Kansas City Chiefs: Pros and Cons of Having D-Leagues in NFL
By trevb
What if the Kansas City Chiefs and NFL had a developmental league? Even though this will most likely never happen in the NFL, there are plenty of pros and cons with a developmental league as the MLB and NBA have proved.
With the developmental leagues in the MLB and the NBA, they prove as effective options for roster overdraft. Instead of developing players on the sidelines, teams can send their projects to minor leagues to experience real game situations and actually assess how they handle games and crunch time moments.
This can be very useful to many teams in the NFL even though it will probably never happen. Why? The cost to build these teams and their stadiums might be more than the profit they bring.
What if the Kansas City Chiefs could employ a farm system-like attribute to their organization? It would bring similar benefits from what the Kansas City Royals next door do. Since the Royals usually do not have big money to spend on top draft recruits, they usually invest in developmental projects that get playing time in the D-Leagues and then move up to the starting roster.
That is if they’re good enough.
This would be a major plus to the Chiefs recruiting. Any free agent, for example, C.J. Spiller, could see playing time in a minor league to get readjusted to football games. Since technically, he has not been playing a true NFL career since he did with the Bills years ago.
So, if the NFL began making developmental leagues, what would the benefits of it be? What would the cons of having D-Leagues be? Let’s head into a evaluation of the potential of NFL developmental leagues.