Especially since Taco doesn’t count against the comp pick formula.

I can see the Chiefs adding a WLB and vet CB like Dennard after they extend Jonsey.

#RunItBack

I think with expanded rosters, there will be an additional spot on the OL and DL.

As for Speaks, I think he could be a long shot to make this roster. Veach just made moves to win the Super Bowl, something that hasn’t happened in 50 years, so his likely not gonna get flack if he moves on from Speaks.
Keep in mind that Speaks first impression with this new staff was coming in overweight and out of shape.

I could totally see Danna being Speaks replacement as he played an awful lot of DT in college.

Harris isn’t bad, but he’s not a good pass rusher. If Danna is better than him then so be it. That’s the beauty of camp

I don’t get the love for Harris (who is a fine player but nothing special) when compared to Charlton, Danna, or Speaks.

Charlton has pretty intriguing upside because of his size and overall athleticism at that size. That’s someone that, like Ogbah, could really shine as a strong side DE who can benefit from the attention Clark and Chris Jones demand, and he’s big enough to rotate inside on passing downs.

This coaching staff loves big, versatile ends they can use inside or outside. That’s why I believe Speaks makes the roster and is effective at least as a rotational player.

People are being WAY too influenced by Speaks’ being misused as a rookie.

That and the whole “showed up to TC out of shape and then suffered a season ending injury” thing.

Is Burrito Rodriguez still available?

Where do you all get that he showed up “out of shape”? He passed the conditioning test.

I’ve never seen such an overblown offseason story in my life. Speaks has always had the body of an interior DL.

Also, sounds like you’re insinuating that his injury was due to him being out of shape, which is ****ing reeruned.

Speaks better lay off the twinkies.

To the Watchtower

It will be interesting to see who gets the preseason game reps, too many good players is not a bad thing especially if it ends up flipping them for a 5-7 round pick

He tore ligaments in his knee. That type of season-ender happens all the time. It’s a dumb reason to be down on a player unless it has happened repeatedly.

The overweight thing is silly, too. 1) players show up carrying extra weight frequently and it is worked off during training camp 2) we don’t know what the Chiefs asked him to do in that offseason. 3) Speaks has never been a guy who looks like a Greek statue

Writing off a guy who was a top 100 prospect after one season (in which he did flash while playing terribly out of position) is just weird.

Especially when he’s being written off so they can hang on to a guy who is pretty JAG-y.

3rd and long and the Chiefs line up Clark (1.58 sec 10 yard split, 7.08 sec 3 cone), Saunders (1.73 split, 7.57 cone), Jones (1.69 split, 7.44 cone), and Charlton (1.63 split, 7.17 cone) to rush the passer. That's some serious get off and lateral agility bringing the heat.

See, I don't think of this signing that way. It's a smart signing for multiple reasons, but one of them is that it's a cheap one-year deal. Taco is a bet hedger for our DE depth. He's part potential, part veteran, and also part expendable. We can easily cut him if any of the other guys on this team become desirable players to keep around. Again, last year Reid and Veach had no problems letting go of Carlos Hyde even though he was making a bit more than minimum and was probably a better guy to have in the backfield than either Darrell Williams or Darwin Thompson.

Taco might very well be a better player than the young guys currently, but if Spags doesn't see an actual use and a fit in the DL rotation, he'll tell Reid to go with Danna and Harris.

Also, this is a sidenote, but provided Speaks isn't a total piece of shit, I don't think he's any more at risk of being cut as a result of this signing. Veach talked about playing him all over the place when we drafted him, and his brief stint at 3-4 OLB in which he got restricted to one position by Bob Sutton shouldn't hold him to being a DE only. I really think they're going to try to use Speaks as an inside/outside guy, and with the roster size expansion, they now have an available slot to use him as their gadget DL.

People might call Speaks a DE since he'll probably play the majority of his time there, but if that's how you categorize him when predicting the Week 1 roster, don't be surprised to see us keeping 6 DEs (Clark, Okafor, Tanoh, Danna, Taco/Harris, Speaks)

EDIT: Or you can just read what duncan had posted like 5 posts earlier instead of reading my drivel

Honestly I’d bet on both of those things happening.

You know what, I completely spaced on the roster expansion. That helps Harris and Speaks, for sure. Not sure if it saves them.

Danna’s passrush tape I’ve seen is just not great. Harris’ isn’t either, but he’s young, coachable, and the right size. His upside is real.

Danna is undersized — and he seems to be maxed out. There’s just absolutely no chance he flexes in to DT for the NASCAR package. (Honestly I’m not even sure if he makes the field, but I’m bearish on him.)

