LNBS: Chiefs draft theory
 

Every year the Chiefs are connected, by what feels like everybody in the media, to the best deep threat in the draft. Whether it's Henry Ruggs, Jameson Williams, etc.

Haven't heard a whole lot about the Chiefs and Hyatt, and that makes me go hmmm.

Don't get me wrong, he was mentioned by both Breer and King today (interesting enough), but it was more of a throwaway backup plans scenario as opposed to the headline of names.

Instead it's been guys like Zay Flowers and Jamhyr Gibbs. The thing is, I don't see the Chiefs trading up as high as it will take to get Flowers, and I definitely don't see them actually taking a RB in the 1st more or less trading up for one.

Going into the draft process, many thought Hyatt wouldn't be in our range either, but after probably the most disappointing 4.4 I've ever seen, it feels like everybody has jsut written him off entirely in the 1st round.

What if the Chiefs know they can get Hyatt at 31, and they're just trying to keep everybody off the idea that he is in fact a perfect fit for what they look for (like Williams and Ruggs).

It's entirely possible that his 40 is a blessing in disguise, because I think he's going to light it up if the Chiefs actually take him.

Give me Mingo over everyone else if we go wr

This isn't necessarily an endorsement of Hyatt, although he'd probably be in my short list.

I just think there's a legitimate possibility that Veach and Andy love him, and can't believe that people are going to ignore the speed on tape in favor of his 40 allowing them get him at 31.

Haven’t you heard? We’re trading up for a LT.

The roster is solid and they have 10 pics. It all hinges on whether or not the judge thinks our free-agent tackle is a left tackle. If he is with the off-season defensive signings I think they’re looking at wide receiver. Zack flowers maybe? With a move up? Otherwise they’re going edge

I don't know if I've ever seen Veach telegraph "the guy" at WR, or really his 1st/2nd round targets all that much. Hyatt and Scott are the two guys to watch IMO, depending on if it's 1st or 2nd round. No talk about either to KC and both are perfect fits.

I really don't think KC is taking an ER in the first two rounds either. They don't have a need for a starter over the next 2 years. I mean, if a value falls just right yeah, but I just don't see them pushing it.

Replace Hyatt with Johnston and I’m there. He’s been an after thought recently. Chiefs not only had a visit with him but he was the first receiver that was at the throwing session with Patrick.

I think it’s Quinten Johnston. Lot of speed prospects available later. Johnston is the best bigger bodied receiver available. After him it’s quite the drop off

Just looking at what we have and what is available I believe Mingo and Johnston are the guys we are eyeing fast but big bodied and tall. We don't have anyone tall other than Justyn Ross - I feel like we try and get one of those two to give Patrick a tall receiver. Juju is 6'1" and 215 lbs. If you are looking to diversify your offense, I don't think you draft a type of player you have plenty of - physicality wise.


KT (24 yo - 5'11" - 189 lbs - 4.39 40)
Speed - Elusive

Skyy Moore (22 yo - 5'10" - 196 lbs - 4.41 40)
Slot receiver - slant/cross/dig receiver

Justyn Ross (23 yo - 6'4" - 204 lbs - 4.63 40 )
Speed - large catch radius

John Ross (27 yo -5'11'' - 188 lbs - 4.22 40)
Speed - take top off defense - experienced kick returner

Ihmer Smith-Marsette (23 yo - 6'0" - 181 lbs - 4.43 40)
Experienced Kick returner
____________________________________

JALIN HYATT (21 yo - 6'0" - 176 lbs - 4.4 40)
Field-Tilting Speed
Sure Hands

JONATHAN MINGO (22 yo - 6'2" - 220 lbs - 4.46 40)
Elite Athleticism
Pro-Ready Frame

QUENTIN JOHNSTON (21 yo - 6'3" - 208 lbs - NO 40)
Elite Athleticism
Field-Tilting Speed

ZAY FLOWERS (22 yo - 5'9" - 189 lbs - 4.42 40)
Short-Area Quickness
Instinctual Playmaking
Smooth Footwork

JORDAN ADDISON (21 yo - 5'11" - 173 lbs - 4.49 40)
Instinctual Playmaking
Short-Area Quickness
Smooth Footwork

I think when it comes to draft time, Flowers size will cause him to fall to the mid 20s and if Veach wants him, he will be a Chief. I don’t think his size limits his ability to be a dangerous outside WR in the NFL but lots of scouts do.

Hyatt would be more of a Mecole replacement where I think Flowers brings more of a “Tyreek lite” to the offense in a guy that can win on all 3 levels…he just doesn’t have that super rare speed Tyreek had, but he has just about everything else.

