Kansas City Chiefs

Kansas City Chiefs: Rebuilding, reloading or caught in between?

Updated Apr. 26, 2022 7:07 p.m. ET

By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports Columnist

Remind me, what do they call it again? You know, when an NFL team either trades away some of its most talented stars for draft picks, lets them leave in free agency or both?

Oh yeah, that’s right — rebuilding.

Now rebuilding, in the NFL lexicon, is the diametric opposite of "win now." And the Kansas City Chiefs say they are trying to win now, which shouldn’t necessarily be a surprise given they’ve won 50 games over the last four years.

But, while they would likely adamantly protest otherwise, certain aspects of the Chiefs’ behavior gives them the unmistakable look of a team that’s trying to at least somewhat rebuild, even with Patrick Mahomes at quarterback and just a couple of terms into a decade-long whopper of a contract.

So then, what on Earth is going on in the shadows of Arrowhead, that rare place where four straight trips to the AFC Championship Game and one Super Bowl title somehow still feels like underachieving?

Chiefs could be wasting Patrick Mahomes' prime

Nick Wright speculates as to whether the Chiefs are approaching rebuild territory and what they need to do to capitalize on Patrick Mahomes' prime.

First, just to show this column hasn’t completely lost the plot, let’s be clear the Chiefs aren’t undergoing a full-scale rebuild, of the burn-it-to-the-ground-and-see-what-grows-from-the-wreckage variety.

They’re not about to ship Mahomes off to the Carolina Panthers. They’re not looking to shed Travis Kelce’s salary, with nothing more than a couple of third-rounders coming the other way. There is no tanking about to happen.

Yet there is no getting around the fact that this will be a very different kind of draft and a very different kind of season for Kansas City, which is priced at +900 with FOX Bet ahead of the 2022 campaign, the third-best odds in the NFL.

The Chiefs will have a veritable haul of 12 draft picks, including two in each of the first four rounds.

"We are building through the draft," general manager Brett Veach told reporters last week.

Don’t look now, but that’s what the Jacksonville Jaguars said last year, and are doing so again.

For the first time in the Mahomes era, the stud QB won’t have the speedy and elusive Tyreek Hill to throw to. For the first time since 2018, the defense won’t have Tyrann Mathieu badgering his way to productive output in the secondary, while cornerback Charvarius Ward and high-volume safety Daniel Sorensen also departed through free agency.

Incoming signees JuJu Smith-Schuster, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, and Justin Reid have done little to convince anyone that the Week 1 roster will be as strong as the one that ended last season.

"Just because you trade away a great player doesn’t mean we’re in a rebuilding mode by any means," Veach said. "It just means we’re going to find a new set of resources, and we’re going to try to be aggressive." When you have Pat Mahomes, we’ll be wired to go after it every year."

We are inclined to give the Chiefs the benefit of the doubt on their dealings because of their recent track record. They plucked Mahomes at No. 10 in a draft where Mitchell Trubisky was taken second overall. They later convinced him to commit all the best years of his career to the franchise at $45 million per year in a world where Derek Carr is now worth $40.5 million.

They got Hill as a fifth-rounder and watched as he became one of the most feared receivers in football. They saw Kelce play a part in redefining the tight end position. They clearly know what they’re doing. But that goodwill aside, it would be a major stretch to suggest they’ve gotten better this offseason. They haven’t.

Is K.C.'s Super Bowl window closed?

The Chiefs will be part of a loaded AFC West that features four Pro Bowl quarterbacks, which prompted Marcellus Wiley to decide if the Chiefs' Super Bowl window has closed.

The Chiefs are still very good, but they’re not as good as the group that trudged off the field after succumbing to the Cincinnati Bengals’ spectacular comeback in the AFC Championship.

What they do have, however, is more flexibility. Locking in Hill on huge money and doing the same with Mathieu would have surely shortened the window of contention with this core, given that certain salary cap gymnastics are always going to be necessary due to Mahomes’ huge deal.

As things stand, going after the right free agent remains feasible — and Deebo Samuel’s name keeps floating around — although if Veach was prepared to spend in that range he’d have probably just cut a deal with Hill.

It is important to see the Chiefs' developments for what they are, which is trying to get the best of both worlds. They are operating with an eye on the future while trying to at least hold ground in the present.

There is no question they have extended the timeframe on being among the elite. They’re less likely to have to blow it all up at some point over the next few years. They will be there, in the mix, just like they have been. They’re not going to fall off a cliff, certainly not for a long, long time.

But this is still kind of a rebuild, albeit a deluxe version of it. The Chiefs will still be winning a lot of games, and they’ll be where you expect them to be come playoff time. Yet the issue with Andy Reid’s team hasn’t been in getting close. It has been about getting over the final hurdle.

Has making these moves increased the number of opportunities Kansas City will get? Almost certainly. But has it also slightly lowered their prospects of winning it all this year or next?

Only time will tell.

Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider Newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.