Fair enough but I am one that doesn't do that.

If you look at the last 10 years this team is 75-101. They are more likely to go 4-12 than 10-6.

You should go to my non football bitch thread I just started to air those concerns.

My realistic expectation is to win playoff games and compete for a SB.

I hope so but I am not counting on it.

Carl and Herm are long gone. Pioli and Haley and Romeo are long gone. That history is completely unrelated to the decision makers with the team today.

I think they have exceeded expectations, looking at the big picture.

So quickly people forget how bad this team was. Banners, Cassel getting cheered when he got hurt, being a punch line on South Park, the whole Belcher scenario, candy wrappers, constantly getting blown out...this team and franchise was a joke.

They made the win now move (as you pointed out) and have won 20 games in 2 years for a team that only won 29 games in the previous 6 seasons combined.

They have done so while replacing the overrated and overpaid talent we had with younger and cheaper players.

Talent was in place. Piss poor management and coaching doesn't discount when your best players are already on the team and coming into their prime. They won 7 games with ****ing Tyler Palko and Kyle Orton at the helm. Reid got them back on track to win 10 games which is what the team is built for. Its never going to be a Super Bowl contender because of Alex Smith. So we are back to Marty era again, which is fine but don't expect anymore out of it.

:)

Heh guess I thought I was getting a 1 up on the language nazi police, my bad I submit

Of course we had talent, we had like 6 probowlers on a 2 win team.

Trouble is, that talent was paper thin and outside of maybe 10 players, the team needed to hit the restart button.

Reid and Dorsey identified the guys they saw as the core for the long term building of a contender and is building around them while moving on from everyone else.

So far, it's worked out very well for them.

This team is getting built to be a monster in the playoffs, not like Marty's teams...which were almost always one sided.

I understand how that could apply to some. But keep in mind, Dorsey and Reid have upgraded the talent in all three phases of the game, mostly through the draft but also through the waiver wire (Parker & Jaye Howard come to mind).

They did what was necessary to immediately turn around this franchise in 2013 by trading for a solid, veteran QB. Had they chosen to draft an EJ Manuel or Geno Smith, this team would have been 4-12 at best or 8-24 over the past two seasons, leaving the fans even further disgruntled and apathetic.

Dorsey & Reid's history shows that they will address the QB position but that they'll also be patient in doing so. Meanwhile, the core of this team will continue to ascend through coaching and experience.

IMO, it's no different than what happened in Seattle, although the Chiefs current starter is much better than Tavaris Jackson or (LOL), Charlie Whitehurst.

This team had a handful of talent on defense and Jamaal Charles. That was it. Go look at the 2012 roster and you'll see.

Our WR's sans Bowe weren't good at all.
Our OL sans Hudson and an injury prone Albert wasn't good.
Our TE's sucked
Our DL was okay
Our entire secondary sans Berry and Flowers was absolute garbage.

This team had a ton of holes and only a few very talented players.

And here is the stupid shit that drives posters away.

Whereas this:

Is the evenhanded and substantive discourse that keeps 'em coming back for more, eh?

Clark Hunt is not the decision maker? He is the one that hired and fired all those guys. He doesn't have a very good track record almost 10 years into his ownership. Been pretty much a disaster.

Is he wrong?

LMAOLMAO

Yes. To go back to my Russell Wilson argument...

He won a superbowl where he averaged 174 yards per game in the playoffs! If the Seahawks can win a superbowl like that, why can't we? Alex Smith currently averages 291 yards, 3 touchdowns, and 0 Ints in the playoffs.

We are absolutely a superbowl contender.

These negative posters hate facts, and ignore them.

This team is being built just like Seattle's and Alex was the same kind of player back in 2011 on a talented SF team.

Yes.

An Alex Smith team that had less talent than this one was a muffed punt away from a Super Bowl. In an AFC with a slowly decaying Peyton Manning and a Patriots team that just suffered massive FA defections, only the Steelers can credibly be seen as a surefire offensive juggernaut. The Chiefs are right there with every other very talented but flawed team in the conference. Yes, they can absolutely get to the SB and it wouldn't take any miracles to get there.