I hope he shows out in camp and proves me wrong.

First of all, Harris played meaningful snaps and helped us win a Super Bowl. The other three were barely making an impact at Michigan, being benched by the Dolphins, or on IR. Respect where it’s due.

Harris played pretty much right away after we acquired him and was our 2nd best run defending DE immediately. Dude is tough at the point of attack.

Needs to develop a passrush, but he has started upside if he does.

Agreed.

For this team to become a dynasty, however, it’s going to need cheap young dudes to emerge. I just feel like the Danna pick backbenches a guy who’s been doing that.

I'd agree insofar as I'm not expecting Danna to play inside. They had him beefed up 20 pounds over what's probably his optimal weight at Michigan, and all it really did was slow him down. He needs to be closer to 260 than 280, as he purportedly was at the Shrine Game, when the Chiefs may have really focused in on him.

Seriously: WHY DID BOB SUTTON PLAY HIM AT OLB.

WHY.

I am not a Speaks fan, but that is ABSURD misuse.

This is all fair.

And why did a 3-4 team draft him? And the theory we knew we were going to the 4-3 is absurd.

Knee injuries are at least loosely correlated with being overweight. I don’t know if his specific injury is. Not gonna look it up, either, because I’m not getting paid for it.

Coming in heavier makes sense if the plan was to play him inside and out, but I’m unsure whether that was Daly and Spags’ intent.

Speaks is shaping up to be the worst draft pick of the Veach era. DOD a close second.

Knee injuries happen to all sorts of athletes and NFL players, regardless of weight or body fat percentage. There’s no reason to link Speaks’ injury to his weight.

Considering they dropped Kpassagnon inside and talked about Speaks ability to rush inside or outside and versatility when they drafted him, it’s a safe bet they were planning to use him inside at least some times.

This year will tell the story on Speaks. Anything we say now is projection.

Giving up on Speaks right now is as silly as giving up on Kpass was last season.

One wasted season at OLB, and one season lost to injury. We have no idea what there is there.

If you had told me that at the beginning as opposed to the end, it would have been more efficient.

FAX

And then Hyde had a costly fumble that helped us beat Houston

We lost to Houston in the game that Hyde fumbled in.

.

No one is saying cut him now.

But he damn sure better show up (metaphorically) hungry.

That year's draft was awful, but Veach has made up for it since then. I expect 2019-2020 drafts to be the norm going forward, not 2018.

The more you mull this one over, the better it looks and feels

A recent first round talent for peanuts, coming to a first class organization where one of his best friends is an undisputed leader... he’s gonna succeed here, get Gay up to speed and our front seven is ****ing dangerous right now

Charlton is a solid signing and drafting Gay was an excellent move... I hate to say it...

It’s almost like the Chiefs’ FO knows what they’re doing!!

I have a feeling that Speaks will end up as a situational pass-rush tackle. It seems to suit his strengths and they can tell him to eat all he wants. Watching him on the outside, it seemed like he was very green or just not naturally adept at rushing from that position. If he beat his guy, he would literally stop and gather himself for that second phase of the rush past the blocker. That's not really going to happen on an inside rush.

well yeah. They ****ing all better.

Ain't no more **** around.

The culture has changed.

I truly believe Sutton was always gonna be gone and the plan was to move into a 4-3 in 2019. I think Speaks and DOD got picked to get them a year of experience but ready to help the move into a 4-3. It’s hard to change in one off season from they were getting a start on that. Unfortunately both look like reaches.

I don’t think anything negative of Speaks based on year one. He looked over weight and slow at training camp. There seems to be this belief you either think he will be good or a bust. Some of us are just cautious because no part of Speaks game as shown he will be anything more than a average to below average rotational guy. That is based off of what I’ve seen from the guy. I’ve said before and say it again, I’m not saying cut the guy and I hope I’m wrong because if he could just be then Okafor then that could save us like 5-6mil and not make DE a priority next draft.

I’ve heard Petro freaking out about the 2021 roster but in reality it’s not in bad shape if a couple guys can be ready to start. So far this staff seems to be developing pretty well and spags does an incredible job of working with what he is given.

They would likely keep 10 and I think those highlighted will make it. Maybe Harris can make it and Danna gets the mysterious injury.

Veach has said they make moves thinking a couple years out.

In 2018, they'd decided that Mahomes was ready.

You really want to change BOTH sides of a play-off caliber football team? Put the pressure on a first year starter to have to score every drive?

Nah. They knew they were moving on from Sutton. But it was time to hand the keys of the offense to Mahomes. They opted to hope the defense could hold the line one more year.