He has many of the strengths Mecole has as well as his weaknesses. I don’t see a good route runner in Hyatt. I’m not sure I see a guy that can be effective learning all the WR spots and running every route in the tree and expanding his knowledge of defenses snd coverages so he can adjust routes with sight adjustments that’s required in this offense.

I could see us moving up in the second for him, but I don’t think I see a first.

:spock:

I've been pounding the table for Johnston if he falls to 31 for weeks. However, I'm still skeptical that he does.

Ehhh. I don’t buy Hyatt in the first. I think there is a solid chance he makes it to like pick 50. If the field stretcher is what your after just wait for Palmer

I would LOVE Zay or JSN in the first. But the closer we get to the draft, and looking at the WR room. Hopkins makes so much sense with the experience he’d bring. MVS is what he is, but he’s the only guy where you know what you’re getting


As for the smoke… our draft crushes have leaked quite often.

Everyone knew we were in on Mahomes
Matt Miller mentioned how we loved CEH
Schulz tweeted about us multiple times with Skyy
Bolton became obvious during the second round
Jameson might have been true.. just wasn’t attainable

Obviously there have been surprises.. nobody saw McDuffie coming

? Huh? We all knew we needed a WR. Moving up to around 20 with some of the Hill picks was not seen as a shocker.

They'll draft the receiver with the largest hands, whoever that is. That's what they did when they drafted Sky Moore

Hes a corner? :hmmm:

I think we get Hopkins myself. Bringing in all these WRs is prolly a scare tactic so that Arizona lowers their asking price.

I've been in the boat for a bigger bodied WR for a long time. Kinda tired of the small guys, Mahomes needs a young, point of catch, Moss the DB, kinda guy so give me Mingo over Hyatt. When we passed on George Pickens last year to trade down, then took Skyy Moore I was pretty disappointed. I saw why they did it, Pickens has some cockiness that might not play well with others, a Steelers or Raiders pick he was destined to be, but I still want that type of receiver for Mahomes and imo there's no better time to take that guy. Either this year or next, lock up a young stud big bodied receiver for Mahomes to continue his prime with. Trade draft capital to do it too, I don't care, this front office can afford to be a little risky after the last five years of success they've accomplished.

Where you plan on getting 18 mil to pay him ???????????????????

I'm with you on Tyler Scott.

He looks like a great fit here.

Wanna replace Mecole? If so, I think Jamyr Gibbs provides many of those same skills....plus the additional skills of a RB. That said, I doubt the goal of our First is to simply replace Mecole. Nonetheless, I think Gibbs would be awesome in our offense.

Gibbs could also replace McKinnon, except for his blocking skills. But didn't McK have 9 receiving TDs?

Lastly, does anyone see a bit of Jamal Charles in Gibbs? Looks like a clone to me. Would love to see Gibbs in red!!!

kccrow is going to be completely and utterly insufferable if we take Gibbs.

He's going on a revenge tour, and not even the innocent will be spared. I never made fun of the pick, but I could easily see him telling me to drink anti-freeze.

Hold onto your butts

KCCROW presents, The anti freeze tour. Sponsored by Miller Lite and AIDS.

and we are no longer the team that chases and overpays the aging vet on the downhill side of their career. We now leave that to the other 3 teams in our division...

Geez man it is the salary cap. Funny money. Veach can maneuver that with one swipe of his magical wand. Im not necessarily advocating for any of the below solutions specifically but it is easily possible

1.) Cardinals transfer the majoriry of his salary to bonus and pay it if the draft capital is sufficient enough.
2.) Chris Jones extension
3.) Move some Thuney money around
4.) Move more Mahomes money around
5.) Move Kelce money around.

There are deadlines on those last three. They touched Mahomes money already and can't do it again.

Pretty sure they can restructure Mahomes contract whenever they dang well please but dont claim to be a cap expert so will defer on that.

They can't. There is a deadline on it every year. They already restructured it for this season and can't do it again.

We have many wrs they want to look at on the roster now. Taking one early may not happen. They want Toney to be the guy. Rookie wrs never do shit with Andy.

I mean he's being written off for good reason though, Hyatt is a giant unknown. His release packages and route tree were never fleshed out because of the Tennessee offense. If you pick him you're really just gambling that it was a case of “wasn’t asked to do” rather than “can’t do”. He's not appreciably powerful or tall that would make him an athletic freak like DK or Julio, and from what I watched he wasn't particularly great at contested catch situations.

