Also, much as I hope kelce has years and years left, we have to plan for life without him. I think we’d find out the limitations of our WRs very quickly without him. I love our WR room but everyone needs to be bumped down a spot for this to work. We don’t have a WR1. And it’s intriguing to think what mahomes would be like if he had a more traditional WR1. Not just tyreek where every WR has speed. An athletic WR with size and speed.

For '23 and 24'? No, I don't think you can count on beating Cincinnati in a shoot-out.

I don't think we can assume we can match Chase, Boyd, and Higgins no matter how much we spend.

And Burrow is good enough to go toe to toe with Mahomes. IF he has time to throw.

I think THAT is the key. But after '24, they'll be paying Burrow, and will have to make decisions on Chase, Boyd, and Higgins, and the institutional advantage they currently enjoy will level out. So if I'm Veach, I'm looking to fix the OT situation, and I'm investing in the defensive line.

Well, we have two other TE's that are developing nicely as weapons. No, they're not Kelce, but literally nobody that's ever played the position is.

If we had OT's that could ****ing block, this offense would look even better.

We should NOT spend a #1 or a ton of money for a WR in free agency. Lots of elite WR's come from other rounds in the draft. We should take one every year SOMEWHERE, but not at the exclusion of the gaping holes we have at OT and D-line.

Not in 2023 we shouldn’t, but look at the current list of FA WRs in 2024. Many will be signed before then, but the market is absolutely loaded. We can potentially address OL/DL this coming year and then find a top notch WR the following offseason.

they’re going to be tough to stop no matter what. Buffalo tried this by loading up their defense to stop us. So far it hasn’t worked. Mahomes thrashing defenses is inevitable. I think the same goes for burrow and allen. I can’t imagine the frustration for buffalo with all they’ve invested in their defense for us to have our way with them last year. The difference between this year and last year isn’t our defense. It’s our offense. As much as mahomes has gotten better we still have stretches where receivers flat out aren’t getting open.

What bothers me more about the buffalo and cincy losses this year isn’t that our defense didn’t do enough. It’s that our offense had stretches where they look stuck. You expect a defense to have challenges vs burrow no matter what. But we know our offense is capable of being unstoppable. that is every bit receivers getting open as much as it is OL issues. Too many coverage pressures. We need a WR1. you know what also helps pass pro? A WR who can quickly beat press. Who can bail his qb out on jump balls. Who can quickly find spots in the middle. Because we are having issues with very physical secondaries.

I agree we need to upgrade our tackles for sure. But do we have to pay top dollar to do it? Or at the expense of the right kind of WR1. That’s where I don’t agree. It seems people are content to have a balanced team with an extremely efficient offense. I want ti go back to stomping on peoples throats with our passing game.

What do our WRs look like when kelce isn’t drawing doubles and triples? Or when he isn’t there to be an automatic catch. If we lose kelce I think we figure out our WR room limitations very very fast. Again, I think we’re mostly there. But every WR needs to bump down one spot. Hell, what did Tennessee do? They limited kelce. And our offense looked completely stuck. Because our WRs right now feel like system guys.

JuJu has a $3M cap hit. he is on a very cheap contract.

It's not a WR problem. It's a tackle problem. We don't need a #1 WR, they need the billion dollar QB to not get antsy in the pocket and the T"s to not get blown by.

The offense is better this year than it was last year.

Of course you'd like to keep Hill, he's gone. Move on.

There are some reasonable people with acceptable takes, but you are correct, the majority have unreasonable numbers for what players will get. Goes back to my comment above...comments like this:

"Oh yeah, we should keep JuJu if he's willing to take 3 years, $18 million. Guy has to give us a discount because we know he really wants to play with Mahomes"

Sure, but a huge cost. What we do between now and then will determine whether we can afford to get into that arms race. Or whether we NEED to.

We've got Toney for 3 years cost controlled. Get that kid into a yoga studio all offseason, and maybe we've got something.

Skyy Moore, despite a slow start (which should have been expected) has been coming on.

We have a decision to make on Juju and MVS. We have a decision to make on Hardman, who despite not becoming a true #2 is still a real weapon. Missing time this year actually helps the numbers come contract talk time.

Take another WR in the 2nd-4th rounds to develop and see where you're at in '24.

I would argue that most (if not all), especially those under 35, want money. But there are always a number of idiots on here who have this fairy tale notion that players are in it to win championships.

I 100% disagree and especially against Cincy. The Bengals have routinely gotten a lot of pressure on Mahomes and they've done it quite easily in big moments. I think your view of the effectiveness of our WRs is off the mark. The WRs get open. They got open in the AFC title game last year and they have gotten open in games this year. Mahomes just doesn't have the time to go through proper read progressions because of the immediate pressure on such a high volume of plays.

The other thing about it is that Mahomes, for as good as he can be, is behind the mark on just taking what the defense gives him. Too often he's looking for select weapons, and especially Kelce, instead of just finding the open man. It was terrible in the AFC title game in the second half and it's been terrible in some big moments in tough games this year again. He has to start taking what's there and trusting other guys to make the play. If he doesn't do that, you can give him three #1 caliber WRs in there and it won't matter. He has improved some this year, but he's still going with hot reads when he shouldn't too often.

This offense vs defense debate is kinda the chicken OR egg…
I think Veach will look more at it like the chicken AND egg with OT and DE being the absolute priorities.

an almost entirely new WR corps, man. In a notoriously complex offense requiring post snap reads and route adjustments from the WR's in real time, on the fly.

I don't think they're 'system guys' so much as they have differing skillsets. You have a couple with incredible long speed in Hardman, MVS.. You have one that's very physical in Juju. You have a couple with elite quickness, with Hardman again, Moore, and Toney. There is some youth there with Moore and Toney, so there's some projection but we're not drafting top 5-we won't get the Jamarr Chase's.

Our problems offensively stem from 1)poor OT play, 2)Mahomes still sometimes will not take the easy outlet pass and 3)a lot of new parts.

Despite all of that, this is a top NFL offense. And Kelce won't just fall off the cliff, barring catastrophic injury. He may slow down, but he's got a long way to go before he's JAG.