The Patriots blueprint isn’t even about Pat. It’s on Veach and Andy to figure out. Stop the run and teams can’t keep Pat and this offense off the field with long drives. It’s that simple.

You are also giving Mahomes zero credit. The Patriots shut down Pat for an entire half 2X in a row and he scored 62 second half points in those. SIXTY TWO second half points on the greatest coach who has ever lived.

Jesus Christ guys. Pat was a first year starter and the best coach ever could not stop him on multiple tries. This kid was basically winging it a lot this year and learning about defensive looks he has never seen before.

Imagine for one second what this kid is going to do with a full offseason to review his play and get better? I mean for ****s sake this isn’t DeShaun Watson or Mitchell Trubisky or Jared Goff. Mahomes is too smart and too talented to have a slump, especially with Andy coaching him.

Unlikely we get the first seed?

High expectations you have. Home field advantage isn’t always the key to playoff wins. Just get in the playoffs, **** the seeding.

That was my bad. I apologize as well.

I have no clue what you’re saying here. But then,I rarely do with you. #incoherent

How do we know Mahomes won’t take a discount? What if he decides to go the Brady route?

That's the best rebuttal you could come up with? Pathetic.

We’ll be fine

I’m sure our bookend OT’s, Mahomes, Hill, and Kelce will all be healthy all of next year

It was our best shot in a long time

It probably won’t be our best shot in the future

Things are different now. We finally have a quarterback who can win a divisional playoff game at Arrowhead. That fact changed everything for me. I now look at this team differently. We can beat anyone in the playoffs, anywhere.

Mahomes has already taken us further than Stafford or Romo ever took their teams. Hopefully we can continue to improve. 2018 was the beginning of our Superbowl window. You can’t win Brady’s AFC with Alex Smith. Let’s keep getting better

We aren't the Saints with a 40 year old QB, we will be in the hunt for the next decade. Likely have 3 or 4 more #1 seeds would be my guess.

Mahomes covered a ton of flaws with our defense, we just need to get better on that side and the offense wont have to be as good.

If by “deciding to go the Brady route” you mean Clark paying Pat under the table you’re REALLY dreaming

why wouldn't they be?

Are you trying to jinx us by continuing to talk about injuries that haven't happened?

This was probably our worst shot.

1st year starting QB with the worst defense in the NFL.

Why not? Hill and Kelce have been durable and Schwartz hasn’t missed a snap in several seasons. Fisher has been healthy the last two years as well.

Stop being such a pussy.

This right here....

Yeah Mahomes' deal is going to cost a lot, but we incidentally wasted more cap space this year than they probably ever will again. We got very little value out of the cap this year outside of Mahomes, Hill, Schwartz, and Jones. Almost everyone else was overpaid by what they received, some by a very large margin.

You have to remember, the Chiefs are highly likely to get players to sign here for below market value every year now because they know Mahomes can win them a ring.

You’re right I guess it’s the “because Chiefs” feeling but I just know that if we somehow get signicalty better defensively we’ll lose a key piece on offense.

How can you not feel this way after we’ve been waiting so long for a QB/offense and when we finally have one our defense goes to shit?

It was our FIRST shot and we probably should have gone to the SB.

The first year our young QB starts and he was a coin toss away from a SB.

****, there really is no pleasing some people...

Another thing staylor--there is a solid chance that the back 2/3rds of the roster will be better in the coming years. While Veach is far from perfect right now (what GM isn't?), one thing he has been undisputedly better about than Dorsey is building the depth of the roster. He has found several cheap and young options for next to nothing. He will continue to do that, and I would imagine his draft is going to be much better with the picks at his disposal this season as it compares to last.

Be patient. This team wasn't even supposed to contend this year in their minds, they were always building toward 2019. The only thing that changed is Mahomes damn near carried their horrific defense a year in advance all the way.

You're still emotional after the loss. Take a step back, have a stiff drink, and put it behind you. Mahomes proved Sunday night that he'll never be out of a game, even after an abysmal first half by the offense as a whole. We were an offsides away from a Super Bowl despite having the worst defense in the playoffs. We'll be fine.

