is with pick No. 24. You have to be far more confident that the selection is going to turn into a superstar, and it's unlikely that the Chiefs should be as confident as they are. Dorsey has done excellent work during his time in Kansas City, but even great general managers get fooled and make the mistake of trading up. Remember that Ozzie Newsome once moved up from 41 to 19 by sending a future first-round pick to the Patriots in order to draft Kyle Boller. (The Patriots used Baltimore's first-round pick the following year to draft Vince Wilfork.)
It's also possible that the Chiefs end up paying even more than they assume. There's no reason to think Kansas City will decline next season, but remember those 2005 Packers? Green Bay had been the picture of stability under Mike Sherman, posting five consecutive winning seasons and four consecutive trips to the playoffs. They had a franchise quarterback in Favre. There was no reason to think the Packers would dramatically decline ... and they went 4-12. Sherman lost his job. Nobody would have batted an eye if the Packers had traded their 2006 first-round pick to move into the top half of the 2005 draft and grab Rodgers, but it would have cost them the fifth overall pick in the 2006 draft, as opposed to the late-first-rounder we all would have expected.
If Mahomes works out and turns into a star, none of this matters. The problem, of course, is that we aren't sure Mahomes will work out. Reid qualifies as a quarterback whisperer, but the same argument works against trading up, too; if Reid can work with any quarterback, the Chiefs might very well have been better off drafting a quarterback in the third round and letting Reid work with him while using their first-round pick on a wide receiver or defensive lineman. This is a very risky move from a very stable franchise.
What's Next?
Look into Sam Shields. NFL teams can never have too many cornerbacks, and while the Chiefs have a star on one side of the field in Marcus Peters, it wouldn't hurt to take a flyer on a veteran to compete with Phillip Gaines and Steven Nelson at corner. Dorsey scouted Shields in 2010, when the Packers signed the Miami product as an undrafted free agent and discovered a gem. If Shields is physically able to play after suffering a concussion last season, the Chiefs would do well to look into the former Pro Bowler.
Grade: C+