I'm not inclined to get into another ****ing Alex Smith discussion, but to say that a team simply cannot contend for a SB with Alex Smith is just 100% devoid of reason.

Again, if you're 3 seasons into this and you're still starting every season with 'who cares, Alex Smith is still here', then you really should step away from the team until he's not. I was wholly prepared to do it with Pioli. I'm doing it with the Blues as well. If you're completely fatalist about a franchise then you cannot derive any joy from it. If that's the case...walk away.

California Chiefs shit doesn't do anything to foster further discussion. It doesn't do anything to encourage discourse or even reasoned disagreement. It's just more Eeyore bullshit. It's not 'intelligent analysis' or proof of anyone's knowledge as a football fan - it's just being a goth kid.

Enjoy dressing in black but don't flatter yourself into believing that your side of this particular discussion is any more enlightened than it's polar opposite.

I don't want to turn this thread into another AS bitch fest so I will only say that I think it is unfair to compare AS to RW. RW is a dynamic player something that AS isn't. I would like AS if he wasn't so risk averse but that is who he is and he isn't going to change.

Newsflash: Alex Smith reads Chiefsplanet and is sorely disappointed in all of your comments.

He has beef.

But that doesn't matter. Bottom line is that Russell Wilson has won a superbowl in a post season where he averaged 174 yards per game and had 103 yards in the first game.

Alex Smith shits on both of those numbers in the playoffs. He scored 43 points, had 400+ total yards and 3 TDs in our last playoff game without Jamaal Charles or Knile Davis and people still act like we can't win with him. Wtf?

I don't think Alex Smith is as good as Russell Wilson. The real argument is that Alex Smith has actually played pretty well in the playoffs when he got there. He played out of his mind against the Colts, regardless of the people who want to blame the offense for that loss.

And when he was with San Francisco he went toe to toe in an offensive shootout with Brees and won. And not only that, threw a clutch TD pass with seconds to go for the win. There are a lot of QBs who never do either of those things in the playoffs.

Does that mean he can repeat it again? I don't know. He may not. But I don't think he's Matt Cassel either, and that's how he's treated on this board. Anyone who says this is a homer-filled board is full of it.

:popcorn:

But regardless, it's unbridled homerism to look at the roster as it stands today and think it's going to be this massive improvement over last season.

There's only one WR that warrants concern from defenses to go along with Jason Avant and a slew of boom-or-bust developmental projects. That's pretty much the exact same dynamic that was in play last season; the only difference Maclin has a much more athletic skillset than Bowe and -in theory- should be an upgrade. But that depends on if he'll actually be thrown to and if those passes are completed beyond the LoS.

Kelce is the only TE on the team that has any sort of consistency; Harris is a huge project and O'Shaughnessy is slightly less of a project. Fasano sucked relative to what he was paid and how much attention he got, but it was obvious that the team needs two TEs that can both catch and block for the offense to work and it's hard to see how that unit is any better than last year.

Fisher is likely to be the only starter on the offensive line that's returning from last year, and he'll likely be the second best player in that unit along with Grubbs. Center, guard and the other tackle are complete ****ing question marks. That's not likely to be an upgrade to the point that it elevates the rest of the offense to succeed (quantifiable measures or otherwise) and could very well look as bad as it did last year.

Defensively the roster is about the same, though there is the assumption Peters will probably work his way into the lineup as a starter or at least a pseudo-starter as a nickel against pass-happy teams and that Tyvon Branch will bring another option in varied safety packages. The issue with the defense is going to be whether or not the torn Achilles duo of Johnson and DeVito can play close to the level they were capable of prior to injury, if there's another ILB worth a damn in run stopping and if Houston isn't lagging behind to the start the season if he misses all of the preseason (and if he doesn't decide to sit out for as many games as he pleases as a '**** you' to Dorsey and Reid). They could be historically great as they were in stretches last year, but that's a lot of supposition on based on the aforementioned variables. They'll be good barring some unforeseeable issues, but counting on the defense to never give up 30+ points or carry an average of allowing fewer than 18 points a game is also unbridled homerism.

Special teams are a wash IMO. As long as they don't outright lose you a game, then everything else is gravy and that's pretty much not going to happen with Toub as coach.

