A year ago, Kansas City fans would have been very unhappy to see the team sit on its hands.

When Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid and general manager Brett Veach returned to work after yet another victory parade through downtown Kansas City in February, it was obvious that more than a winning attitude would be needed to win an unprecedented third-straight Super Bowl in New Orleans the following February.

During the 2023 season, quarterback Patrick Mahomes had the fewest passing yards per game (261.4), lowest yards per attempt (7.0), smallest touchdown percentage (4.5), largest interception percentage (2.3) and worst QBR (63.1) in his six years as the team’s starter.

The team needed an infusion of new talent — particularly at wide receiver.

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So shortly after free agency began, the Chiefs signed former Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Hollywood Brown, who has been a solid-to-good wideout over five NFL seasons, but hasn’t yet met the expectations that came with being selected by the Baltimore Ravens in the first round (25th overall) of the 2019 NFL Draft.

Then during the 2024 iteration of the draft in Detroit, the Chiefs moved up five spots in the first round to grab the fastest player at the NFL Scouting Combine: Texas wide receiver Xavier Worthy. At 5 feet 11 and 165 pounds, Worthy is nobody’s idea of a big-bodied wideout who can grab contested passes down the sideline or in the red zone — the kind of receiver many Kansas City fans expected the team to target.

Reid immediately sought to dispel any notion that Worthy is just a track star.

“[He’s a] good route runner,” he said of the wideout immediately after the pick. “He’s got good height; he’s just not very heavy. But I think you’ll see this toughness that he’s got, which jumped out at me. When you talk to their coach — [Texas] coach [Steve] Sarkisian and I are close — he kept talking about how smart he was. He’s got great football instincts, and he’s a tremendous worker. In this offense, you’ve got to be able to do that — and have those characteristics.”

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But not everyone was buying it — including Arrowhead Pride analyst Nate Christensen. Immediately afterward, he gave the pick a C+ grade.

There is no doubt Xavier Worthy is electric. He does solve the Chiefs lack of vertical juice. Between Hollywood Brown and Worthy, teams aren’t going to be able to play as heavy of man coverage. Still, I would’ve taken someone with size, and Worthy was a lot further down my board. On top of the trade up, I am just feeling whelmed.

Surely, more moves would be coming, right? In his final pre-draft press conference, Veach said plenty of good wideouts would be available in the draft’s early rounds.

“I think it’s one of the deeper classes,” he told reporters. “I think the good thing about the wide receiver position — this is typically every year — is they provide depth, really, one-five and there’s always pockets of players. I think there is a large group of receivers in the first 50 picks that we have great grades on.”

But after selecting Worthy, the team used its remaining picks on three offensive linemen, two defensive backs and a tight end. While all of these acquisitions addressed other positions of need, it didn’t quite feel like Veach’s previous crusades to rebuild the defensive backfield or the offensive line in a single offseason.

Then on Thursday night — almost exactly one week after Worthy’s selection — the Los Angeles Chargers signed wide receiver DJ Chark to a one-year contract worth up to $5 million. On Friday morning, the Buffalo Bills signed veteran wideout Chase Claypool to a one-year deal — and then on Friday afternoon, the Miami Dolphins signed Odell Beckham Jr. to a one-year, $3 million contract that could pay him $8.25 million.

Kansas City fans have identified all of them as players who could help the Chiefs. All are veterans with experience on multiple teams. All were acquired inexpensively. And all will be playing for AFC rivals in 2024.

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So it’s easy to understand why some Chiefs fans might be worried. While Brown and Worthy are almost certain to help the team, it’s fair to ask if they can do enough to bring the Kansas City offense back to its previous standard. For the six seasons preceding 2023 — including the final year that Alex Smith was the team’s quarterback — the Chiefs ranked in the league’s top five in either points or yards.

But many fans are taking these latest wide receiver signings in stride. In previous seasons, similar moves would have generated a storm of controversy among Kansas City fans. In comparison, reactions to these acquisitions have been like ripples on a quiet pond.

And that might be the more appropriate reaction. In 2023 — his fifth season as the team’s defensive coordinator — Steve Spagnulo finally got the performance he wanted from his unit, which ranked second in both points and yards allowed. While the defense sniffed that kind of success during coordinator Bob Sutton’s 2013 and 2014 seasons, last year’s squad produced results that haven’t been seen in Kansas City since the early 1990s.

The team’s offseason moves have reflected that success. Defensive tackle Chris Jones was signed to a long-term contract. Most of the defensive linemen around him are returning. No one will deny that L’Jarius Sneed was one of the secondary’s most talented players, but there is so much depth among the defensive backs that we might not even notice his departure.

It may be that acquiring Brown and Worthy won’t be enough for the Chiefs’ offense to return to its recent glory. But as the team showed last season — and in the five that preceded it — it doesn’t have to be elite on both sides of the ball to contend for (and win) a championship.

That’s one of the reasons that Reid is now the only coach in NFL history to hold the franchise record for victories with two different teams. He understands that things always change — and there’s always more than one way to win.

Especially with Mahomes at quarterback.