Does Phase 3 of the Mahomes era start tomorrow?
 

Phase 1: Legion of Zoom

2018-2021:

1 Super Bowl Championship
1 MVP
1 Super Bowl MVP
2 AFC Championships
4 AFC Championship Appearances

Phase 2: Defense + Mahomes Wins Championships

2022-2024:

2 Super Bowl Championships
1 MVP
2 Super Bowl MVP’s
3 AFC Championships
3 AFC Championship Appearances

Phase 3: 2025-?

In Phase 1 and the Proposed Phase 2 (credit to irafreak for the name) Mahomes has made the AFC Championship in all 7 seasons he’s started and generally been regarded as one of the greatest who have ever taken the field.

Going into next year, Xavier Worthy showed he’s ready to be a deep threat and Rashee Rice is coming back after being the top wide receiver in the league before his injury. We also need a left tackle, may be letting Smith and Bolton go, will need to reckon with the fact that those we drafted to start Phase 2 need second contacts, and perhaps most importantly, may be saying goodbye to Travis Kelce.

Does Phase 3 start tomorrow?

Phase 2...defense wins championships

Hell yeah. Updated with a twist.

Phase 3 should be get back to Phase 1.

Thank you….

Phase 1 was more fun, but Phase 2 has been undeniably more successful. Can we put the resources into getting a cheat code offense with a Sammy Watkins type addition with a left tackle without it compromising our defense?

I don’t know how much we can count on Rice after the injury and legal issues. I would love for him to pick up where he left off, but it’s far from something we should bake into our plans.

If only teams still defended Mahomes like they did in 2018/2019. Unfortunately, the league has changed. Not just our personnel.

Plus, he had a prime Kelce back then.

Good point, that knee injury looks to have a tricky recovery. The manner of his return will really shape our offense for the post Kelce Chiefs.

We need to combine phase 1 with phase 2 now, kind of like the Eagles tonight, their team was an offensive and defensive juggernaut

Phase 3: LEFT TACKLE

The only way we can go back to a legion of Zoom would be Rice coming back healthy and us spending some real money on a left tackle and a Sammy Watkins to give us three elite receiving threats.

Not sure we keep McDuffie or Bolton in that reality.

I think that was the plan with signing Hollywood and drafting Worthy (who does look awesome).

Unfortunately, prime Travis Kelces and prime Tyreek Hills don’t grow on trees.

They may have the best GM in football, and I say that thinking Veach is top 3.

Drafting Rashee Rice and Xavier Worthy are good indicators that they are doing just that

Other teams face those two high safety defenses yet still are able to generate explosive/20+ yard plays with more consistency than the Chiefs.

The Chiefs have become a slow, plodding offense that only scored 30+ points once this season, despite having Mahomes in the prime of his career.

He is the best GM in football. I agree, I like Veach a lot, but Roseman is top of the tree

I've been wondering about the 2022 MVP Season.

Is it possible that a Prime Kelce was the key for making that style of offense work?

And I promise you Mahomes would take Eric Fisher & Orlando Brown in a heartbeat compared to the 5 guys that were blocking for him at Left Tackle the last two years.

Agreed, the more I think about it, Kelce really was the juice to those high scoring years, like how Gronkowski really opened things up for Brady's later Patriot/Tampa offenses. We need to get a premier pass catching TE again who is fast. We saw it all year when good TE's would tear up the Chiefs defense

The thing I like about Roseman is that he isn’t afraid to be uber aggressive and will take big ass swings…Brown, Saquon, etc.

I guarantee he tries to trade for Garrett this offseason too.

Whatever phase gives us another chance for a threepeatn

Let’s see what we have in Wiley next year.

It's less fun to watch but we were probably a better team in Phase 2. Just look at the Eagles tonight with the #1 defense. Look at what Tom Brady did with top defenses. But they definitely need to be more explosive on offense.

Phase 3: Fish, avocados, kale and treadmills

If I’m the Bills, I push my entire stack into replicating the Tampa and Philly plan.

4-5 great pass rushers that don’t require you to blitz. Its the only two times Pat has really looked like shit in the playoffs.

If I’m the Chiefs, I load up on OL for the same reason.

I hope phase three starts...the 2024 iteration of the Chiefs was one of the most boring seasons I can remember. The highlight was a blocked Denver FG in a game where they mustered 16 points.

The most dynamic QB has been neutered into a slow prodding, "watching paint dry" offense...doing just enough to squeak by on a weekly basis. I missed a few games this year and didn't even bother to rewatch them.

In the end...it is just entertainment and this current product, while winning, is not very interesting or compelling. It's a stark contrast to the Hill years...

If the Mahomes' peak years are going to be them just slodging along during the regular season...seemingly uninterested in showing anything but the very least necessary...I'll just watch the highlights until the post-season.

