Being explosive while relying on one trick allows the D to scheme to take away that trick. It hurt that there was nothing after Kelce and Hill.

Now, it is more cogs in the machine. As long as the engine, Mahomes, is running fine then everything else is replaceable and interchangeable. Being able to grind clock and wins when needed is a good thing. If we had a quick strike O in the super bowl, the Eagles probably beat us.

It'd be nice to have both facets is the point.

Hopkins: I want a stable management, a QB who loves thr game, and a great defesnse,

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...great-defense/

They still lead the league in explosive plays last season IIRC.

So I mean, sure they don't have Tyreek. Clearly, they did fine without him?

"OK, Dhop, for that you're gonna have to take about half your salary".

"Ok, we good"?

Sure and a lot of that is scheme, if you watch how teams play us they are not scared of being beat deep like they use to be. We are much more of a ball control passing team than an explosive big play team these days.

The WR room significantly underperformed, particularly in scoring TDs (13).


What happened was McKinnon went off in the second half of the season, scoring 10 TDs and snaring 512 yards receiving on the season, making up for JuJu falling off, and the WRs in general struggling to get into the EZ (except for Hardman). And no, it's not normal for RB2s to go 512/9.


Opposing defenses simply didn't account for McKinnon becoming a WR out of the backfield.


That won't be the case in 2023. Opposing DCs will make adjustments and McKinnon won't be as effective.


Toney has played more than 10 games in a season just once between college and the NFL over 5 seasons, due to injuries. He averaged about 25 yards/game receiving. He's going to have to more than double that in his new role as WR1. But now he'll be facing the CB1 of every defense, not the CB2/3/4. However, if he continues to have injury issues, he may not break 500 yards.

Skyy had just one game in which he caught more than 4 balls for more than 35 yards (5/64). He had 11 games in which he caught 1 ball or less, and only 3 games in which he caught more than 3 balls. And it wasn't just because he was buried on the depth chart, or just because Pat's aim was off occasionally.


Rice, based on Andy's history since he came to KC, will probably see about 50-60 targets this season, assuming all goes well in preseason. Assume he catches about 66% of them. That'll be around 450 yards, and that's probably in the ballpark for him in 2023.


Richie is more than likely rotational depth, and it's his first season in Andy's offense. He's had injury issues recently, but let's pretend he plays all 17 games, or at least 90% of the season. He might be good for about 300-400 yards, and I'll go out on a limb here and say 25 1st downs, which is really more important the yards for his role.

“What I want is stable management upstairs (CHIEFS). I think that’s something I haven’t really had the past couple years of my career coming from Houston and then to Arizona. I’ve been through three or four GMs in my career, so a stable management (CHIEFS). A QB who loves the game, a QB who brings everybody on board with him and pushes not just himself but everybody around him (CHIEFS) . . . and a great defense. A great defense wins championships. (CHIEFS)”

Looks like he wants the Chiefs

It's really not Richie's first season in Andy's offense though. He played for Mike Kafka last season so he has a handle on the terminology and probably the reads.

Sure.

But opposing DC's made adjustments to Tyreek as well.

It's the name of the game. Punch, counter punch. Punch, counter punch.

I swear, all we ever hear is "draft and develop" "do like NE, we wanna be a dynasty like Belicheck".

Well......here you go. This is how you're gonna have to do that in a salary capped league.

New Englands best offense was not drafted and developed lol.

Again, ok.

Did the scheme leave?

I get it. however, do you think Kafka installed as advanced an offense as Andy's, or is it more likely he had to dumb it down for dipstick Danny and the JAG WRs on his roster?


My guess is the latter.

It was about getting value. Not overspending, finding value where others may not etc.

So yeah...

First of all, and perhaps most importantly, I NEVER, ever, said "do like NE."

I've always said, "we aren't NE; we aren't based on a top-5 defense and a patchwork offense. The NFL has changed (in large part because of Andy Reid), so let's go the other way and have a top-3 offense and we can win SBs consistently as long as we have a top-12 or so defense."



And in my defense, Andy and Veach has consistently preached "more weapons for Pat," since he became a starter. Until this offseason.



Now back to the Tyreek thing. Yes, DCs adjust and OCs counter every year, we all know that, but thanks for bringing that up.

However, Tyreek during his time with KC was mostly a deep threat WR, though he could and did run shorter routes a fair amount.

But DCs adjusted to his deep threat ability by almost unanimously going to some type of 2-high shell coverage, and defending the deepest zones of the field, essentially giving away the shorter zones, because Tyreek just wasn't as efficient there.

in other words, they were banking on the idea that Tyreek would eventually try to go deep, no matter what gyrations he might go through underneath initially.

Hill also was just a smaller stature guy with a smaller catch radius, so there were things he wasn't great at, like back shoulder catches, beating press on the slant, etc. so often Pat chose not to throw those passes.

What I'm saying is that as great as Hill was, he was also limited in some ways as a WR, that DCs didn't really have to concern themselves with. What that allowed DCs to do often was simply put his fastest DBs on Tyreek, as opposed to the best DB, which he could then use on Travis, or Sammy, as an example.


Put a prototypical WR1 like a Hopkins/Jefferson/McLaurin/etc. and DCs can't just bracket the guy with fast but less talented DBs. DCs would be forced to respect that WR as a legit threat anywhere on the field, in ways that weren't as problematic for them when Hill was our WR1.

Especially if that WR wasn't a volume WR, but a every efficient WR, like a D. Adams or DHop. The 2-high thing wouldn't work, because that defense works best against deep threats, and not nearly as well vs. big, physical, press man-beating WRs that can run the entire route tree underneath in traffic, and have large catch radiuses to make the QB's accuracy less of an issue.


I mean, this is why Sammy was so effective when he was healthy. DCs went with the 2-high shell to combat Hill's deep threat ability, and tried to go 1v1 with their DB1/2 on Sammy. When he was healthy, that defense just didn't work as well, because Watkins would burn 1v1 coverage more often than not.