It worked out to where it couldn't have gone much worse, but I understand the thought process, and I did at the time, and if you wanna go back and look, I was saying so all throughout.

And I was good with gutting the damned thing in Mahomes year 2 and starting over.

Those cats drafted in '18 were drafted for scheme flexibility. I don't know if they had Spags earmarked (but it's entirely possible they did) or whether they knew for sure they were going 4-3 but either way, they knew Sutton was gone. He was a lame duck. They just didn't want to up-end the entire team in one offseason. It's just common sense.

They just need to choose a position so Speaks can adjust his weight accordingly. Or fail to and get cut.

He is too heavy to be an effective LB, and too slow to be an effective DE, and not big enough to be an effective DT.

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He's not playing LB ever again.

Well stated Duncan!

Speaks is 6'3", 285.

Aaron Donald is 6'1", 280.

Just sayin'.

He's a tweener DE/DT, which doesn't work in some systems, but can be really useful in Spagnuolo's approach.

Having a DE who is stout enough to stand up against the run on early downs and slide inside to create interior pressure on passing downs works just fine in this system.

I think it's pretty obvious they view him as DT, they walked on Xavier Williams who played quite a few snaps and didn't bring in another DT.

this is a good point, and one you can extrapolate to nearly everything Spags does at every level.

It also helps us to identify and utilize talent that is specific to Spags system but maybe not a great fit for other systems.

Kind of like Moneyball, but for football.

We can really use guys that do a few things fairly well better than guys that do ONE thing very well. The fact that pre-snap an opposing offense doesn't know what we're going to do because we have so many versatile players helps hide any deficiencies.

Other than the outside corners, you don't know who's doing what on any given snap. Creating confusion is like shaving a quarter of a second off everyone's 40 time.

And now that we have a LB capable of covering backs, we'll be even better.

Damone Harris is basically a Jag, there isn't really any upside there, there's a reason the Chiefs were able to sign him in the middle of the season. Also if the Chiefs believe in Speaks playing there isn't a need for a end that can play the run cause Speaks can do that and play DT snaps also...

On top of that Charlton can give you what Harris does with a lot more pass rush upside.

What has Speaks ever done with the Chiefs that would make anyone believe he would/could be an effective DE?

When he was in the game, he was almost always neutralized by a single blocker. He doesn't have any pass rush moves to speak of, and I don't remember him ever being successful with a bull rush. I don't remember him ever running down a play from behind along the LOS. I can't remember any play from the all-22 where he stood out.

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Fair enough. Maybe he doesn't have the strength or skill to be a good DT. I just know the eye test says he is a below average player.

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:facepalm:

You haven’t even seen him play DE/DT yet. How the **** can you determine that?

The guy has 1 year at this level playing out of position. I swear most of you guys have no ****ing patience whatsoever.

You're judging him based on 1 year at OLB with the old coaching staff, by your criteria Kpass should have been cut before last season cause he had no chance of ever being productive.

The funny thing is Speaks was definitely above KPass on the depth chart before he was injured too...

I don't quite get the Speaks hate. He hardly played on season under a shitty DC and then was hurt the all of last season. I have a feeling if we had signed him off the waiver wire... there would be a great contingent here banging the drum that he was a high draft pick with potential who had bad luck and just needed a fresh start. Anyway, I don't give a shit one way or another...but he really evokes a lot emotion on here.

He is getting a ton of hate mainly because he's a bad body guy, anytime people think you look out of shape as a pro athlete, you will catch a ton of shit.

The only NFL tape we have of him is being played out of position, as a stand-up LB.

He hasn't been used as a strong side DE in an even front. He hasn't been used as an interior pass rusher in an even front.

Those are the things his college tape and general skillset suggest are best uses of him. We literally haven't seen either.

He flashed more and looked more competent than Tanoh Kpassagnon two seasons ago, and Kpass was an effective player in Spagnuolo's system, being used just like they would probably use Speaks.

We haven't seen him used properly yet, so it's too early to say either he's going to obviously succeed or definitely fail. Patience, people.

LMAO Dude did look slow as ****, but so would any DT/DE tweener playing OLB in a 3-4. ****ing Sutton, man.

I don’t know about that. It can be argued that Gilbert Brown was the Packer fan favorite on those 90s Green Bay teams, not Brett Favre

Ok people like super fat dudes when it's their position...when they think you should be athletic its kinda eh.

I mean he said himself that he let himself go in the off-season. I remember hearing the reports that he had to get back in shape at camp.

Usually that gets you a short time in the league if you are lazy, especially a player like Speaks. You can’t pull that shit unless you’re elite.

Coming to camp in shape and ready to go is pretty much the basics for the NFL.