We should not keep and give Bolton a big contract. He's fantastic at stopping the run he just cant cover a TE or a RB in the flat. We need to spend the money and or picks on offense.

Everyone wants that, it’s just nearly impossible to build. It’s like getting an elite LT or elite QB

A defense like that is priceless

Okay do I live in crazy-ville?

The Eagles did not have 4-5 great pass rushers. They had 1, maybe 2. We talked about this for 2 weeks straight.

More dooming.

The regular season highlight was a dominant 29-10 win in Pittsburgh.

The postseason highlight was a badass 32-29 win against the AFC's best.

The offense was fun to watch when it had to be.

And are we forgetting the Bucs game? That's one of the best memories from this season.

This season was fun.

The Eagles were not an offensive juggernaut tonight. Our defense actually played well keeping Barkley mostly in check and Hurts only had a solid game, not a stellar one like last go around.

The offense not only gave zero support, it was responsible for 14 points.

Philly’s offense took advantage of the shitty situation the Chiefs defense was put in, they didn’t just out right beat them.

Not "dooming"...I know what I find interesting and what I dont.

Turning into the Patriots dink and dunk isnt entertaining...Chiefs just won the most close games in NFL history. Yeah they were winning...but it was not only boring but frustrating as it appeared to be deliberate.

Who wants to watch a team intentionally play to half their potential..only tapping into it when they have to?

Not that it's some illustrious honor...but Mahomes didnt even get voted to the Pro-bowl.

Dude. The Chiefs didn't have the LT to run any other kind of offense.

Phase three the quest for a threepeat please. I say we try again even harder.

The first attempt at back to back was a SB blow out… just saying.

Last time we failed to go back to back we reloaded and went...back to back.

Agreed, especially when he'll probably miss half the season if not more to start upcoming.

Our biggest weakness was their biggest strength tonight.

Running teens don't win but they did.

I think if Jared Wiley was all that he would've played this year because we desperately needed a "Laporta" type of TE especially since Kelce was severely slowing down just making possession catches and then falling down all year. Noah Gray to me is just average.

Yes, their defensive line is their biggest strength and our o-line was our biggest weakness and it was what I was worried about the whole two weeks prior. I knew we could stuff Barkley and for the most part we did.

Has anyone thought about moving on from Kelce and giving a large portion of his $19.8 million to a left tackle?

The Chiefs can save $17.2 million against the cap by cutting Kelce.

Does the player that would command this salary exist?

This HURTS but that is life in the NFL.

A stud LT is probably more valuable to this offense right now. Kelce was a non-factor tonight.

The next phase should involve getting a LT who doesn’t fail horribly after the 2nd week of the season leaving a hole the organization tried to fix with duct tape all season

Yes, I believe it's time for Kelce to retire and spend more time with his lady. Would be nice for the Chiefs to have some cap money to spend if he retires.

Exactly.

Please let this happen

It needs to be a little bit of phase 1 and 2. As long as we have spags we ain’t going back to the Sutton disaster defense. We can get away with “great enough” which is better than “good enough.”

Team needs to become an offense team again. He’s a little ahead of schedule because he’s kind of more the conservative qb he needs to be. I just wish we could get a few more years to just sling it while he’s in his prime. But way more importantly we just need a supporting cast where he can stay protected and have options to get rid of the ball much quicker.

Yep, I hope we always revert to offense first from this point. Or at least during the rebuild, which feels necessary with so many FA. The priority should be:

- Sort the OL and especially LT
- Provide adequate weapons, including another RB
- Fix the DL

If we can't do it all, but we manage the first, we'll still be in a better position.

I know it’s more emotional than anything but kelce is still a lifeblood of the franchise. He was criminally underpaid for years so I wouldn’t be mad if we let him have the farewell tour he deserves. Just renegotiate his contract into signing bonus. He’s gets paid what he deserves and we can spread it out some dead cap. He may no longer be a $17m TE but he’s got plenty of juice to be a supporting player in an offense that relies way less on him.

It is wishful thinking but I keep hoping that Mahomes will one day take a one year discount to build the team around him. It really feels like he’s been open to giving back some salary but didn’t want to bring the qb market down. Now everyone else got paid and he doesn’t have to feel shame. Maybe a Super Bowl blowout and getting an extra year with his best friend will be some motivation to do it.

Last time we lost 1, we went and won 2 in 3 years. I'd take that again.

Phase 3 - Redemption Arc

We’ve seen that when we end the season with a hole, veach is an absolute demon in the offseason about patching it up. The last time our OL embarrassed us in the Super Bowl we went out and flipped our entire OL around overnight. We need to trust in veach.

Trading Tyreek and getting the draft capital/salary cap flexibility was a critical part of launching Phase 2.

It might take a similar move to finally solve the LT situation, and replenish the offense.

