Reversing course: How these Chiefs moves forecast Kansas City’s plans for years to come

On a Division II college campus northwest of Kansas City, the Chiefs have returned to the back fields, early preparations for a team that’s once again considered a Super Bowl contender. And if you didn’t know any better, you’d marvel at the consistency here.

In the initial hour of their first training camp practice at Missouri Western State University, quarterback Patrick Mahomes drops back in the shotgun, scans the field to his right and whips a throw back to his left. The football falls into the lap of tight end Travis Kelce, as if Mahomes just somehow knew he’d be there.

We’ve watched this show before. These two have connected 400-plus times in games that count toward division and postseason championships, and thousands upon thousands more in plays that count for nothing. So, yes, the consistency is what hits you first.

But next? Aside from the most notable personnel on these fields— like Mahomes and Kelce, but also head coach Andy Reid and general manager Brett Veach — the Chiefs’ world has endured some significant change.

Self-inflicted change. And change that strategically contrasts with metamorphoses undertaken by their biggest competitors. Trust me, we’ll get to those pieces.

Mahomes’ presence has a way of fooling you into looking at this year’s Chiefs the same as last year’s Chiefs, the same as the 2020 Chiefs, same as the Super Bowl team the year before. They are not that. Although we can stop short of saying Mahomes’ world has been flipped upside-down, at least as long as Kelce shares his locker room, it has surely been tilted sideways.

More so than at any other point in his career.

“I would say,” Mahomes said, “we’re going to be different.”

He corrects himself.

“A lot different.”

At 26 years old, Mahomes has enjoyed, mostly to his own credit, a career marked by its stability. He is 50-13 as an NFL starter and has reached the AFC Championship Game every season. Why overhaul a thing?

But as his 10-year contract kicks in and then ages, change is not only inevitable, at some point it must be accepted and then eventually sought. The Chiefs accelerated that timeline this summer. The future is now, as they say, but it’s going to impede the present. And brace yourself: They’ll make a habit of this.

In Veach’s five seasons as general manager, this offseason has been his most revealing. Trade a star at the top of his position. Let another walk. Make one more prove he can do it all over again instead of giving him his payday. Whatever you do, avoid putting yourself in a salary-cap bind later to solve a problem now.

Fused together, those moves have divulged how the Chiefs plan to navigate the next decade with the richest contract in franchise history on their books.

Most simply: Embrace the long-term over the short-term. Embrace the long-term, even if at times it’s to the detriment of the short-term.

It’s most certainly a risk — such a risk, in fact, that the Chiefs moved from Super Bowl favorites in some Las Vegas sportsbooks to third on the list after they enacted this blueprint. That’s real.

After a series of offseason moves, the Chiefs are probably, even if only slightly, worse than a year ago, and very clearly worse than a year ago at one specific position.

But it’s a risk they had to take eventually. And better now than later.

“I think that we always want to operate in a responsible way,” Veach said after a camp practice this month, adding, “That’s the landscape of where it is now.”

The conversation with Veach was primarily about the construct of this offseason, a unique one for any NFL team, but particularly this one. They let safety Tyrann Mathieu, the most recognizable face of their defense, depart without a contract offer. They stunned the league when they traded top-of-his-class wide receiver Tyreek Hill. They didn’t budge on a multi-year contract offer to left tackle Orlando Brown.

In summation: The Chiefs’ three biggest decisions of this nearly-finished offseason all featured the same conclusion.

Pro Bowl players didn’t get a bag.

Those moves will alter the course of the year.

But they forecast the next decade, too.

Move it forward

The phrase trickled out in small bursts, initially in the social-media feeds of a few Chiefs players, before landing as more of an official team motto. It then picked up steam with fans, and eventually broadcasts and writers alike were using it for reference.

Run It Back.

Mahomes had signed his hefty contract extension earlier that summer, and defensive star Chris Jones had, too. The idea was as self-explanatory as it seems: A year after winning the franchise’s first Super Bowl in 50 years, nearly all of the key contributors were back for another go. Some took pay cuts just to preserve the roster.

That’s the comparable bar we can use, and the Chiefs are now residing at the opposite end of the spectrum. Three of their top four receivers from a year ago are gone. So is their leading rusher. In terms of playing time, six of their top-11 defensive players have exited, too.

From Run It Back to Move It Forward.

The next decade will be more about collecting lottery tickets, less about rushing all the cash to the register just to keep the band together. By gritting their teeth and letting some of their valued players walk — or sending them packing, in a few cases — while also passing on top-tier free agents, the Chiefs are signaling a willingness to take a small step back in the present if it means a longer stride toward the future.

It’s almost as though they are living on the edge by, ironically, choosing not to live on the edge at this very moment.

The Chiefs had a chance to be better than they were in 2021. Better than the team that lost to the Cincinnati Bengals in the AFC Championship Game in January. Better than, dare I say, the team that actually hoisted the Lombardi Trophy a year earlier.

How? Spend some dough.

Instead, they are worse set up for 2022, most obviously without Hill than than they were with him. Won’t find an argument here.

The ensuing tradeoff is the important piece in all of this — so if you’re in the make-it-make-sense crowd, you’ve come to the right space for an explanation.

If 2022 is your concern, and you would be nitpicking for a team still ranked a measly, um, third in those aforementioned Super Bowl odds, consider that the Chiefs are now better set up for 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026 and beyond. They are not tied to aging players, nor locked into deals with less secure ones.