Need to have the 1 or 2 seed to have a legitimate shot. That’s not an easy thing to do consistently. Only the Patriots have shown that consistency along with 5 head lead teams. And the Colts only won 1 Super Bowl because of shit defenses.

Just look at the teams on the fringe of the playoffs this year. Teams like the Titans and Vikings were still in the mix up to the final week of the regular season.

sChickenLittle thread.

This.

Plus a ton of dead cap falls off the books this offseason and depending on who we keep/cut we'll have between 25 and 40 million to spend.

Clearly resigning Hunt is no longer an issue...

While largely true, nothing gives you a better chance on the road in playoff games than a playmaking QB. See Rodgers 2010.

The Packers have been paying a premiere cap percentage to Rodgers for almost a decade now, and more often than not they have been right in the thick of the SB hunt DESPITE really poor drafting. They also never would sign anyone in FA even when they had the money to do so. It finally caught up to them this year, as Rodgers wasn't his elite self to carry them to the playoffs and the coaching wore thin.

But my point is, GB handled things about as poorly as you can around a superstar QB for the past 8 or so seasons and they were still often right there in the top 4-8 teams. I don't see the Chiefs doing that poorly. Say what you will about Clark and Andy, but I have zero doubt that they will do what it takes to win.

That’s true but that GB defense got hot and dominated that postseason. The Packers have basically pissed away Rodgers career ever since.

I can feel this way because this isn’t 2003. This offense is young and Mahomes is only going to get better. Just think if this offense would draft or sign another receiving threat at TE or if replacing Conley with Robinson proves to be beneficial (Robinson and Mahomes seem to have some kind of chemistry that didn’t exist between Mahomes and Conley.)

The future is bright, staylor. Drink it in!!

Marino 84 to me. Record year, never came close to replicating it. His young WR aged way quicker than expected, the run game was a revolving door or FAs and burnouts, and the defense was shit for another decade. Led by a tired old coach too stubborn to fire his dCord (Okivadotti).


The Fish missed the playoffs 6 straight years with Marino in his prime. Never made it back to Supe after 84. . At least they got there.

****ed by Veach.

When he ****s up the draft again, the Chiefs will once again push the Veach-Mahomes propaganda piece. The guy was paid/assigned to keep tabs on Mahomes and somehow that makes him a great GM

So ridiculous.

Veach finally provided some depth on the offensive line that was huge for this team, and he added much better depth on defense. The guy had a shit cap situation to work with last year and hardly any good draft picks to use. If you’re judging Speaks’ career already, then I hope you never said anything good about Ford this year because he looked even worse his rookie season.

And for all the hate he gets over Watkins’ deal, we aren’t in that game Sunday night without him.

Nnadi was an excellent pick, contributed greatly this year, and will be a beast for us for years.

O'daniel and Watts were promising guys who battled injuries. O'daniel is that perfect coverage LB that ever D needs and would have been great to have 100% healthy vs a team like the Pats.

Watts was also coming along until he got injured. At the time I didn't like his pick or O'daniel but they both look like promising players.

Now, our 1st round pick didn't do much (and that's a bad habit this team needs to break) but the 3 named above were solid picks.

And Veach was able to find cheap players that were solid contributors as well. Veach (so far) has done an excellent job.

Just no. Mahomes may or may not post 50 TDs again, but he will get better at reading defenses, and your defense will likely revert to the mean and be better next year. Plus Brady and the Patriots will EVENTUALLY fade out, or die, or something -- and there's no one else in the AFC looking more primed to be a consistent contender than the Chiefs.

You have a good 10+ years of elite football to look forward to. That doesn't mean you go to the SB or win it every year. JFC, look at Peyton, Brees, Rodgers and literally every other QB not named Brady. You just don't get to go to the big show every time (or 50% of the time, if you're Brady, which is utterly mind-boggling).

This.

2 years from now there will be no Brady, no Big Ben, no Rivers. There will be Luck and Mahomes taking turns hosting the AFCC game...

We didn't have a 1st round pick. Actually, I suppose we did, as that pick went in the Mahomes deal. I think that turned out pretty good.

It helps that the AFC East is a complete dumpster fire outside of NE. Patriots have no ****ing competition in that division. The Chargers and Broncos are competive most of the time. The only shit team in the West is the Faid year after year.

