The Kansas City Chiefs head into free agency with a number of holes to plug, including cornerback, offensive tackle and defensive line. This is because they have free agent CB Sean Smith, OT Donald Stephenson and DEs Jaye Howard and Mike DeVito hitting free agency. Their needs could change if they re-sign any of those players (Howard and DeVito seem like the only two they could realistically re-sign).
This year, unfortunately, is not a good year for those positions of need, according to Peter King of The MMQB.
"Free agency this year is going to be a great test of discipline by teams," King wrote. "This is not a good year to plug huge holes. The receiver group is weak, as is offensive tackle, cornerback and interior defensive line."
Those are probably the Chiefs top four needs so that sucks. All is not lost though. The Chiefs likely weren't going to be major players in free agency anyway. They have as of Monday about $19 million in cap space but want to re-sign LB Derrick Johnson, LB Tamba Hali, DE Jaye Howard and perhaps others. It's not as much money as you'd think.
The Chiefs roster is settling into a place that we should be happy about. They're more concerned about keeping their own talented players than chasing other teams players. Their own free agents are more of a sure thing. Look at the PFF list of top free agents and the list is littered with Chiefs players - No. 4 Tamba Hali, No. 6 Sean Smith, No. 14 Derrick Johnson, No. 32 Jaye Howard. I would much rather be chasing my own free agents than someone else's.