FanHouse TylerThigpen

With Fantasy Football season ready to kick in high gear, FanHouse is here to preview each and every team -- one per day until we've done them all.

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Conclusion of the Butt Chiefs. That lousy 2-14 Chiefs squad from 2008 has nowhere to go but up from here, so they will no longer be the butt of everyone's joke. Remember that explosive offense for the NFC Champion, Arizona Cardinals. Well, former offensive coordinator Todd Haley assumes his first head coaching job this season in Kansas City. In other words, the Chiefs offense just became very relevant for fantasy football owners. Sure, Haley still faces a massive challenge in terms of personnel, but you can rest assured that this season, the Chiefs' offense will make plays just like Haley's Cardinals did.

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Jason Whitlock has reason to be concerned about Matt Cassel. He's the Chiefs new quarterback, doesn't have much in the way of experience, and will make nearly $15 million in 2009. Oh, and it's easy to be skittish when Cassel succeeds the likes of Damon Huard, Brodie Croyle and Tyler Thigpen.

Of the three, Thigpen probably has the most potential, but the new regime made it clear that he wasn't in their long-term plans when they traded for Cassel. But that doesn't mean Whitlock is convinced.

Specifically, he's worried that the Chiefs "have little interest in signing Matt Cassel to a long-term contract before the start of the season." There were rumors during draft weekend that the Chiefs gave Cassel a six-year deal ($36 million guaranteed). Untrue, it turned out.

Tony Gonzalez is the face of the Kansas City Chiefs franchise. Or was, at least -- according to Jay Glazer of FoxSports.com, and recently confirmed by the Chiefs, Gonzalez was traded today to the Atlanta Falcons.

Glazer's report states that the Chiefs gave up Gonzalez for a second-round pick in the 2010 NFL Draft.

Gonzalez asked for a trade in October, spurred on mainly by his desire to play out his career with a contender instead of the rebuilding and Tyler Thigpen-quarterbacked Chiefs. And apparently, even landing Matt Cassel from the Patriots wasn't enough for Gonzalez to be happy in KC, so the Chiefs acquiesced.

Last year at this time, Todd Haley and Matt Cassel were thousands of miles apart. Haley was the offensive coordinator for a Cardinals team who had yet to make themselves relevant in recent history. Cassel was the anonymous backup to NFL sweetheart Tom Brady in New England.

After both enjoyed very successful seasons in 2008, however, they became high-profile acquisitions by the Chiefs. Now working together in offseason conditioning exercises, head coach Haley has been extremely impressed with Cassel. So impressed, he's comparing him to a certain former quarterback of his. One who has garnered plenty of accolades in his career.

While other people were hung up on the logistics of the trade this past week -- which sent Matt Cassel to the Chiefs, among other pieces -- I was busy running through the fantasy fallout of the deal. You see, just because our season doesn't start for another six months doesn't mean you should entirely forget about fantasy football during the offseason.

This particular move helps the fantasy value of several people, while also hurting the value of a few others.

Because the NFL season never ends, we present our 2009 Offseason Roadmaps for front offices to navigate through the summer.

After winning just twice in 2008 and six times in two seasons, the Chiefs have decided to blow up the whole operation and start over. Scott Pioli and Todd Haley have replaced Carl Peterson and Herm Edwards, and the rebuilding process is currently underway.

Conventional wisdom suggests that such turnarounds might take a couple seasons, but after what the Atlanta Falcons and Miami Dolphins were able to accomplish, expectations are almost certainly higher -- which means that Kansas City could be just a few personnel moves from returning to the playoffs. The issue, of course. is which personnel moves will give Kansas City the best chance to make a postseason run in '09.

Commence housecleaning in Kansas City. The Chiefs won two games last season, hired Scott Pioli in January to fix the mess, and not long after, Herm Edwards was out of a job (although not for long).

And then, earlier this month, Kansas City hired former Cardinals offensive coordinator Todd Haley to replace Edwards, and today, the organization's new faces got down to the business of running off the old faces.

Cardinals offensive coordinator Todd Haley is this year's Jason Garrett. After playing a key role in the Cowboys' 13-win season in 2007, Garrett was a popular head-coaching candidate last offseason. Ultimately, he decided to return to Dallas, which, as it turns out, was possibly the worst decision he could've made. Jerry Jones doesn't disagree.

I'm pretty sure Haley won't be making that mistake. Two weeks ago, NBC's Cris Collinsworth predicted that the Chiefs would hire Haley, and Tuesday, the team got permission to interview him.

The Chiefs have the third-overall pick in the 2009 NFL draft. That's about the only benefit to going 2-14. Unfortunately, teams that win twice in 16 tries often have more needs than a handful of college kids can fix, however.

Luckily, the club hired Scott Pioli to oversee the rebuilding effort, and there probably isn't a person better qualified for the task.

Pioli comes from the Patriots where he, along with Bill Belichick, put together a roster that won three Super Bowls in the first half of this decade. And he'll now try to do the same in Kansas City.

Now that Scott Pioli has been named the Chiefs' new general manager, Herm Edwards can count on his fingers (and maybe his toes) the days until he's relieved of his head coaching duties.

Kansas City Star columnist Jason Whitlock fired up the Jon Gruden-to-KC bandwagon as soon as the Bucs canned him, although that changed after a brief conversation with Warren Sapp, who played for Gruden from 2002-03.

"He would do a fine job in Kansas City," Sapp told me. "Why not? The thing that would really be exciting for Gruden in KC is that he'd have a strong-armed young quarterback to work with. Hell, Tyler Thigpen damn near saved Herm Edwards' job."

Yes, Thigpen exceeded expectations in Kansas City but let's not just start making stuff up; the Chiefs won twice. All season. I'm pretty sure nobody's job was saved after losing 14 of 16 games.