Ranking the most important 41 players on the Kansas City Chiefs, Part 1: 41 through 12

The offseason is nearing a close. Let's rank 41 (yes, 41) players to celebrate football's near-return!

I’ve said it many times, but it bears repeating… The NFL offseason is great for two things: In-depth film reviews and ranking stuff.

We’ve done a fair amount of both over the last month or two here. We’ve counted down the most fun moments of the Chiefs’ Super Bowl-winning 2022-23 season (check out the archives for all three articles, as there were a LOT of moments that needed to be talked about). We’ve looked in-depth at the film of Kadarius Toney as well as Trent McDuffie. We’ve explored the use of 13 personnel and even examined Travis Kelce approaching history.

But you know what we haven’t done, ever? An honest-to-goodness, genuine ranking of players on the Chiefs roster. I thought about this after talking with Chiefs Kingdom on Twitter about the linebackers, and I stand by the idea that it would be silly, pointless, and (most importantly) a whole lot of fun. There’s nothing like a good sports debate about where people stand.

So let’s rank some Chiefs players. For purposes of this exercise, we’ll rank 41 players in terms of “most important.” I’m going with that definition instead of “best” or “most valuable,” because the nature of positions and contracts make the best player or the most valuable player not always the most important player. Why 41? Well, I picked 40 because it meant I’d have to rank multiple non-starters and justify rankings of guys who may rarely (or never) see the field, which seemed hard and fun. Then, because of (cough) an error, I realized when I was over halfway done I’d actually ranked 41. Hence, 41!

So what does “most important” mean? It means, for what we’re doing today, how much that player matters in pursuit of a Super Bowl this season. Included in calculating that is the player’s ability (duh), position, depth around him, role on and off the field, and more. One way of thinking about this is asking the following question; If this player were to vanish into thin air tomorrow, how much would it harm the Chiefs’ chances of winning the Super Bowl?

Now that you know the criteria, let’s start ranking some dudes, starting with Blaine Gabbert at number 41. With each player, I’ll give a short blurb as to why they rank where they rank.

(Please know some of these are bound to make some of you mad or leave you befuddled, but I stand by where I landed. Sorry in advance. Also, this will be part 1 of 2, as my “short blurbs” became not-so-short too often for a single article. Alas)