INDIANAPOLIS -- Kansas City Chiefs general manager John Dorsey holds a busy dance card for the offseason. Kansas City has major defensive contributors without contracts for the 2016 season and holes in the roster that will dictate strategy for the NFL draft.
Unlike his first three seasons with the Chiefs, Dorsey begins the process with room to maneuver under the league's salary cap: he has $30-plus million in available cap space. He will need those funds if the Chiefs want to retain important defensive contributors like safety Eric Berry, cornerback Sean Smith, linebackers Derrick Johnson and Tamba Hali and defensive linemen Jaye Howard and Mike DeVito. Without new deals, all of those defenders will soon be available on the NFL free-agent market.
Dorsey acknowledged at the NFL Combine that discussions on new deals have already begun with reps for Berry and Johnson. "We've had really good discussions" so far with Berry's agent, Dorsey said. Although he'll be 34 years old late in the …