And that's about all there is to really say about the team in a vacuum; there's a lot more to suggest that this year's team will look a lot like last year's than there is to suggest an improvement.

Of course, nobody is actually going to read this because we're on CP and criticizing the poster rather than the post is the name of the game anymore.

I'd agree I'm not convinced this offense will be better than last year. Reid seems to get the most out of what he has though, so I'm sure this year will be no different. Maclin is probably a better fit for Reid's offense than Bowe... but will he be able to carry the water as a #1? We'll find out.

I don't think you can really say anything about Dorsey because he has no prior history with regards to his current position, but I'm not sure there's a lot of reason to be particularly confident in or hopeful about Andy Reid. In his last ten seasons as head coach, he has two 11-win seasons, two 10-win seasons, two 9-win seasons, two .500 seasons and two seasons below .500. So while I wouldn't tie myself to the "4-12 is more likely than 10-6" comment I do consider 10 wins to be the lowest bar to set (meaning you should expect at least 10 wins/season from a successful franchise), and Reid just hasn't reached that level of success over the last decade. He certainly hasn't been anywhere close to what what he was with Philly from '99 to '04.

Maybe that'll change. Maybe it won't. I don't think the Chiefs are a bad team right now, but at the same time I also don't see a reason (yet) to believe they're even positioned to become the top team in the AFC West, much less one of the top teams in the AFC, poised to break the playoff drought.

But that's just one opinion, and it might change during camp.

(As far as OTW leaving, I almost never comment on that kind of stuff and won't now)

Funny, that tends to happen when people post epic dipshittery, post after post after post after post.

Then you are back to the tinfoil hat stuff about Clark Hunt being a dictator over the day to day operations of the team, or him ordering people not to take any risks, or him not being interested in the super bowl because he's only interested in making money (as if those two are exclusive).

One thing you can't say is that Clark Hunt won't hold people accountable, because he's cleaned house twice and gone through several head coaches since he took the reins.

When absolutely horrible takes like this are made consistently, you deserve to be called a dumbass.

I won't blanket say that AS can't be a part of SB team but he won't be the main reason why. It will require the defense to carry the team most likely because he is just not going to change who is. :shrug:

But I am willing to be that the Chiefs won't sniff a SB with AS as the QB.

What in the actual ****?

Really? So to stay the same as last year, Grubbs and Maclin would need to provide NO improvement over McGlynn and Bowe. DJ will have to provide NO improvement over Mauga. Peters and/or Gaines will have to provide NO improvement over the Fleming/Cooper duo (oh, and Fleming can't improve either). DeVito will have to provide NOTHING. Fulton, Morse, Allen AND Stephenson will have to either show no improvement or not be better than Ryan Harris was last season. Kelce will have to show no growth. Wilson will have to be worse than Avery/Hemmingway. Ford will have to show no growth. Fisher will have to show no growth.

We declined in one single area - Hudson. One spot. We added talent in several key spots and can expect some development in others.

In the end, weird stuff happens in this game and perhaps all of those things will take place and we won't get better. But to sit there as of today and say "there's more evidence we'll be the same than there is that we'll get better" is just categorically false. There's a TON of evidence to suggest we'll improve.

The irony of a guy dismissing the substance off the offseason's improvements in saying the team will just tread water, then turning around and saying that people aren't paying attention to the substance of his post shouldn't be lost on anyone.

:thumb:

Whoa..

We lost

Bowe
Hudson
McGlynn

We gained

Maclin
Grubbs
Branch
Derrick Johnson
Mike Devito

A strong rookie class consisting of

Peters (best CB in last 4 drafts)
Morse (Mayock called the pick and said he's a 10 year starter)
Conley (comic book quality athlete)
Nelson (perfect scrapper for nickel)


The improvement of this group

Fisher
Gaines
Kelce
Ford
Wilson

I think were gonna see a real contender show more and more of itself as the season goes on and if Houston's here all year, I see us having a chance at HFA kinda year.

That's not what Chiefs Country said.

He said they cannot be a Super Bowl contender with Alex Smith at QB. That's absurd.

As to what bet I'd be willing to make - really? You're saying that in a 'Chiefs vs. the field' bet that you'd take the field? Well man, that's going out on a limb right there.

