I was sitting around tonight pondering this exact same question so I decided to take it upon myself to do a little research into the background of the Chiefs choice to replace Boomer Grigsby at FB, who by all accounts was not extraordinarily good at that position, but won over the hearts and minds of Chiefs Nation upon arrival in River Falls several seasons ago.

Just in case you were wondering, Arrowhead Pride also has a nice little spot up on Hoyte, giving us a look at some of his statistics (or lack thereof) with Dallas. So head on over there and check it out after you’re done here if you like.

Back to the topic at hand… Evidently the Chiefs decided Grigsby (a converted LB from Illinois State) wasn’t a good fit with new Offensive Coordinator Chan Gailey’s system (Hey! Wasn’t it supposed to revolve around the players??) so they chose to not pursue him when he received offers from several other teams this off-season, and went after Hoyte (a converted LB from NC State) instead.

To be honest, I really could care less about the whole Boomer Grigsby phenomenon. He is a nice guy with marginal talents on defense that is capable of helping out his team by playing on special teams and occasionally going out for screen pass or two.

That’s about it. All you Boomer loving fools can shout at me until you’re blue in the face about how amazing Grigsby is, but in reality, the Chiefs will not be hurt in any way by this move. He could have been Carl Peterson’s personal assistant or the team’s official towelboy and I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference other than the fact that they let him wear pads on gameday.

I’ve got nothing against the guy, as he made it a hell of a lot farther than I ever will in pro football, but I never bought into the hype surrounding the kid when he came out a few years back, so he really couldn’t expect much else from me after he signed with another team.

But once again, I digress… this is an article on the Chiefs new converted LB from a state-run university, so let’s get to it shall we?

According to the stats I was able to pull up from Yahoo! Sports, Hoyte has suited up for 22 games with the Cowboys, carrying the ball a whopping zero times for zero yards and zero touchdowns. He has however been the recipient of 3 passes for a grand total of 12 yards and zero touchdowns. I’m not a mathematician by any means, but I would venture to guess that with stats like those, Hoyte falls into the bottom 5 of every major statistical category known to mankind in relation to pro football. It’s just a hunch though, so don’t quote me on that…

Nevertheless, the Chiefs seemed hell bent on obtaining his services once Dallas made the excruciating decision to let him go late last week. I’m told they placed countless calls to the league offices to make sure they were first in line on the waiver wire, so no one else could get their hands on him. Meanwhile, teams from the rest of the league were scrambling to sign relative nobodies like Asante Samuel, Alan Faneca, and Bernard Berrian to mega deals, which left the Chiefs in prime position to scoop up Hoyte unnoticed. A perfectly executed coup if I’ve ever seen one.

But hey we’re used to this kind of free agent wheeling and dealing by the Chiefs here in KC. Making the big splash by signing a flashy free agent backed up by statistics galore and Pro-Bowl berths is for teams in New York, Los Angeles (wait… they don’t have a team), and Philadelphia, who have a voracious media contingent clamoring for blood every time they sit tight with their cash. The Chiefs prefer to bide their time and stick a toe (or two) into the pool once the big boys have gone home for the day.

Not that’s there’s anything wrong with that strategy of course. I mean, who wouldn’t want to sign a broken down WR like Javon Walker to a 6 year, $55 million dollar contract with $16 million in guaranteed cash? (thank you Al Davis) Or how about the bargain shopping Jets who dropped a cool $22 million in guaranteed money as a part of a 6 year, $42 million dollar deal with former Arizona Cardinals washout LB Calvin Pace? Not the Chiefs, and while my cynical side chose to come out and play in my earlier discussion on Hoyte and Grigsby, I can’t help but agree with the strategy employed here by the team.

In a perfect world, I would prefer a more balanced approach to the free agent market, but seeing the ridiculous contract numbers getting thrown this off-season would make me think twice about jumping into the pool head first too. We may all loathe Carl Peterson for taking his hardball stance when it comes to player contract negotiations, but in reality it has been very beneficial to the franchise in terms of our salary cap status, and if given a choice between possible mediocrity with no salary cap room and possible mediocrity with lots of salary cap room, I’m going to take the latter every time. It’s very rare that a team is able to come into an off-season and buy it’s way into a Super Bowl appearance these days, so building a team via the draft and signing a few key low to mid-tier free agents is crucial to the success of a franchise (see New England Patriots 2002-present).

That’s why I’m not going to go crazy if the Chiefs stay out of the headlines by not signing anyone major this off-season. As much as I would have enjoyed watching some of the high-end players that were available strap it on for my beloved Chiefs every week this fall, I understand all too well the cost of failure when it comes to signing high-priced free agents. And at this stage, that is the one thing the Chiefs can ill afford to do, as there is no room for error any more when it comes to the future of this franchise.

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