Kansas City Chiefs
This wasn’t a great offseason for the Kansas City Chiefs as the majority of the news surrounding them centered around off-field problems. Wide receiver Tyreek Hill was accused of injuring his child and some tapes were released that had some pretty bad audio on them.
The Chiefs have since barred Hill from team activities and the league is expected to take some action eventually. What made this look even worse on Kansas City was the fact they had just gone through the video release of Kareem Hunt shoving and kicking a woman on a hotel surveillance tape.
Hunt was released and is now with the Cleveland Browns but the Chiefs put themselves in this position by taking chances on troubled players. For example, Hill had been charged with hitting and choking his pregnant girlfriend before even entering the league and they still took a chance and made him a featured part of their offense.
In order to replace him — assuming he does get suspended — Kansas City drafted Mecole Hardman out of Georgia. He’s blazing fast but had just 60 career receptions. He’s hardly in line to be the difference maker Hill was and seemed like a reach where he was chosen. They did rebound with the Juan Thornhill selection at 63 though as he’s a nice piece.
Thornhill should start alongside veteran free agent pickup Tyrann Mathieu, although Kansas City did vastly overpay him just as they did the past year with Sammy Watkins and Anthony Hitchens. They also created a massive hole at pass rusher by cutting Justin Houston and trading away Dee Ford. They then gave up too much for Frank Clark to fill the void they created. On top of that, Clark has a domestic violence issue of his own as he was arrested in 2014 and kicked off the Michigan team. This shows they clearly learned nothing from their problems with Hunt and Hill.
Their best move may have been landing Emmanuel Ogbah for a backup edge rusher, but he won’t be enough to fix an already ailing defense. Add that to their tone-deaf approach to character concerns and this wasn’t a good offseason.
Grade C-