[dropcap style=”flat” size=”4″]A[/dropcap]t the beginning of 2018, it seemed that the top dog in Kansas City sports was already set. The Chiefs ended their season on a whimper, losing in the first round of the playoffs to the Tennessee Titans but had plenty of young talent to bolster an already top notch core.
The Royals, on the other hand, seemed to be on a death spiral. After barely missing the playoffs the previous year and set to lose 2015 championship members Lorenzo Cain and Eric Hosmer, the team seemed destined for another 30 year drought that would once again cripple the hearts of baseball fans in western Missouri.
In professional sports, however, two months is a mighty long time. One might even say big news is always “lurking around the corner”, but what is obvious, two months into 2018, is that Clark Hunt, Andy Reid and Brett Veach have clouded the Kansas City Chiefs in a deep fog of failure. The Chiefs on Friday, Feb. 21 agreed to trade Marcus Peters to the Rams, reportedly for draft picks. Without hearing from the men who made this decision, the explanation that makes the most sense is one lacking in guts, ambition, commitment to realism and most importantly, long term success.
Marcus Peters was a hot head who cost the team at crucial moments last year, but he also is one of the best young defensive players in the NFL. Peters plays one of the most important non-quarterback positions in football, creates more turnovers than anyone else in the league, and turned 25 years old in January with a year left on his rookie deal with up to three more years of club control. He is the dream for a General Manager trying to build a great secondary, but for the Chiefs, his looming contract negotiations and higher price were too much to keep him on.
On the flip side however, the Royals did eventually lose Hosmer and Cain, but it has become more and more apparent that General Manager Dayton Moore may actually have a method to his perceived madness. Losing two of the biggest offensive and defensive producers for the team is a big negative on paper, but what the Royals now understand is the keys to future wins.
This coming season may be rough around the edges as the team adjusts to a very different roster, but the upside from young talent is unbelievable. With outfielder Jorge Soler finally coming up from the minors again and a soon-to-be all-star in Whit Merrifield, who the team plans to support fully for the next few years, it’s clear the Royals haven’t lost sight of the steps it took to win a title in 2015. By building up a young core over a long period of time, the Kaufmann faithful were able to see why spending money early works when it means you get massive returns in the form of a World Series trophy.
For some reason, this just doesn’t work for Chiefs management.
The Chiefs franchise is becoming a classic case of what not to do with a title contending team in the offseason. As reported in the Kansas City Star, Clark Hunt clearly only cared about holding out for the cheapest option for Marcus Peters when he should be looking to bolster his squad in hopes that the Chiefs, god forbid, go past the first round of the playoffs.
It’s this kind of cheap, backwards leadership that hurt the Tennessee Titans in the 2000s and kept them out of the playoffs from 2009 to 2017 by wasting Vince Young’s prime years and not building around a possible league MVP. The Chiefs need to learn from these mistakes and also from how the Royals completely turned around their meandering team by spending money in the right way.
All of this leads to the most important question of all: Is Lamar Hunt willing to do what it takes to win a trophy? Because if money is all that Hunt cares about, and if he really considers himself to be a top notch businessman, then he should know that the costs of winning a title far outweigh the immediate costs of supporting a Lombardi hopeful.