This was not the year to have the No. 1 overall draft pick. Eric Fisher is a nice tackle, but Kansas City Chiefs chairman Clark Hunt admitted his team bottomed out a year too late.
"At the end of the season, I certainly had those thoughts," Hunt said to The Kansas City Star's Adam Teicher. "I was like, 'Why could this have not been last year when there were the quarterbacks sitting there (and) we had a need at the quarterback position?'
"When we were able to pull off the trade on Alex Smith, really for me that issue went away. We ended up getting a first overall quarterback. He just happened to have been taken (eight) years ago."
The Chiefs are confident though and were active in free agency with the signing of tight end Anthony Fasano, receiver Donnie Avery, defensive lineman Mike DeVito, cornerbacks Sean Smith and Dunta Robinson and backup quarterback Chase Daniel. They kept receiver Dwayne Bowe and offensive lineman Bryan Mattison.
The Chiefs have placed a lot of faith in Smith. San Francisco 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh revived Smith's career in 2011 before Smith lost the job to Colin Kaepernick in 2012. We don't know if Smith will be as efficient sans Harbaugh.
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"We didn't have to draft somebody to come fill a hole here or there," Hunt said. "We were able to take the guy John Dorsey thought would be the best for the Kansas City Chiefs in the long run.
"So, actually, it turned from being a little bit of a negative to very much of a positive because we were going to be able to get a player who would help us not only this year but down the road."
The Chiefs made the best of the situation and are in a much better position than in 2012. But Smith and Fisher still don't equal Andrew Luck or Robert Griffin III.
Follow Kareem Copeland on Twitter @kareemcopeland.