I've said this before, I'll say it again - the odds overwhelmingly suggest that the Chiefs won't win a SB this year. There are 32 teams and only 1 of them win the damn thing. But again, I'd take the field over every single team in football and there are only 3 teams in the AFC who's odds should be appreciably better than KCs. Even that's arguable - for instance, if our D is as good as it can be, then our D is as good as Pitt's O - is our O better than Pitt's D? I think it is. We have no idea what Manning will be.

To blast Boss for saying the Chiefs are building a potential SB team while saying 'eh, the Chiefs can't win shit with Alex Smith' is just the highest of hypocrisy. It's dogmatic, worthless garbage that does a hell of a lot more to turn posters off than acknowledging that Dorsey's done some damn good things with this team over the last 2+ seasons and there's reason to suggest he can continue doing so.

Discuss Thrower will not read this because he has all the answers. Then he'll accuse you of blasting the poster not the content.

Don't worry though because I think I've covered the 'blast his content' stage.

DJ is doing work in this thread

Hahaha


:clap:

Who cares what that guy says?

Hes on the level of blackbob.

For every Discuss Thrower.....there is a SeeingRed.

For every Inmem.....there is a RunKC.

I don't think it is absurd. I think he is mostly correct. I think the days of a Trent Dilfer or Brad Johnson being a bystander QB while the D does it all are long gone. As a QB you have to make big plays. Now we have seen AS do it but he hasn't done it on a consistent basis like the best QB's in the NFL do. All you have to do is look at last year and him not throwing 1 TD to a WR. I don't think that had ever happened in NFL history. He is just to risk averse IMHO.

Except for in 2013 when Russell Wilson was a bystander to a SB championship.

Wilson developed into a better QB in '14 than he was in '13, no question. And at this point I do think he's a better QB than Smith because he is more aggressive.

But we're literally 18 months removed from the Seahawks D dragging Wilson to a SB championship. The first two rounds of the playoffs were Seattle's D doing serious work while Wilson largely spun his wheels. And against the Broncos are you really going to try to say that the savage beating the D put on Manning and crew isn't why they won that championship?

One. Season. Ago.

That's not ancient history, fellas. If the 2013 Seahawks can win a Super Bowl with Wilson's exceedingly mediocre performance, the Chiefs can absolutely do so in 2015. And if the 2014 Seahawks can lose in the SB despite improved play from their QB in 2014, then perhaps we should stop acting like the QB is the only thing that matters or that failing to win a SB is an indictment on a team at large.

So you are certain that a WR corps of Maclin/Avant/Wilson/Conley/Thomas/Hammond(Hemingway) is going to be a marked improvement over Bowe/Avery/Avant/Wilson/Jenkins/Hammond/Hemingway to the tune of an extra 500-750 yards of receiving and an additional 6-10 touchdowns over last year en route to two or more wins?


That's what I'm talking about: Wilson and Conley could be outstanding receivers but neither have proven that in the NFL yet. And given Reid's overly complicated offense, it's going to take time for both of them to get to the level beyond being a JAG type of receiver. To say unequivocally that "These guys are going to be AWESOME as guys in their second or first year" is sheer speculation. That shouldn't be too unfair to say. If they chip in a touchdown here and there along with combine for 500+ yards that'd be great. But that's a leap to count on that production given their college background and the fact that Conley hasn't even played a down of NFL-level ball yet.

So, it shouldn't be too ****ing hard to see it from my perspective that there are really two downfield threats on the team: Maclin and Kelce. Again, how is that demonstrably better than the previous season? It is only if you think the difference in Maclin's athleticism and playing style is going to translate to 250+ yards over Bowe's number from last year. Fact is, Maclin doesn't exactly have a 900+ yard track record in his career and has had the benefit of having other quality receivers opening up coverage for him in Philly.


Does KC have that? Only if you think a second year Wilson has the qualities of DeSean Jackson or if Conley will come on the seen strong as a rookie a la Jordan Matthews. It's possible, but you can't honestly say that it's better than a coinflip's odds of that being the case.

