Arrowhead Pride
The Kansas City Chiefs’ bye week is an excellent time to take stock of where the team now stands. Here’s what I’ve been thinking this week.
It’s unfortunate. The NFL’s trade deadline happened right after the team’s 28-21 road loss to one of its fiercest AFC rivals: the Buffalo Bills. This — along with the team’s unexpected 5-4 record — amped up everyone’s expectations about what general manager Brett Veach needed to do. And to make things even worse, the team’s fans now have a whole extra week to get themselves worked into a lather about what they see as a deliberate lack of action at a critical moment.
But it was never likely the Chiefs would make a significant trade. The team definitely has roster needs to address, but has few resources available to meet them. As our Jared Sapp noted in his “Arrowhead Pride Mailbag” column two weeks ago, the team is already going to be $30 million over the salary cap in 2026 — and that’s with only 35 players under contract. That means the team will need every draft pick it can get to bring young, inexpensive players onto the roster. And it had just $3.3 million in cap space with which to work. That’s enough to deal with the team’s current commitments through the end of the season, but it leaves little for anything else.
A significant part of this cap space problem is from the relatively large number of players the team now has on its Reserve/Injured and Reserve/NFI lists. These 10 players are now occupying $10.1 million in cap space.
For the rest of it, though… Kansas City got into this situation on its own. Based on what we now know, the deal for cornerback Kristian Fulton was a mistake. So was last season’s trade for defensive end Josh Uche — and just before this season started, releasing defensive tackle Mike Pennel.
It’s reasonable to disagree with decisions like these. But once they’ve been made, we shouldn’t be mad that Veach passed on making a trade. Giving the New York Jets a third-round pick (plus $1.6 million in 2025 salary) for running back Breece Hall? Spending a third- or fourth-round pick (and $1.3 million) to get Dre’Mont Jones from the Tennessee Titans? Given the Chiefs’ circumstances, those deals were just too pricey.
We can expect Kansas City to make some other moves. But those will be for players being waived by teams whose seasons have become hopeless. (This is how the team acquired Terrell Suggs in 2019.) These players will be significantly less expensive against the cap — and, of course, won’t require giving up draft picks.
Since Sunday’s loss to the Bills, some have suggested that Kansas City’s season is over — that there’s no way the team can recover from its 5-4 start.
By looking at modern NFL history, it’s...