When you spend $20M per year on a guy like Jawaan Taylor, it is hard to have complete trust in the front office to make the correct choices on how to spend the money. They've tried with the OL, and can't seem to hit on the right OL guys either through draft or free agency/trade.

I think it's on the front office more than anything else. Need better evaluation in the Draft and Free Agency. Need more aggressive salary cap management, like what Roseman has been doing in Philly for many years. Lean into the void year stuff instead of shying away from it.

i agree but i struggle to see where we make this type of move. I actually believe Jones and Kelce retiring could be the key to this though. I would also get rid of Taylor. That would free up close 75m in cap space.

Nailed it. If they can only fix one thing, it needs to be this. LT was the biggest question mark going into the season, and it continued all season, and came off the wheels in the Super Bowl.

He's on IR, man.

Getting rid of Taylor COSTS over $37m in dead cap, so no.

The main problem is the OL. Specifically LT.

There's shit available in free agency: has-beens, broke dicks, and guys that never panned out.

And apparently, it's a real light draft in LT's, too.

So, I don't know, man.

Unfortunately we may be looking at a couple years of retooling. They weren't bad draft classes overall but missing on FAU and possibly Suamataia couldn't have been more apparent last night. Luckily the Chiefs have the QB and WRs more or less figured out for the short and long term so we can allocate the vast majority of resources to both lines of scrimmage.

Is there another Orlando Brown situation brewing somewhere out there, a trade target we would value more than the team he’s currently on?

BV has to get real creative and get this fixed.

Afford Mahomes the mental comfort of a solid left tackle, OBJ level, and he will be back atop the league as an MVP winner with what our young WRs have shown so far.

Our O-Line is loose DOO DOO DOOm - with corn in it. Entertaining or otherwise, with next year's schedule Andy and Veach better strike gold with some new players on the O-Line.

Phase 3: get a ****ing run game so our offense cant be made one dimensional and put into “Mahomes has to be superman” mode

Build out the OL and get an explosive RB. Find another one to sign in the offseason. And we’re gonna need a new TE1.

Our defense will probably have to take a step back next year but it shouldn’t become any worse than slightly above average.

We CANNOT give big money to Smith and Bolton. Smith has had a completely underwhelming season and some team like the Patriots is gonna hand him a blank check which he isn’t worth. Bolton is great but he can’t cover at all and I’m not giving a guy who can’t cover 15M.

Disagreed on Bolton. He's effectively the QB of the defense and pretty much every top team we'll be facing going forward heavily emphasizes their run game.

Bills
Ravens
Eagles
Lions
49ers

Unless the bracket gets really wonky chances are you'll be playing AT LEAST two of those teams.

OL is the run game. Take a few years and build it.

They do have a very good one in Howie Roseman but that roster is helped significantly by them having had major fluctuations in the last few years as they had top 10 picks to grab DeVonta Smith and Jalen Carter who was regarded as the best talent in his draft and fell due to character concerns.

Done very well on free agents and the AJ Brown trade worked out well for them.

Much harder for Veach to draft elite talents picking 29-32 every single year and teams reluctant to trade with us.

I’ve decided that whether or not we start Phase 3 is dependent on what we do in the offseason.

If Kelce returns, and we resign Smith, Bolton and another stopgap at LT (the latter would surprise me), we’re re-upping another year in Phase 2.

If Veach has a post 2018, post 2020 or post 2021 offseason where he moves on from beloved players and moves around significant resources to bring in a LT, we’re in Phase 3.

I think it will hinge on Kelce.

If he retires or you make an unkind cut, you have 20 more million to play with and you can do a hard reset.

If you bring him back you're standing pat, sinking all your offseason chips into a LT, and going for it again with mostly the same cast.

All you need to know is that, when Philly's pass rush slowed down 20% in the fourth quarter, Mahomes started dropping bombs.

I don't care if it's Ronnie Stanley or trading multiple day one and two picks to move up. We need real blocking on the left side.

It's really doubtful Clark will spend the money to compete. Roseman will likely be adding Myles Garrett soon.

https://x.com/JasonLaCanfora/status/...delphia-eagles


Harbaugh & Sean Payton with obscene amounts of cap room are gonna make the AFC west much more difficult, which massively lowers the probability of a #1 seed and all the advantages that offers.

Buffalo will be looking to upgrade their roster. Baltimore isn't afraid to spend. Those teams have a lot more incentive than the chiefs.

That's not LaCanfora with any insider information. he's just guessing that Garett will end up there. But if it does happen, you can give the lombardi to philly again...I hoping Washington or another team will step up and get him before Philly does.

LOL

Look at you douchebags coming out of the woodwork, trying to wish The Chiefs into oblivion.

Mahomes is 29, bro.

Not for a long, long time.