And I said absolutely nothing about Kelce being worse: the tight end position as a WHOLE isn't any better than last year. Kelce/Harris/O'Shaughnessy is not a marked improvement over Kelce/Fasano/Schiltz or whatever waiver wire pickup Dorsey cycled through last year because there's no guy with an established track record like Fasano as shitty as that track record is. O'Shaughnessy and Harris could be critical contributors to the team, but as of now, they're projects.


And sure, Grubbs is an improvement over McGlynn... But you really think the line is going to look any better with a rookie or practically rookie at center and whatever guys can be used to flesh out the right side of the line? Hell, Fisher looked like ass a lot of the time last year according to people. But that's apparently an improved situation compared to last year.

The problem with DJ and DeVito is that they're an improvement over nothing as much as they are capable of playing like they have had in the past. DeVito flaming out isn't really a concern given the depth on the DL but there's really nothing at ILB available beside DJ.

Beyond that I said nothing about the defense being drastically worse. It'll probably still be a unit that's comfortably in the top half of the league at worst and still in the top third, but it's not going to be some sort of unheralded legion of boom that doesn't get the doors blown off of it and keeps offenses from scoring an average of 19 points or more. Peters is the only guy you can point to as an improvement in one spot over last year (as it should be with a 1st round draft pick more often than not) but you can't expect that this one guy alone is going be the catalyst to taking the squad into '85 Bears territory.


How is it categorically false? Players develop, sure, but until it translates into more wins or quantifiable production in terms of stats, it's all speculation. It's not some huge leap to look at how the roster is constructed and come to the conclusion that the team will look no better or worse than the year before.

It's like people for some reason are arguing how the Seahawks won the superbowl that year and that Wilson was the 3rd most important piece on the team behind the defense and Marshawn Lynch.

174 yards per game. 1 TD per game. That's what Wilson did in that title run. And because of the defense and running game, despite those below average Wilson numbers, they won pretty much each game comfortably.

um what?

I'm nobody's favorite poster, and I'm certainly not the longest of long time posters, but I definitely fit into this bin. I'll post maybe once a week, but **** man... as much as I want to be optimistic about the chiefs, I don't see the organization as anything worth taking time away from an increasingly busy life (I'm finishing up my phd, got hired for an actual adult job for post phd, have a girl I'm pretty serious with and we have a seven month old daughter who's amazing).

Life happens. The chiefs are who they are, and until they prove otherwise, I really don't feel that they're worth the time I used to put to them, which reflects on how I browse this site really.

If your rebuttal to a comment that a player isn't good enough to turn a team into a contender is saying that the defense might be good enough to carry him to a title, you should probably listen to what you're telling yourself about your confidence in said player.

I always wonder why some posters say

"Alex Smith can't win without a great team around him."

"He's only as good as the players around him"

He doesn't raise the level of play of those around him"

Well, if that's the case (and I agree it is) then we should be a formidable team going forward because he has a bomb ass defense, a great set of running backs, explosive receivers and the second best TE in football.

All he has to do is distribute the ball consistently to the open man and let his team make plays.

The team around him on offense has ELITE speed everywhere

Maclin is the slowest skill position player we have (outside of Gray and Avant)

Think about that.

Wilson, Conley, Charles, Davis and Thomas all run legit 4.3 40s. Not too many defenses have the team speed to cover all that raw speed.

LMAO

Some of you guys are living in a fantasy world in terms of QB's. The bottom line is that for most NFL teams, defense, special teams and perimeter weapons with a solid, non-turnover prone QB will be their best bet to win a championship.

You know, like Russell Wilson.

College QB's aren't taught to read defenses, so it'll be rare that a QB, regardless of whether he's taken in the Top 5 or not, it ready to play day one. Blake Bortles, who was a "Big Arm" QB, didn't start the first five games of the 2014 season, yet suffered from "Dead Arm" late last year and couldn't push the ball further than 10 yards.

Once Brady, Brees and the Manning brothers retire, there will be even fewer prototypical "Franchise QB's" in the NFL and the pipeline from college will only become smaller.

Evidence ain't results, champ.

You're saying that there's more evidence that we won't improve than there is that we will. That's categorically false, just look at the roster. You have one mark in your camp - Hudson's gone.

What additional evidence is there that we won't improve?

