This guy is really an interesting signing. The LB room is pretty flush, so why this guy right now? Was he just a happy accident, or is something else going on?

Harris was out there a lot, they needed to replace him. They also have limited options behind Bolton and Gay.

People are trying to connect dots that aren’t there. Gay trade, 3-4, Chenal to DE, etc. They’ve upgraded the 3rd/4th LB spot left behind by Harris, that is all.

I think its just CHEAP CONTRACT depth and versatility. Bound to be guys injured. More match up choices for Spags. 4 LBS are not too many.

Paul Harvey’s– “The Rest of the Story” (For you old farts)

As a senior in Fort Wayne, Indiana in 2013, Drue Tranquill ran for 1,420 yards, 28 touchdowns on 114 carries. He also had 16 receptions for 348 yards and five touchdowns.

Last year’s Kansas City Chiefs fullback, Michael Burton is gone, having signed with the Denver Broncos.

Several people on here have commented that the Chiefs use of a fullback is a waste as he really is a special teams player that plays a few times on offense.

Andy Reid likes fullbacks. As a head coach since 1999, he has always had a fullback on his team.

Linebackers can wear a 40s series number. Fullbacks can wear a 40s series number. Drue wore #49 while with the Chargers.

When offered the job to play offense, defense, and special teams, Drue said, “Hell yes! Sign me up!" This last part I just made up, but why let facts get in the way of a good story.

This guy could also play the third Safety roll that Spags like to deploy but disguise it to the offense!

Keep em guessing...

WTF is this Boomer nonsense….

This guy is a very good football player.

He can really cover at the lb spot too so that’s nice

Well, if you can't lock Travis Kelce down in 1-on-1 coverage and are basically tired of him beating you like a redheaded stepchild twice a season, go ahead and sign with his team at a ridiculously discounted price and reap the rewards.

I wonder how he did against TEs not named Travis Kelce?

This guy is a great LB, very versatile. Good get by Garth Geech.

Well if that’s the criteria we’re going to be signing all the linebackers

He's also a decent blitzer.

To me, the surprising part is NOT bringing back Harris. Wonder what the story is there.

Yeah, I'm surprised by harris. I half-wonder if the chiefs were being nice to him because he can get a starting job somewhere else and not in Kansas city.

I agree on Tranquill. In the little bit that I've seen of him, he's always been very impressive. I'm a big fan of this signing.

He looks like a big upgrade over Harris, imo. Much better in coverage, and I think he's more athletic, in the little film I've seen of the guy. He's in a couple of the DHop highlight reels. Obviously, he's not covering Nuk, but he shows up at the tackle or incoming. He looks pretty fast.

Its a fair question, no doubt

The simplest answer is they simply wanted a better cover backer, but who knows?

None of our LBs are great in coverage, but I'd argue they're better than they were a year ago. Harris was the weak link in that regard in 2022, and this guy looks better at it, so looks like a solid W for KC?

I'm not sure Harris was any worse in coverage than the rest to be honest. It was the relative weakness across the group. With Tranquil it's gone, we have guys who can blitz rush, stuff the run, bottle up a running QB and now cover over the middle. It's an outstanding group, or certainly should be next year.

Wasn't my analysis, really. Heard that on Chris Simms show a week before the SB. Basically, he said of the LBs, Harris was the 'worst' at coverage, and how that could be a problem vs. PHI.

Probably a better judge than me, just think it's one of those small weaknesses that always felt like it could crop up with whoever we had out there...not that it mattered in the end. But it's cool seeing us just slam the door on this before anyone got the idea of exploiting it.

EXACTLY.

Back in the day coverage wasn’t really a problem for a linebacker all Willie Lanier had to do was grab a guy and pull his arms off so he couldn’t catch the ball

Or just try to take the receiver's head off. 'Separate the man from the ball.' Miss the good ole days as well.

Yeah nothing like seeing a guy headless and armless to get the old juices flowing

It's interesting, no doubt. He's better than Gay and Chenal are right now. Hard to truly gauge if Veach has something up his sleeve or if it's just a lucky signing that gives us a really good rotation.

I'd think if it was something they thought of as a replacement, it woulda been for more than 1 year.

Harris coverage grades were horrible. Hell of a tackler and smart, but able to be targeted in coverage.

That wouldn't be smart for Tranquill though. No point in locking himself up to a multiyear deal when he can come in, prove that he deserves a long term contract and then have that shot next year. If he does well, then the Chiefs will have to either sign him or he'll find another team.

Sure, but he also took 3 mil a year. I don't think he was in such high demand.

It just seems to be a position of little value to teams unless you are a real difference maker and an athlete.

He turned down other offers to come to the Chiefs. I believe they said it was 5 teams but I could be misremembering that.

I'd say the money was pretty similar to do that.

This has been a weird FA market. Probably some combo of:

1) Between the guaranteed deal for a molester and the Kirk deal, I suspect there may have been some owner collusion to cool the market.

2) Chargers/Bills/Eagles/etc. went all in last year and couldn’t beat the Chiefs. Fewer teams are opting to sell out for a ring.

3) FA class is weak generally.

How much should a decent off-ball linebacker get?

