In Mel Kiper’s round of early grades for each AFC team’s approach to the NFL Free Agency period of the last week or more, he’s clearly not too impressed with the Kansas City Chiefs — or at least at the sum of the team’s efforts.
While Kiper seems pleased with the particular players they picked up — especially Brandon Siler and Steve Breaston — it wasn’t nearly enough, according to Kiper, for the total amount of money they had to spend:
The Chiefs had a lot of money to spend in free agency when the lockout ended. But as of right now, there just isn’t much to report here — which I don’t really understand. In his day, Gregg was an exceptional nose tackle, but swapping him out for Edwards now — considering Gregg’s age — is probably a wash. An upgrade such as Aubrayo Franklin would have been the route I went on the nose. Siler could regain his 2009 form with this coaching staff and is a great risk for the Chiefs to take as a starter next to Derrick Johnson.
Gilberry was very disruptive last year getting after opposing quarterbacks. Even if he just plays predominantly on throwing downs, Gilberry is a big part of this pass defense. Breaston is a nice addition who will be yet another complementary weapon to make Matt Cassel’s life much easier. And that is a strategy I very much commend, as I don’t see Cassel as the type of quarterback who will ever put his team on his back and take over games. He needs help, and Kansas City has given it to him. But as it stands now, Kansas City was just too passive in free agency for my liking.
Kiper wasn’t very kind to anyone in the AFC West except for the San Diego Chargers, who received a B+ for signing most of their best free agents along with Bob Sanders and Takeo Spikes. The Raiders and Broncos also received C- grades.