Because yes, there's a SHITLOAD that says we will. No, I can't state with certainty that Maclin/Wilson/Conley will be better than Bowe/Avery/Hemingway but I can say that Maclin's production, skills and fit are all much MUCH better for this O than Bowe's. I can say that Wilson was more productive in his limited run than Avery was last season and I can say that Hemingway has largely proven to be trash and that if Conley isn't an improvement on him, Avery will be. That's evidence. Do you disagree with any thing I said there?

Fasano wasn't good last year. He completely stopped blocking and he was O-Lineman slow. Moreover, he started the first half of the season as the #1 TE. Kelce out of the blocks at #1 will make a large difference on it's own. In order to get to 'no improvement' from the TE group, Kelce has to not get better AND the replacements for Fasano have to fail to clear a pretty damn low bar he set last year. The former is pretty damn unlikely, especially given the increase in Kecle's playing time. At worst, I'll cede the latter in the TE position group breaks even. Aight.

The OL - seriously, if you don't see how markedly improved that line's going to be and claim 'no evidence that it will improve', I'm just not sure what to say. It simply completely disregards what a ****ing abortion McGlynn was last season while simultaneously deciding that Rodney Hudson must be Mike Webster. Yeah, losing Hudson's going to hurt, but there's good reason to believe that adding Grubbs will largely off-set that. So now you have to believe that Fisher won't improve, Fulton/Fanaika can't give us any improvement over where Fulton was last year (or even Morse) and that Kush or Morse will be as bad as McGlynn was. Oh yeah, and that no combination of Allen/Stephenson will be better than Harris. You have to look at that OL with the absolute most dour of lenses to believe that to be the case.

As to your 'improvement over nothing' line, the inconsistent logic that is necessary for that to hold tells me you're just trolling at this point. Yes, we got NOTHING from them last year. So ANYTHING from them is an improvement and a massive one at that. So how again do you say they aren't improvements just by playing to the level they are capable of? Because they weren't actually capable of playing AT ALL last season.

You're creating straw men to attempt to salvage a shitty argument. The D doesn't have to be the '85 bears to have shown improvement. DJ and Devito need to be better than nothing. Peters needs to be better than Cooper. Nelson needs to be better than Owens. Gaines and Ford need to be better their 2nd year in the league (THAT NEVER HAPPENS!).

This gets back to your fatalist bullshit. Improvement in the margins is still improvement. If you want to start the season with the expectations that you either build a 14-2 juggernaut or you've wasted your time, more power to you. Sadly, that's not how the NFL works. This is a parity driven league where wins are ALWAYS found in the margins.

The roster is objectively better than the team that played the vast majority of 2014 and by a significant amount. It's a complete loss to me how you can't find evidence of that.

Alex was completing 70% of his throws at over 8ypa and a 13-5 td-int ratio when he got his concussion in SF.

Extrapolate that to 500-525 attempts he will get next year and you probably are pretty close to what I expect of him in 2015

MLB really has been sucking out the arm-talent for quite a while now, and it's not getting any better. I've long held the belief that the chiefs' franchise QB is languishing away on a bus for some team's AA team, never to suit up for us because he chose baseball, and we'll never hear about his baseball career b/c he'll retire after his breaking stuff never improves.

My confidence is in the team overall. I'm not one of those "QB is everying! Everything is QB" posters. I see how hard it is to win playoff games and go to the SB with even Aaron Rodgers. So I understand that QB play isn't the end all be all in the game. I also see Russell Wilson throwing up backup numbers and winning 1 out of 2 superbowls. So far Alex Smith has shown that he can far exceed those numbers and actually play like an elite QB in the playoffs. So if the defense plays like they can and Alex Smith plays anything close to the level he's played in previous playoff games, this is a superbowl contending team.

Fair enough. I did go back and compare Brady and RW and they had very very similar stats in their first couple of SB runs. I would feel alot better about AS if he was going into his 4th season instead of his 11th. I think what we have seen is what we are going to get unfortunately.

There's irony in the fact that a decent football discussion breaks out in this thread.

OTWP, come on back; the water is safe. It's still populated with the usual suspects: the good swimmers, the doggy paddlers, the open-water pissers, the mouth breathers who consume more water than they piss, etc. It's called life.