Think the Dolphins are going to enjoy that contract when Hill is a couple years past 30? Hill might be the first casualty and initial example of the Chiefs’ broader blueprint, but he won’t be the last. There will be more. Some of the moves the Chiefs decide to make will be uncomfortable. Some will have to be uncomfortable.

That’s fine. The way it has to be. The presence of Mahomes means the Chiefs will always have a chance. That’s what they’re banking on here, and Mahomes has long shown himself to be a pretty good bet.

Just not a lock. Which is where the risk comes in. Packers fans might cringe at the strategy, given Aaron Rodgers’ lone championship in Green Bay.

If Mahomes follows that path, this will all be a failure — these guys don’t walk onto your roster often. There is no quarterback tree, and few better understand that than this city.

But the Chiefs don’t have to cash in this exact season — even though they still can — because they didn’t put all their, well, cash into 2022 being a make-or-break year. The opportunities will still be waiting in the future, so long as Mahomes is orchestrating the show.

That’s what this series of moves best suggests: The captain will remain, but his crew will change.

What we’ve learned over the past several months has been learned more acutely, sometimes painfully, by the players involved. Months ago, Mathieu described his heartbreak in not returning to Kansas City. His problem? He turned 30 before Week 1, and yet he still commanded a multi-year deal. He never was in the Chiefs long-term plans, and some of those who follow won’t be, either.

Brown seemed to have the best leverage over the Chiefs — who else on their current roster do you think can play left tackle? — yet the Chiefs sat across the table during those franchise-tag talks, leaned back in the chair and said, Try me.

The Chiefs anticipated having Hill on this season’s roster — and for future years, too — but once his asking price escalated around the timing of the NFL Scouting Combine in early March, so did the pace of the talks that would send him to Miami.

Nobody is immune, other than the quarterback.

Everyone is replaceable, other than the quarterback.

Veach started to explain: “When you have Pat Mahomes, and you have Travis Kelce ...”

That’s really all he needs to say. That’s the entire point.

We’ve analyzed each of the Mathieu-Hill-Brown decisions at length individually, but put together, they were motivated by a look toward a future that includes Mahomes being locked in contractually through 2032. The Chiefs are trying to extend the championship window through the duration.

After all, Mahomes gives them a shot for a decade.

Why pull the trigger on a short-term bullet?

How the Chiefs sit alone

There’s a particularly interesting part of this broader strategy of prioritizing the long-term over the short-term, and especially the timing of its implementation.

Many of the Chiefs’ peers opted for the exact opposite.

None were more telling than the Dolphins, of course, who literally took the other end of that Tyreek Hill deal. (When you sacrifice five draft picks just for the right to pay a player more handsomely than a wide receiver has ever been paid, it’s hard to make the argument you’re putting much stock into the long-term. The Dolphins are trying to win now — to hell with what it looks like in 2025.)

None were more relevant, though, than the team that overtook the Chiefs in those Super Bowl odds — the Buffalo Bills.

The Bills are Super Bowl favorites largely because of what they return, but also because of what they went out and got. And what they got, in a word, is better.

For this year.

Beyond? Worry about that when the time comes, apparently.

Buffalo handed out the largest free agent contract of any team this offseason .... to a 33-year-old edge rusher. Von Miller signed a six-year, $120 million deal that will afford him $51.5 million in guarantees. Sure, he’s a future Hall of Famer, likely an impact player, but the move will have long-term consequences at ages you don’t want to be playing NFL players not named Tom Brady.

In 2024, when Miller is 35 and playing a position that often values speed and bend, he will count $21.2 million against the Bills’ salary cap, a charge that would only increase if they were to cut him. His number is guaranteed to be on the books in some fashion or another through his age-37 season. It’s absurd, and it pushes the Bills toward all-in, win-or-bust mode.

The Bills aren’t an outlier. Thirteen free agents who will be 30 or older this season signed deals stretching at least three years, and 10 of of them landed with AFC teams.

The league zigged.

The Chiefs zagged.

They signed two players to multi-year contracts — safety Justin Reid and wide receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling.

Reid is 25. Valdes-Scantling, 27.

It’s not as though the Chiefs will sit out free-agency periods to come. In fact, an avoidance of bad contracts — or money tied to older players — actually ensures the Chiefs will be better positioned to be major players in free agency, if they so choose. They will just have be more careful where they choose to spend their money, because they can less afford to miss. Youth is more reliable in this league.

The difference is the Chiefs aren’t just targeting one team. The Bills are building a roster they think can take out Kansas City now. They see an opening, and they are trying to barrel through it. The Chiefs are trying to lay the foundation for a roster that can take out every team, every year.

Their offseason decisions don’t indicate a sight set on the 2022 Bills ... or the 2022 Bengals or the 2022 Chargers or the 2022 Broncos, for that matter.

It’s a vision for the 2023 Chiefs.

And the 2024 Chiefs.

And 2025 Chiefs.

And, well, count the rest yourself.

For as long as that vision includes No. 15.

This story was originally published August 10, 2022 at 5:00 AM.

Sam McDowell

The Kansas City Star

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Sam McDowell is a columnist for The Star who has covered Kansas City sports for more than a decade. He has won national awards for columns, features and enterprise work. The Headliner Awards named him the 2024 national sports columnist of the year.