Then you’ve gotta sign some of our upcoming free agents and replace all those guys with guys not in the system

I’m all for trimming the fat, but turning over a big part of the roster at once is tough

That's why I said if you want to go total purge you could do that. Honestly I'd probably go with these and be ok with it.

Trade Smith - $17 million
Cut DJ - $8 million
Cut Hali - $8 million
Cut Ford - $8.7 million
Cut Harris - $2 million
Cut Zombo - $1.1 million

That gives you $30 million in cap space to fill some holes. The biggest hole would obviously be OLB but you've got KPass and Nicholas that can soak up some reps. Go get a guy on a 1 year deal like Mingo and draft one in the 2nd-3rd round range and we should be ok.

Keep Bailey. Draft another guy like Chris Jones and rotate them.

Lineman are the biggest risk for injuries. We've seen that the last 2 years from both the OL and DL. Those guys are valuable.

It's tough, but it's probably also time.

The roster, more critically the lockerroom, may well be getting stale. If they flame out again, that's 5 years with no meaningful progression. They'll be effectively the same team they were at the end of Andy's first season in terms of results.

Teams like that need to get a significant shakeup or they'll go south quickly. And there's a chance we're seeing a little of this already.

It won't be easy, but with a new quarterback and a new 'core' with Hunt, Hill and Kelce as the new lead dogs, you can just close the window on the DJ/Hali/Smith era Chiefs and move forward.

Part of that can easily mean cleaning house of some fringe guys that never really got better or who's backloaded contracts have caught up to their production.

Smith and Hali are gone, pretty much a guarantee. DJ may end up sticking around but with the Ir designation, I think they’re done with Ford.

They’ll have money to do some things for sure

We have gotten so shockingly little production opposite of Houston this year that it will be virtually impossible to get any worse over there.

Personally I'd cut Bailey as well - he'd never see $8 million on the open market. His signing bonus might approach that so for 1 year he could, but his cap hit wouldn't be that high. If they want to restructure him to save $3 million I could live with that, but he's not worth that hit next year. He's plateaued and despite his size has become pretty fungible.

This was always gonna be Smith, Hali and DJs swan song. They’re elsewhere or retired next year I’d imagine that’s basically a fine deal.

They need some more young infusion on d and the offense could use a LG and another te or we.

But a lot of that needs to come from the draft

This has to be a complete house cleaning year. The product is stale, age and stupid back end bloated contracts on people that were past their prime when signed is killing this team.

It might be up to 40% or more new roster come next year...

This

And with Hali playing more this last weekend, effectively, we saw what Houston can be when other guys are decent.

They need more athletes and speed on the DL

They’ll hav about the normal roster turnover as the rest of the league, it’s just that a lot of it is gonna be bigger name guys.

I like the way you think! :clap:

I see at least 6-7 more guys on that list from D-backs to O-line to defense.

Add a few pieces to this defense with that money and maybe an Allen Robinson and we'll be good. Im not sure what the free agent Guard situation looks like but id love to get a good LG.

Agreed. I'm not saying cut those guys to get into the FA pool - that rarely works out.

I'm saying cut those guys because you just need new voices in the huddle and fresh blood on the field. I'm hopeful that McQuay can show out a bit because he has some serious tools and sure would look nice in the safety group alongside Berry. I think we have obvious keeper in Ragland and honestly him and KPL have looked like a solid interior.

So if you can use some draft capital on another CB and OLB, you already have some younger in-house options that may be ready to ascend to more prominent gametime/leadership roles.

But sometimes that means shuffling out some old dudes.

Or go all out for Lawrence from Dallas lol

"Never let a crisis go to waste..."

If they flame out and miss the playoffs or put up another effort that ends short of the AFC Championship game, I think you have the excuse you need to sell a pretty significant overhaul to the fans and the remaining players.