And the 2015 Chiefs should be pretty ****ing good. So there's that, too.

Because for every half of good play, Alex has several games of playing like a chickenshit. That's why people doubt him. The glass is half full people will say "look at the first half against the Colts". The glass is half empty will say "look at the entire Tennessee game or end of the San Fran game." Whether you want to admit it or not, Wilson tends to step up more often than not and make plays when the team needs it. Alex hasn't.

I can't even put into words how nice it is to have you back in the mix.

Yep and I've been saying this for quite a while here on the 'Planet.

I wouldn't hesitate for a second to go to MLB over the NFL. The bodily wear and tear is much less, there's very little risk of concussion and they offer guaranteed contracts.

Pass protection is half the battle.

WRs
Avery play for a month.

48 of the 493 passes went to Hemingway, Jenkins, Hammond. 5.1 yards per attempt.

The garbage upfront and on the WR depth chart made quasi hand-offs to DAT part of the pass attack. Only 5.0 yards per attempt to him on 31 throws.

16% of the total passes right there between that group = a craptastic 5 yards per throw.

A lot of that is going to be absorbed by more passes to the new #1 WR and emerging star TE.

TE is better because Kelce is going to be on the field for 90% of pass plays not 60%.

It is such a low bar to clear is why a full time crew of Avant, Wilson and Conley is an upgrade.

You're projecting.

It would appear that you believe there are people arguing that Alex Smith will be what makes this team a SB contender. It appears that you believe that there are people here arguing that Alex Smith is going to carry us to a championship.

Literally NOBODY believes that. And your statement (after I read it about 7 times to try to figure out what the hell it is you're trying to say), shows just how little nuance you are willing to read into anybody's thoughts if they're contrary to your own.

Nobody's saying that Alex Smith is going to be the reason the Chiefs will win the Super Bowl. Many of us are simply saying that he's not someone you can't win a Super Bowl with.

The defense, the weapons around Alex and the coaching staff will be the reason the Chiefs contend. Smith is a solid NFL QB. He's not a force multiplier. He's not going to make your team better than it is (as opposed to the truly elite). He's not going to make your team worse than it is (as opposed to the horrifically shitty). He'll make your team exactly as good as it is. If the Chiefs are going to contend, it's going to be because the team around Alex Smith is really damn good.

Here's the good news - the team around Alex Smith is really damn good.

Even if you only get the 2nd half Alex Smith you should STILL win more games than you lose.

And yes, Wilson does step up more often than not. I wish Alex did the same. But at the same time, some of the times Wilson has had to step up was because he had ****ed up earlier in the game. He wouldn't need to make 2 great throws in the 4th quarter and overtime in the NFCCG if he hadn't thrown 4 picks in the game.

And this ability to "make plays" is tightly connected to being an overall more dynamic player last year. Specifically, Russell was a very productive runner. He averaged 53 YPG on the ground, with 217.2 YPG passing.

Smith, on the other hand, averaged 17 YPG on the ground, with 217.7 YPG passing.

Get over 800 yards rushing from your QB, and you're damn right that this changes the overall complexion a shit ton.

The results of making plays with this feet absolutely offset so many of the comparisons between Russell and Smith.

The former is mediocre--he's Smith--without the dynamic element he adds on the ground, which is exactly why he must get paid like a passing superstar right now (because he's not).

2nd half Alex Smith didn't do much of anything, primarily because Reid shit the bed with his playcalling. But that is beside the point. At some point in the playoffs a QB has to step up for whatever reason - maybe bad play on the QB's part early in the game, maybe the D made a mistake, maybe you are playing Rodgers or somebody else who is going to move the ball - and guys like Wilson have proven they can do it. Alex hasn't.

You can't say with a straight face that when KC gives up a lead that you have confidence they can mount a comeback. I really can't believe more than 50% of this board thinks Wilson is similar to Smith. It's mind boggling to me that people think a 3rd year QB with a Super Bowl win, who put his team in position to win another Super Bowl, and who took the lead 2 years ago with less than a minute left in the playoffs is of the same caliber as a 10 year vet with no accomplishments other than a single playoff victory against the Saints.