FU Jets Bills and Fins.

It definitely sucks and was a real gut punch.

But listening to Middlekauf this morning on my way in, he brought up a good point that we do need to remember somewhat. First off, Mahomes showed that he has the mentality. The arm strength the tools all that shit is awesome, but he showed that he's just a ****ing gamer Sunday night. Nothing went right in the first half and they came out and put up 31 in the second half.

Secondly, the defense definitely sucked. But we were also a man short, because of the Mahomes trade up. That's a pretty big deal to be without a first rounder. Sure he may not be an elite player, but just another first round talent on the D maybe makes one or two plays.

Had this been a year where they got there because the defense played out their ass all year and we had a middling qb and offense i'd probably agree that you have to hit these shots.

But it was with a 2nd year MVP QB. Some may say he'll never repeat this year again, maybe, maybe not. But he's going to be a badass and that gives you a shot.

Oh C'mon on now....... When I was in the Army, I used to go to the pistol range with a friend once or twice a month. Each time, my friend would load his pistol, aim downrange and miss the target with his first shot by a mile.

I asked him one day "Why the hell do you do that!?"....his answer? Well, got that first one out of the way - let's get to shooting.

That loss kicked me in the nuts too.....not to worry, This team (Chiefs) are just getting started. ;)

He was our first pick so I guess that's why I said that.

That said our draft was not bad. It wasn't horrible like I felt on draft day and I still believe we could have done better with what we had but it wasn't a terrible draft...

I'd say there's about an 80% chance the Chiefs are the #1 offense in the NFL next year. 10 starters under contract, Mahomes with a year under his belt.

I'd say there's a better than 50% chance the defense is improved. It depends on who gets hired as DC, and the draft, and FA. I doubt very seriously that anybody at Arrowhead Drive wants to repeat that performance. We'll see.

I'd say there's 100% chance we're in the play-offs as long as Mahomes is under center.

This is only the beginning, guys. Chill the **** out.

Could very well be true, especially if there aren't any changes to the defensive staff. We have a coach who doesn't learn from his mistakes, can't manage a clock, and lets his players' spirits decide when to come in and out of games. You also never know about injuries, what other AFC teams may improve in the coming years or when Belichek/Brady will go away. All that is why you gotta cash in on opportunities like this when they present themselves.

I'm stupefied that a Chiefs fan could lose the AFCC game in OT and somehow think we'll never win a SB.

For ****'s sake, had we won the coin toss we probably would have been in this one...

We will keep most of our key pieces on offense.

On defense... Say we cut everybody tomorrow. Haven't we proven we can get to an afc championship game on pretty much a zero defense?

There's nowhere to go but up. And the ceiling is huge.

I’d like to see us add either a legit #2 TE threat or another WR quick enough to get open vs man... just to protect against injury if nothing else. Agreed on all counts.

We'll just trade for Brown...:D

There's def. a window, I think we'll be back for sure...having said that, I'm still extremely bitter about the loss and don't think it's all sunshine and rainbows...

You're not guaranteed anything in this league and when you get into these positions, you have to capitalize on them period.

My faith in Mahomes is at the highest so I think if nothing else he could will us to a Super Bowl...just hope Andy and his ways don't impede that.

24% of the 2019 cap on Houston, Berry, Hitchens. LOL GROSS

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/kansas-c...2019/full-cap/

Go kill yourself. Now.

I'd imagine they'll pretty much have to do something with Berry and Houston's money. I don't know what but they can't do that again.

Hitchens is just weird to me. He never played in Dallas like he did this year.

Oh my God.

Patriots W-L percentage is about the same inside and outside the division, so yeah, not really. But whatever makes you feel better.

Yip regarding Hitchens. I think it's because of the lack of accountability to the coaching staff here vs in Dallas, but it's just a guess. He flat out sucks at tackling on most running plays.

He leads our team in tackles by a wide margin. He just waits until they're well beyond the first down marker to do it.

You mean like Kareem Hunt? Or Sammy Watkins? Or our starting G and C? Did you forget we played the 2nd half of the season in games without all of those guys and still put up 26 points?

Mahomes was making it rain without all those guys against the Ravens #1 ranked defense. He did it with Tyreek playing on one leg too.