If Veach pulls the trigger I won't bitch because it means Reid believes he can coach these things up in the kid. But as it stands, being fast can't be the only thing you bring to the table in the NFL. He's raw and I wouldn't personally touch him in the first unless the board is absolute shite.

The real question (not calling you out specifically Iconic) is what part of the "route tree" do you guys not see Hyatt running with regularity that you think he should be running given his primary position and role?

I ask this because I've seen this take regurgitated quite frequently and I significantly question its merit but will gladly listen to anyone's take that can point to specific routes they think are requisite to him being, most ideally, a Z receiver here and he doesn't currently run.

Had to go dumpster diving to find this tweet from ages ago but see for yourself.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Receiving yards % by route for Jalin Hyatt, JSN, Jordan Addison and Quentin Johnson (2021-22, via PFF) <a href="https://t.co/ZmwXMnSCHe">pic.twitter.com/ZmwXMnSCHe</a></p>&mdash; Austin Gayle (@austingayle_) <a href="https://twitter.com/austingayle_/status/1625967430706274304?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 15, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

As I said before, we do not know if it was a “wasn’t asked to do” rather than “can’t do” situation. I get Heupel’s offense ran a bunch of deep choice stuff and Hyatt was forced into running a lot of flys. But with all these unknowns it just remains to be seen why you'd take him when there may be better options without as many question marks. I'm not even opposed to taking him, I just see better value elsewhere personally.

Quentin's body of work looks like a better fit for the Chiefs than Hyatts according to that graph.

This is more in line with what you see on tape:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Jalin Hyatt had a reputation as a deep threat in Knoxville, averaging 18.9 yards per reception in 2022. <br><br>He validated that reputation at the 2023 NFL Combine, reaching the 3rd-fastest top speed (24.29 MPH) of the 208 players who were tracked during the forty-yard dash. <a href="https://t.co/HA527junxA">pic.twitter.com/HA527junxA</a></p>&mdash; Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) <a href="https://twitter.com/NextGenStats/status/1650944117294379008?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 25, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Sure, he might just be an MVS type, but he could also be DeSean Jackson. I don't think people would be talking about him like they do if he times how people expected in the 40.

This is meaningless in arguing he can't run other routes. Just because he gets the bulk of his yards on "fly" routes, and that can be vastly misinterpreted at that, it doesn't speak to the volume of routes he ran whatsoever or prove that he can't run other routes effectively. That's what I want.

It's not perfect, but it is somewhat indicative. There is also no evidence to suggest he can run other routes effectively, the tape at least to me, does not bare that out and neither do the stats. If he was running comebacks, curls, crossing, etc. routes as good as the go why did he do jack for two years and then suddenly with Heupel’s system change and go spamming, break out? Sure, we could operate on complete assumptions here and assume Hyatt is the second coming of Jerry Rice - that still begs the question of why, statistically, that does not show at all compared to his peers. I'm not a Hyatt hater, but to disregard this entirely is a little naïve.

He ran a lot of crossers, overs, drags, and posts. I'm not sure why those would ever come into question. Reid doesn't ask much in terms of comebacks, curls, and hitches, especially from his Z. I don't think I'd start worrying about that much. Again, I've been presented with nothing that speaks to this narrative that he can't run routes. It's largely made up by people assuming all he did was run go routes, and because he didn't run a large volume of possession receiver-style routes. I wouldn't be drafting Hyatt to run curls all day. That doesn't take advantage of his greatest asset which is his speed and acceleration. Reid would never use him that way.

<img src="https://static.www.nfl.com/image/private/t_editorial_landscape_mobile/f_auto/league/lxraja2hgeafvnjpjebn.gif" alt="Patriots vs. Chiefs Recap Told Through Fan GIFs"/>

Never said he cannot run routes, I said his route tree isn't fleshed out. Did you watch the Bama game? His bread and butter was free releases off go routes from stack formations with DBs playing 15 yards back. I don't see how this is consistently translatable to the NFL and worthy of a first? How likely is it Reid will be able to consistently contrive these looks for him to warrent a first round selection? If playing WR was that easy, and all you needed was elite speed with a coach to scheme free releases, Ross is a HOFer right now. I counted a single route in that game where he set up a nice contested catch from a red zone slant off a jab step. Literally one, in his best game of the season. Yes, there's a significant number of draft pundits questioning him as a route runner, I mean guys who do this for a living like Steve Smith saying these things. Maybe they are all making assumptions, but I find that very hard to believe. To each their own I guess.