Can't stick around for any more Smith debate. Don't blow off your fingers this weekend.

No doubt - who he is now is a damn dynamic weapon.

But who he was in 2013 - when he won a title - wasn't appreciably different from what we can expect from Smith.

33 YPG; Longest carry of 27 yards; 6.0 YPC. Smith was at 29 YPG in 2013 with a long of 26. Last year he was down a bit with 17 YPG but his yards per carry were about the same as the year prior - 5.2 vs. 5.7.

I'm not going to try to argue that we can expect the same performance from Smith that the Seahawks can from Wilson - that's not terribly realistic. But we CAN expect the same performance from Smith that the Seahawks got from Wilson in 2013. And there's nothing by way of raw talent elsewhere on that 2013 Seahawks team to suggest that the Chiefs can't follow that recipe.

It's not the ideal way to do it, no. I think we both agree that the best way to win a championship would be to get a superstar QB for below market and hold onto him like grim death. But this approach is a doable way and the 2013 Seahawks proved that.

I just don't understand the fatalism.

Man, this schedule. This team. I really think we are in for one of the best seasons of our lives.
We stay healthy and we are going to get the national stage to make our mark, and enforce it.

Putting up 13 points in a half should win you the vast majority of games. 13 points per half would make you a top 10 offense in the league.

So yeah, 2nd half Alex should have still won the game.

We are a 10-6 Wildcard, maybe if things go right win the AFC West squad. We aren't some monster badass take names in the playoffs team. If we had an elite QB, we would be in the talking for sure but we don't. We have an elite running game and an elite pass rush (barring Houston getting resigned), the rest of the team is a bunch of question marks. We can beat some good teams and lose to some shitty ones. Have a winning season and for the most part be pretty successful. Nothing wrong with what we have, but we aren't building the 90s Cowboys here.

yep

You're truly ****ing stupid

The majority teams aren't the 90s cowboys. No one is expecting a 5 year superbowl run or anything like that. But this team CAN win in the playoffs and can make it to the superbowl. If we had an elite QB, it would be easier, but only a few teams have elite QBs and they too lose in the playoffs most of the time.

Slightly modify a few words and it's 1 of a number of names I don't hear shouted as often as good replacements for Smith.

Colin Kaepernick
Matthew Stafford
Mark Sanchez
Jay Cutler
Andy Dalton
Robert Griffin
Geno Smith
Vince Young

Others like should trade for McNabb or draft Jimmy Clausen were legit ideas from professional football talking heads.

There are the few very best QB and then it's a the best of the rest. Somehow the what if of Wilson is the shining star to point to now that the giant pile of other recent QBs other than Luck is mostly wreckage.

Why nitpick impossible BS?
No **** Sherlock. Lets cut to the chase.
How bout the 49ers drafted Rodgers instead of Smith. Or KC takes him before GB.

Do these stats paint the play, on 4th and 2 from the 40, where Wilson hard counted the equally as dominant 49ers defense, in the 4th quarter, and threw a perfect TD pass to Jermaine Kearse on a free play that he orchestrated by being extremely aware and intelligent in a high stress, pressure situation? Or ... No?

Really? Outside of Montana and Green when has a retread QB worked out for this team? We only gone through about 100 of them with no success.

174 yards per game. 1 touchdown per game.


GREATNESS!

I forgot the 42 rushing yards he had in that post season though. Add that in and you pretty much have one of the best post seasons ever.

That 103 passing yard game... just magical stuff man. 50% completion? He was on fire!

Yep. Really just depends on Manning and Denver taking a step back which I think they are this season. We are a good, but not great team mainly attributed to a mediocre QB/O-line combination.

13:52 left in the game is a high stress, high pressure situation?


Ok. LMAO

Alex Smith can't win a Super Bowl they say...

Here are his playoff AVERAGES

291 passing yards per game
7.7 ypa
42 rushing yards per game
3.3tds per game
0 ints per game

Yup...sure can't win with those kinda pedestrian numbers.

That's dumb. Given the right circumstances probably 20-25 QB's if not more COULD win a SB IMO.

What really matters is your odds of winning. If Rodgers is at 25% I'd say Alex is under 5%.