Not worried about this at all man and neither should you. If Andy Reid is consistent in one thing, it’s finding offensive talent and fitting it in his scheme.

Look at all the talent he’s found in Philly and KC. We’ll be fine.

Only the Chiefs could have the NFL’s best value and ruin it with shitty contracts for defensive players one of whom can’t even play.

Yep - Andy needs to find his doppelganger on the Defensive side of the ball.

Yes, he does.

This is Wally's opportunity to create his legacy. He has Mahomes on a rookie deal for another couple of years. It ain't rocket surgery.

Fix the defense. Win a Lombardi.

FAX

Let me get this straight...

Our best shot was year 1, with the worst D in the NFL?

Hard to fathom why you'd say that.

We did get lucky with no real injuries to Mahomes, Hill, or Kelce. Yeah, I know we lost Hunt and Watkins was out a LOT, but injuries to any of those 3 would just kill us. What's going to happen if/when the O gets severely crippled? The d can't pick up the slack, that's for sure.

It may not be the best but it was def. a great shot....

HFA throughout with a down AFC, the Pats nowhere near what they've been in the past, and the best QB in the league...

Yeah you don't squander that.

The whole "AFC was down" stuff, while true, doesn't really bother me.

Sure it will probably get better. But I've got thermonuclear at QB. Let them get better. I dont' care.

Getting beat by the goat coach and the goat qb. They won't be around forever

They didn't squander that. They were 3 inches from going to the Super Bowl. They didn't "squander" anything.

I fully expect the Colts and Chargers both to be significantly better next season.

The AFC was as wide open as it’s ever going to be.

Did the Patriots of the last several weeks really look "nowhere near what they've been" to you?

Are they going to the Super Bowl?

Ok exactly...we can talk about inches and calls and all that but at the end of the day, they're going and we're not when EVERYTHING was in our favor...that is squandering.

You're really going to try and argue that they were as good this year as in seasons past? Ok....

I am still very optimistic that the Chiefs best days are ahead.

When Bob Sutton retires that will go through the roof.

I think a couple of years from now we will look back on this season like we look back on the 2014 Royals...stepping stone to greater things.

Pats also have a lot of cap room and draft picks

In terms of ability to get better, we probably have the biggest challenge.

A 37-31 OT loss against a team that is going to it's like 11th Super Bowl in 20 years.

Do you know what the definition of "squander" is?

Nah, not really.

Hell, our defense was literally the worst in the league. They can't get much worse really.

Seems like you're just desperate to convince yourself we're doomed.

I mean in terms of draft picks and cap room.

We'll have to agree to disagree because I believe allowing Bob Sutton to stay was foolish and reckless (there's your definition) and directly led to us losing the game...hence squandering.

I know you don't believe that though and that's fine.

The Steelers are imploding and I just can't sell myself on the Chargers being anything. I think Rivers may be falling off the cliff physically so I'm not gonna be overly worried.

The Colts are somewhat scary in that they have so much cap space and Ballard is good, but I'm not convinced on Luck being healthy.

It's hard to win fellas. That's why you just want to continually give yourself chances.

We definitely don't have the cap room some of them do, but we also have a 23 year old phenom MVP at QB.

I'll take my chances.

What do you think they do here? Restructure? June 1st cuts? Trade?

I have no idea, but if they sit still and do nothing I don't have high hopes of the flexibility to make the defense better (cause there will be none)

...and with 15 we'll always have that. It's a great feeling.

I really see both sides of this argument. "Squander" is the wrong word but thinking you're going to get to this level on a consistent basis is very optimistic...especially if you're a Chief's fan. Never seen a team so snake bitten. So many things could have gone our way that didn't over the course of our team's history.

We lost our starting RB and our second-best wideout for half the season, plus the biggest star on the defense for nearly the entire year. I don't consider that great luck.

With the cap room and draft picks they have, and likely a new DC, there's no reason that they can't turn the defense around quickly. Contrary to what people think (of course they flip-flop every week), there are plenty of pieces to work with. They're just in the hands of someone who does not fully utilize their talents. There's a reason that Hitchens went from a star to a dud after joining the Chiefs.

This team could be a juggernaut next year with the right moves.