Who is in position to sell out for a ring?

Several teams did it last year and are now paying the price for it...Cincy? They're to cheap to sell out for anything.

I mean the math is what the math is.

There's a ceiling and a floor and teams WILL spend between those 2 figures. As you noted, a lot of teams made deals last season coming off the COVID flat-cap that pushed money into this season expecting a strong rise in the cap. They essentially used this year's cap as a credit card to pay for players they signed LAST offseason and now the bill is coming due.

Last year's spending was never realistic going forward. And it was SO unrealistic that it suppressed spending this season. It'll probably happen around the time the new tv rights deals throws a shitload of money into the system as well.

Collusion is damn near impossible under the CBA and to whatever extent it is possible, the juice definitely does not justify the squeeze. There's just very little to be gained by collusion with the spending floors in place.

What you're seeing is a market correction, Juan. Teams can't mash the accelerator every off-season in a cap league - it don't work that way.

I'm not sure but this absolutely touches on my favorite part of this signing.

Can Willie Gay, who's never had a season like the one Tranquill just had, really walk into Veach's office and say "Yeah, Imma need $15 million/season..."?

I mean I guess the potential downside would be that this could chill extension talks entirely because Tranquill is just so damn cheap. But what it could also do is take some stars out of Willie's eyes and maybe facilitate a deal.

Willie Gay has never been more than a 6-8 per year average...Bolton is the one that is probably going to ask for 15.

Yeah, it should be pretty clear at this point that "the cap is a myth" is clearly a myth, especially when you have to pay QBs.

Just be glad that we're paying a really, really good one.

Oh, and I completely forgive you for not signing KYZIR last season, Burt.

Shit I love this move. Just an outstanding signing.

Get good players on good contracts and figure out how to make the pieces fit together later. Or better still - "I'm the GM - I sign guys and when I see a good value play I'm gonna make it. You're the coaches - I'll defer to you on getting this to work..."

This is just a really good organization right now. CBA scorecard be damned.

Only if you do it the way the Saints do it and even then you'll still end up with problems.

That was one of my first thoughts as well. Instead of losing Gay and Bolton, this may actually help us keep them long term.

Bolton will try to get paid, he has numbers and he's gonna throw out Edmunds contract, Warners and the dude from the Jags...he isn't as good as Warner but Edmunds is arguable.

They largely stink and they're STILL ****ing it up. It's pretty amazing, really. They should be thanking their lucky stars for Olave.

Yeah, I'm disinclined to do it, but I'd imagine if you searched for 'myth' under my user name you'd see me bitching up a blue streak about that crap for the last 6-8 years.

The cap is absolutely NOT a myth. You can tapdance around it and finesse it for a long while, but eventually you do have to deal with it.

The one thing that might be a myth is the duration of 'cap hell'. For a long while I was nervous about kicking cans down the road out of fear that it could trigger some hellish 3-5 year roster purge/rebuild.

Nah. You can spend like a drunken sailor and by and large you're only ever 1 year of absolutely eating shit away from getting yourself back in decent shape. Now it may be a REAL un-fun year, but it can be done. But you have to be smarter than the Saints who just keep using credit cards to pay off credit cards.

The Saints won't even admit their window closed when Brees retired and refuse to just start over, it makes no sense at all.

Like I truly don't understand what the **** is going on there.

I've noticed that as well. Hell, even the donx could escape their pit of misery relatively quickly if they made the decision to yank off the bandaid and dump Wilson now. It'd hurt like hell for a season, but their loss of picks is already contributing to that. If they did it NOW, they could be somewhat rejuvenated in 2-3 years tops and know a lot more about the young players they'd HAVE to play. Instead, they're keeping fatrus and overpaying a bunch of guys in an attempt to return to relevance NOW. It makes almost no sense.

You don't have a coaching staff of geriatrics to do a full rebuild.

He may end up being a 'test the market' guy that we end up losing.

Because yes, that's absolutely how he'll approach it. And Veach will have to point out that Edmunds is a coverage backer in a market that really appreciates coverage backers. So 'better' doesn't really work here; he's the S of the LB group with Edmunds being the CB. And CBs get paid more than S even if the S is better at playing S than the CB is at playing CB.

But Oluokun's deal is going to be the real problem. His deal was 2/$30 or 3/$45 depending on how the Jags play it. And he DOES play the same style of game as Bolton with Bolton being able to argue that he might play that style at a higher level.

The market for off-ball backers got real weird for a bit. That CJ Mosley contract deserves to at least be in the same chapter if not on the same page as the Watson contract in the eventual "Big Book of What The **** Were They Thinking?"

Yeah, people always say the cap is a "myth". It certainly exists but I think it's still worth noting that good teams, with good front offices, are just better at making the cap less of a factor than people think it is.

Probably because they realize that the cap is not a myth and therefore make their decisions accordingly.

People will see how much of a myth the cap is when the bengals lose Tee Higgins and Tyler Boyd.