I don't know, because I could always see the potential in KPass. He always seemed to have the physical tools.

When I watched Speaks, he just looked slow and plodding, with no explosion. I would love for him to develop into a very good player, I just think no one knows really what to do with him.

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I think this is the foundational truth of the issue.

When you are a slow, fat and lazy athlete, it is hard to build up loyal fans.

Unless you are John Kruk or John Daily. :evil:

Speaks took it easy in the offseason again- but said he will cut the weight when he gets to camp.

I guess it's not fair to hate on Speaks personally, but I despise the pick because it was a dumb pick from day 1. The comparison I will constantly give for Speaks is Turk McBride, another DE/DT tweener from the SEC picked in the 2nd round. McBride had 9.5 total sacks over a 7 year career. You don't take players like Speaks in the 2nd round who offer very little upside, you take them in the 3rd or 4th. I didn't like the pick of Kpass the year before either, as he was incredibly raw and took 3 years to finally contribute, but at least he had the physical attributes to see some hint of a future if he developed. Speaks doesn't have the size or strength to ever be more than a rotational pass rusher at DT, and he doesn't have the speed or athleticism to get after the QB from DE. Again, no problem with that type of player if he's taken in the 4th. But a 2nd round pick should be able to contribute sooner than later. Willie Gay or Juan Thornhill are the types you take in the 2nd. 2018 wasn't a stellar draft class overall, but there are multiple quality players at several positions that were taken not too long after Speaks.

It's silly: Just look at the recent heavyweight championship fight between Tyson Fury and Deonte Wilder. Wilder was ripped from head to toe while Fury had a Dad Bod.

Who won that fight? Oh yeah, Dad Bod.

Unbeknownst to most people, there are three completely different body types.

Guys with Endomorph bodies will never appear ripped but that doesn't mean that they're not strong and athletic.

Veach will draft busts just like every other GM. It’s too tough of a business to hit on these picks every year. His last 2 draft classes look very good to me.

Also keep in mind Veach got Ward, Neimann and Rankin on rookie deals who were from that draft class. I’d consider Nnandi and Ward to be hits while Speaks and Rankin are TBD. Neimann is probably a decent get. Not really good or bad.

No argument there. Veach did really well IMO the past 2 years. I don't always agree 100% with every pick, but I can generally see the rationale and get on board. 2018 was a different story, but I give Veach a mulligan on that one. I just didn't like the draft class that year from day 1 and that belief hasn't really changed. Speaks and DOD just weren't great picks. People have suggested the goal was to get scheme versatile players, but sometimes being a tweener doesn't make you versatile. In both of their cases they just weren't great at any one thing. I personally don't like tweener types in general, but that's just me.

Such a lazy ****ing comparison.

Speaks had 7 sacks in the SEC his last year as an interior pass rusher. His pass rush upside alone makes him a better prospect than Turk McBride who had 3.5 sacks total in his entire college career. The only reason you’re making that comparison is because they play the same position, they’re from the SEC, and they were drafted by the Chiefs in the 2nd round.

Speaks was a significantly better prospect. Give me a ****ing break.

I can't believe you gave me a thumbs down for preaching patience and using the Kpass example sir! :harumph:

My bad that was an accident. I definitely agree with you 100%.

I do it all of the time due to where I put my finger to scroll LMAO

825,000 1 year deal. No guaranteed money. Definitely not considered a lock to make the roster solely based on this contract.

Taco can play. He has potential starter ability.

It is his attitude and work ethic that has been called into question in his short tenure in the league. Sounds like this contract is loud and clear in that this could be one of his last chances to smarten up.

This could turn out to be a damn good signing ,if it does doubt we will be able to keep him long term

I know it’s highlights but he looks good in them

I look good in my highlights, too.



:hmmm:





Meh, who am I kidding? I’ve never had a highlight.

:(

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Story far from finished. 👹 <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Unloaded?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Unloaded</a> <a href="https://t.co/9vgdY0GAKI">pic.twitter.com/9vgdY0GAKI</a></p>&mdash; Taco Charlton (@TheSupremeTaco) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheSupremeTaco/status/1284867415889895424?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 19, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


Speaks better get his ass in gear

@wildcard

Our dline looks so lit right now

Yes, he may smarten up for a year playing for a future better contract BUT if you are Veach and Taco has a good year NOT great what do you offer him then and vice versa if he has a GREAT year knowing his work ethic has a sputtering history?

Comp pick

:clap:

We are going to see what happens when you pair Mahomes up with a top 10 defense this year.

Exactly. And I think playing from behind will be a lot less this year as well.;)