If we added the contract numbers of all the guys we've signed from other teams this offseason...

[Growl]

To say that Marty Hurney was a terrible GM is really a simplication of a number of factors some of which were under his control and others are firmly in Richardson's baliwick. Hurney was a good GM from 2002 through 2006. He may have inherited players like Smitty and Kris Jenkins but did a great job in the 2002 draft for example securing Pepper, Deshaun Foster and Will Witherspoon in the first 3 rounds. Then in 2003 he follows up with a great free agency picking up Jake, Davis, and Proehl among others. Throughout the years since, up until really 2009 he had hit and misses. Some good drafts and some awful ones like in 2005 where Davis was the only hit among a number of misses. Still most GMs have as many misses as hits in most drafts. And at one point in 2008 Hurney had more starters that we drafted than any other GM.

It is clear that 2009 was a disaster but not because of Jake but because we felt forced to extend him so we could keep Peppers for 1 more year. We totally crapped out on Peppers paying too much to franchise him and then not being able to trade him for anything. We totally misread his intentions to leave no matter what. Trading picks for Brown to try and find a DE and Edwards were complete misses and smelled of some panic to win now. While we missed on clausen in 2010 we did well with Lafell in the 3rd and Hardy in the 6th was a steal and until Gettis got hurt, which is no ones fault, he had all the markings of a very good receiver.

Up to this point Hurney was better than some and worse than others. When Richardson didn't fire Fox and gutted the team, he told Hurney to win with backups and scrubs. By the end of 2010 we were the laughing stock of the league and while we got the first pick which netted us Newton in 2011, we were so awful we had to overpay so players would stay. We had to outbid Atlanta for Johnson and Denver for Williams. Hurney was desperate to keep the playmakers that were left and he paid through the nose. He could have been okay if he hadn't given away so much guaranteed money. His worst transgression though was not knowing that the cap was going to be flat for several years and structured the deals assuming that by 2014 there would be plenty of money to pay everyone. He was wrong and it has cost us.

Then he compounded the problem giving huge deals to Beason and Stewart. Obviously he couldn't know that Beason was going to get seriously hurt but he surely could have made sure that if he was going to sign Stewart to a big deal, that Rivera and Chud would feature a running attack which featured Williams and Stewart. Instead we go to a majority of passes versus runs without changing the composition of the team to match the new philosophy. Not only did he pay too much for the talent we had but the talent didn't match the philosophy. We might even have been okay with all the mistakes if we had started off the 2012 season quicker and ended up with a winning season as frankly we should have done. In the end it was likely a good thing because Richardson did pull the trigger and while it is too early to tell, Gettleman looks to be an upgrade.

Hurney made mistakes and surely had his share of gaffs. But honestly he wasn't always bad and he is being solely blamed for bad contracts that were largely caused by Richardson's gutting the team and totally misreading the other owners resolve in crushing the union. Hurney wasn't a great GM and surely did his part to hurt the franchise, but blaming him for everything is way over the top.

And the article posted as evidence of Hurney's problems as well as the KC blog is only proof that most folks have only a very superficial understanding of what truly caused the problems we are currently in.

I have never seen anything that suggests Williams was given a lot of money to keep him from going to Denver. Even if that was the reason then the fact that we made the decision to do so is indicative of nothing but poor team building philosophy anyways. More than likely, Williams was not "overpaid" in Hurney's mind. He had to be kept because he was drafted. We have seen Hurney do it time and again-overpay for undeserving players to help keep our "family" atmosphere in tact. It's done nothing but strand us with heavy salaries on players whose output isn't worth that burden all the while preventing us from acquiring outside talent.

For a team that drafts on the mark consistently this is a passable philosophy, but suffice to say there is nothing superficial about our poor drafting record the past half decade.

[rayzor]

people act like hurney showed up 11 years ago but was already doing at least half the job of GM before he got handed the whole job.

he didn't just show up and take a 1-15 team to the superbowl...he helped make that 1-15 team possible.

[rayzor]

Guys it's been almost a quarter of an offseason all of Hurneys contracts are long gone by now and you just make yourself look bad by criticizing him.

all his contracts are gone? not sure if serious.

williams, stewart, beason....all contracts still on the books and untouched. mare...still on the books. charles johnson....still overpaid (we went way beyond what anyone else would have paid = overpaid).

It's gonna take a couple years to get all that crap worked out. the team is going to be feeling the repercussions of poor cap management and poor contract negotiations and misplaced attentions and loyalties for quite some time.