It seems to me, and again I know very little about cap machinations because it makes my eyes glaze/cross, that the cap hell thing is a product of trying to 'run it back' too many times. We've watched NOR try and keep their pieces together at least three years too long, LAC tried with Rivers for at least that long, and so forth. The Chiefs tried to once and then decided to reset/rebuild or whatever they want to call it. That probably is the better way to go about it, rather than just piling on season after season with no cut-off date.

Some teams don't want to part with expensive fan favorite players who don't really perform to their salary (Honey Badger). It's never a good idea to let the fans emotions dictate any personnel moves.

Not sure if it's just how much fans feelings enter into it. I mean, NOR probably thought "we're so close, just need to put one more season on the credit card and that'll do it!!!" and just did it too many times. Hell, they probably should've gone to the SB twice except for two of the worst non-calls in NFL history sent them home early twice in three seasons or whatever it was. But when the bills came due, they decided "let's run it back one more time, because we were right there!!" Then effed up and did it three-four more times instead of cutting their losses after trying twice.

I remember Harris got beat for a really close TD when Gay was out. Sure seemed like the other step Gay has would've been enough to intercept it.

I liked Harris okay, but he was never a great coverage guy. Gay is better at it and he's working to get better still, and I think his ceiling is a lot higher than Harris', for whatever that's worth.

This guy is an obvious upgrade. I mean, he looks pretty good in coverage, and when's the last time we could say that about one of our LBs? Hopefully it really hasn't been since DJ, but it feels like it's been about that long.

Anthony Hitchens was fantastic!! ROFL

In 2020 Hitch was okay. Definitely improved over what he was in 2019. But good? No, not actually good, obviously. That guy was just such a disappointment. His tape from DAL suggested a much better player than what we got. And he didn't get injured or anything, so why he just sucked never made much sense.

Okay, ending rant now before my blood pressure spikes. **** Hitchens. Glad he did what he could tohelp us win LIV, but so glad he's gone.:)

And **** you for reminding me that Hitchens existed.:D

I'm glad I could be of service.

I read an article the other day, and damn if I can remember where from, about how teams are spending less in FA over the past few years on what amounts to very average returns and instead turning to the trade market to get star talent. It was definitely eye-opening and it's largely true. You're probably just not going to turn your fortunes on the FA market. It's a great place to fill holes in your roster and eliminate drafting for need but you shouldn't rely on it or overspend in it.

Ringer article from yesterday.

Basically said bigger names are moving teams vis trades than free agency.

Good thing I didn't buy that Joshua Williams jersey.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Defense is on the menu ��*�� <br><br>Let&#39;s officially welcome LB <a href="https://twitter.com/DTranquill?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DTranquill</a> to Chiefs Kingdom! <a href="https://t.co/3aU5Ia2Yqd">pic.twitter.com/3aU5Ia2Yqd</a></p>&mdash; Kansas City Chiefs (@Chiefs) <a href="https://twitter.com/Chiefs/status/1638254151355232291?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 21, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

The comments are priceless.

Joshua Williams making cash this offseason

LMAO watch dumb **** QBs check into a run thinking the Chiefs are in nickel

That seems strange. Williams may have picked a new number so #23 is available.

Tranquill was #23 at Notre Dame.

From Chiefs.com -

I will be danged. I called it! Chiefs picked up a hybrid CB/S. Lol, where's my prize?:LOL:

If it's from Billay, I'll pass;)

He was 2 in college so maybe he wants to be 22 now?

Can't he just be 2?

Well who was 2 last year? Jones yea didn't think about that.

So he’s the new, not washed Dirty Dan?

Sign me up.

If you don’t think we needed this guy, I’d advise you to watch the Bengals game in Cincy. That was very ugly. Burrow just killed us in the middle of the field.

So glad we got this guy

LB Drue Tranquill – 2003 $1,010,000 Base, $1,440,000 Signing Bonus, $510,000 Roster Bonus, $40,000 Workout Bonus, $3,000,000 Cap Hit, $2,450,000 Guaranteed

bitter

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Drew* really wants that post Chargers Weddle treatment, hey? <a href="https://t.co/VGgM1wEQNI">https://t.co/VGgM1wEQNI</a> <a href="https://t.co/CDIcdGBI87">pic.twitter.com/CDIcdGBI87</a></p>&mdash; Bolts Brigade (@Jamey_Messina) <a href="https://twitter.com/Jamey_Messina/status/1640085600744411137?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 26, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

LMAO

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Drue taking nothing but jabs at our organization and yet we have fans who continue to defend him. That man can kick rocks for all I care. **** him and whoever tries to defend him <a href="https://t.co/Q05EBFoXIk">https://t.co/Q05EBFoXIk</a></p>&mdash; REJ⚡️ (@BoltUpREJ) <a href="https://twitter.com/BoltUpREJ/status/1640104119192125441?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 26, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Oh yeah, the tears. The tears are just so sweet.

This organization literally owns the souls of our divisional fans. It’s just marvelous.

Is there a better linebacker corps in the league?

This is payback for the Chargers claiming Donnie Edwards. Karma bitch!

The way the Chargers' FAN is acting it's as if the Chiefs signed prime Junior Seau

Kind of. This guy led the Chargers in tackles with 144 I think. Not saying this guy is Junior, but he's pretty darn good.