How Clark Hunt and the champion Chiefs went from mess to model ... for the entire NFL
Almost eight years ago, in the Chiefs’ darkest months, Clark Hunt sought stability. At the time, it was something like a stray cat seeking a mansion. Hunt wanted to be the Steelers, he said out loud, but in his private thoughts he had to know his team was more of a sad blooper reel.
The Chiefs, in what was then Hunt’s short time in charge, had become one of the NFL’s least stable franchises — and this is a league that includes both the Jets and Daniel Snyder.
The Chiefs sought their fourth head coach in six years. In four of the previous six seasons they’d won four or fewer games. Their front office and broader staff had been infected by awful morale, a well-intentioned attempt to modernize football and business operations gone terribly wrong.
Fast forward. Look around. The Chiefs are now the NFL’s most stable franchise — the league model, both for exploiting the NFL’s premium on quarterbacks and speed, and for a work environment that pulls people in, together, and up.
Fans once hired airplanes to fly banners over the stadium demanding the ouster of the general manager and quarterback; now they watch ring ceremonies and marvel at a Super Bowl flag.
Think about this. An NFL team’s most important football decision-makers are its head coach, general manager and quarterback.
The Chiefs have those men — Andy Reid, Brett Veach and Patrick Mahomes, each critical to last season’s championship — signed through 2025, 2025 and (this still feels weird to type) 2031.
Here’s another way to look at it. The Chiefs had seven players named to either or both of the top 100 lists put out by Pro Football Focus and the NFL Network this offseason: Mahomes, Tyreek Hill, Travis Kelce, Mitchell Schwartz, Tyrann Mathieu, Chris Jones and Frank Clark.
Schwartz and Mathieu are signed for two more seasons. Tyreek Hill is on for three. Jones and Clark are in for four. Kelce is signed for six more years and Mahomes (again, weird) 12.
What’s more: Schwartz has said he likes Kansas City so much he’ll retire here. Brett Veach challenged Mathieu to play well enough to force a contract extension. Kelce’s and Mahomes’ contracts essentially tie their entire careers to Kansas City. Hill, Jones and Clark have their own specific reasons to want to stay.
It’s not just them, either. Eric Fisher, the Pro Bowl left tackle, is here for at least two more seasons. Mecole Hardman, who is about to have a breakout season, is signed for three more. Same with Juan Thornhill, who along with Mathieu gives the Chiefs the league’s best safety pairing.
And Clyde Edwards-Helaire, who is going near the top of fantasy drafts for a reason, is the Chiefs’ property for up to five more seasons.
These timelines could be lengthened further still with potential franchise tags.
As league trends continue to value creativity and speed, and as the contracts for stars continue to erode the NFL’s middle class of players, the Chiefs have locked in an enviable core of top-shelf playmakers.
Remember when the Chiefs were such a mess that nobody wanted to sign here?
This is a point worth emphasizing: Not everybody could pull this off. Stability is hard. Consistency is elusive. Hunt and the Chiefs know this as well as anyone.
The Denver Broncos ruled the AFC West for what felt like forever — five straight titles from 2011 to 2015, culminating with the Super Bowl LI championship — but that was mostly tied to the existence of Peyton Manning.
The Chiefs have finished first or second in each of the last seven years. They won multiple division titles with different starting quarterbacks. They’ve had five different leading rushers over the last six seasons.
They’ve won with ball control and by forcing turnovers, they’ve won with screens and red zone defense, and now they’re winning with overwhelming offense and opportunistic defense.
These Chiefs haven’t been dependent on one person, in other words, or one style.
The list of things that had to occur for the Chiefs to go from a comical level of turnover to this much stability, to go from a thin margin of error that required perfection around the edges to a more artistic and adaptive style that can win in so many ways is longer than the Internet has space for.
Reid was the perfect coach for the perfect moment. Former GM John Dorsey helped deepen a roster that needed it, and Veach has taken that to another level. Alex Smith played the best football of his life here, and when the team decided someone else was the future, Smith reacted with uncommon professionalism and selflessness. A hundred more players and coaches, each with specific contributions.
One of the league’s slowest rosters is now one of its fastest. The business department has been modernized. The support strengthened. Trust was built, then honored, then protected. Players no longer have doubts about their coach’s or front office’s intentions.
But it all started with Hunt’s finest moment, in the Chiefs’ worst moment.
The family business had crashed into the mud. That happened on Hunt’s watch, and the praise is different for fixing a problem you yourself created. But it’s worth recognizing, especially now.
He ripped apart the power structure his father created — now the head coach, general manager and team president are all on equal standing, each reporting to the chairman.
He needed to be more involved. Someone did. But Hunt is more businessman than football man, even with a lifetime spent around the game. So it’s also important that he balanced his assertiveness to take on more football influence with a humility to act more as moderator than judge. His reputation is to challenge his people when they ask for something, but to provide it in exchange for a satisfactory explanation.
Maybe some of this would’ve happened anyway, organically. Steadiness is a defining personality trait for Reid, so in that way, Hunt convincing Reid to take the job in Kansas City was the heavy lifting.
Reid was so impressed with Hunt’s plan that he ghosted on the plane sent by the Arizona Cardinals, and canceled an interview with the Chargers. Think about that: The resurgence by the Chiefs from the misery of 2012 to Super Bowl LIV could have happened in the desert, or even with a division rival.
This is the place where Reid, Veach and Mahomes want to finish their careers. Together, they built the push that will help define their professional lives. This doesn’t just happen. Not every team in the league could’ve kept this together.
Talented people change teams all the time. People take promotions, or more money, or a situation structured in a way that they’ll get more credit. Here, at least so far, the only major football decision-makers to leave have chased objectively better opportunities (Chris Ballard to become the Indianapolis Colts’ GM, for instance) or been fired (Dorsey, for instance).
Veach could have been tempted to build his own shop, away from the coach for whom he began his career as an intern. Mahomes could have signed a more traditional four- or five-year extension, potentially hitting the open market again in his 20s. Jones could have pushed for a trade. Kelce could have demanded his position’s biggest contract. We could go on.
Instead, they are here, together, and committed to keeping it that way for years.
This doesn’t happen everywhere. The NFL is defined by turnover. The Chiefs are attempting to rewrite the rules, as they’ve rewritten the franchise’s history.
What a gift for a fan base that’s been taught for decades how hard success can be to achieve.
This story was originally published September 9, 2020 at 5:00 AM.