This season, future Hall of Fame tight end Tony Gonzalez finally realized something I’ve reconciled myself with long ago: it will be years before the Kansas City Chiefs are a playoff-caliber team, much less a Super Bowl team.

Gonzalez, 32, asked the Chiefs to explore trade possibilities after deciding the rebuilding Chiefs (1-4) would probably not reach championship caliber before time ran out on his career.

…”I know teams offered a third [round draft choice] and in the end, [team president] Carl [Peterson] made the asking price a second,” Gonzalez said, according to Foxsports.com. “I’m very disappointed that he didn’t go through with it after he told me he was going to try to make it happen. I’ve been around this league a long time, it’s a business. There’s nothing I can do about it. I was pissed off about it, but I’ll get over it. I won’t let it affect my play and my preparation.”

I’m usually hopelessly sentimental over players, to the extent that I want my favorite players to stick with my team even if it hurts the team’s chances to win. This, though, was a trade that really needed to happen. In the short term, losing Gonzalez would have left Dwayne Bowe as the only talented receiver, and turned an ugly season into a somehow uglier season. But it’s been made clear that this is a rebuilding year, and in order to rebuild, a team has to move its investments toward young players and draft picks. An extra third-round pick, if nothing else, would have allowed them to take a chance on a quarterback. If you’re a team, and you’re rebuilding, and you’re not willing to part with your top commodities, you’re treading water.

So instead, the Chiefs are left with a disgruntled team leader who, while still a great player, will substantially decline in value pretty soon. Add that to a perpetually-disgruntled running back who is dealing with legal troubles, and you’re left with two unhappy offensive weapons that they can’t manage to throw to or block for with much competence anyway.

Last month, I predicted that the Chiefs would lose 27 consecutive games. They proved me wrong the next week, but at this point I don’t think that prediction was overly dramatic.