Todd Haley frequently talks about the importance of improvement from the players already in-house. He wants to develop young players, specifically the defensive line and even more specifically guys like Glenn Dorsey. The numbers show that the Chiefs really do believe in this philosophy.
Mike Sando of ESPN.com has done some nice research on the percentage of players each NFL team has retained from week 17 of the 2009 season to now.
For the Chiefs, they're at an 84% retention rate, which ranks as the 7th highest in the NFL. The Vikings are tops at 94% and the Seahawks are at the bottom with 66%.
The league average is about 49 players returning. The Chiefs have 55 total. That includes 20 starters, 28 backups and 7 more that ended the season on IR.
So when Haley says he's expecting a lot of the guys in-house, he means it. You'd think a team that won four games wouldn't rank in the top ten of retention but the Chiefs are a young team. They have players that are going to make the leap from their second to third year and third year to fourth. Sometimes those are the biggest leaps a player makes in his career.
Haley sure hopes that's the case.