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This is a very fun exercise.
When I think "who is the most important," I ask myself "who is the most irreplaceable on the team without things virtually collapsing." I don't think "best." The 4th best player on the team was probably Humphrey, but I don't think he's anywhere near the 4th most irreplaceable.
The players who even belong in this conversation:
Nick Bolton
Orlando Brown Jr.
Frank Clark
Michael Danna
Carlos Dunlap
Creed Humphrey
George Karlaftis III
Trent McDuffie
Jerick McKinnon
Isiah Pacheco
Justin Reid
JuJu Smith-Schuster
L'Jarius Sneed
Joe Thuney
Jaylen Watson
Joshua Williams
And I think the question is: if we lose one of these players in preseason to some devastating injury of August 2022, what causes this team to take the biggest dip?
Small dip:
I think the team had answers for Thuney and Humphrey thanks to Allegretti (and Reiter, why not). Watson and Williams both being good at CB reduces their individual importance. Smith-Schuster was valuable, but the team won plenty without him and rarely skipped a beat.
Bigger dip:
McDuffie was fantastic, but the team won without him anyway and Rashad Fenton was an acceptable solution, but now you start to see a dip. Losing Mike Danna would have been an issue given how amazing he was rushing from the interior. Pacheco was invaluable down the road but this team had resources at RB who could do 80% of what he was doing. Karlaftis was a big reason why we didn't have to blitz as much down the line, but he isn't a game changer yet (I think that's coming in 2023). Justin Reid was insanely important with all the youth on the back end, but Thornhill can play free safety if need be -- Reid may be a slightly better free safety but his leadership emphasized his importance.
Big time dips:
Orlando Brown was outstanding down the line, but the team can survive with Thuney at LT and Allegretti at LG. It won't be as pretty, but they would have been able to run at will. Losing Sneed is horrible and I hope we never do it, but McDuffie proved down the line that he is basically a shorter version of Sneed -- a future where both of these guys are torturing defenses under Spags creativity already has me salivating. McDuffie replaces about much of what Sneed offers, but it's a sizable drop because you probably can't trade Fenton away. And Frank Clark is a great postseason player, a decent regular season player, but invaluable in the locker room and in coaching up the young guys. Without him, the passrush takes a dip, and maybe Danna/Karlaftis don't develop as strongly as they have. Jerick McKinnon was invaluable, but his talents can be mostly replaced as Pacheco was starting to show down the line.
It's not clear to me what the answer would have been if we had lost:
Nick Bolton. He is irreplaceable with anybody they have on the roster, and if they had called that fumble properly in the Super Bowl, he would have been the MVP of the game.
So my answer:
1. Mahomes
2. Kelce
3. Jones
4. Bolton
5. Brown
6. Sneed
7. McKinnon
8. Clark
9. Pacheco
10. McDuffie
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