Mecole Hardman

[penchief]

It seems like the offense has been a lot less dynamic without Hardman. He might be the spark needed going into the playoffs.

I know the accepted narrative here is one that treats Hardman as some sort of JAG. But I really like his freakish athleticism, his playmaking ability, and his unselfishness. He’s still really young and has acted like a kid at times, but I’ve got this nagging feeling that if the light ever comes on he’s gonna be special.

He’s made some really great plays and I love the way he runs in traffic. He doesn’t shift gears. It’s like he’s in variable glide mode.

[-King-]

Originally Posted by FringeNC

Nope. You need significant upgrades at OT.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So you're telling me that if Juju was our #2 receiver and we had a true #1, our offense wouldn't be better than it is now? That if you replaced MVS with even a DJ Moore or Terry McLaurin type that it wouldn't get better?

[O.city]

I mean sure. Put DJ moore out there and your better

Tyreek? Sure would love to have him.

But if you do that, you take away mcduffie and mvs and one of the 2nd round picks

[TwistedChief]

Originally Posted by -King-

Only if you pick and choose which metrics to use and ignore others.

And if you ignore the initial plan of having Tyreek hill AND Juju play together. So they still wanted that true #1 WR lining up opposite Juju. And the offense would be even better than it is now and likely has ever been.

Which metric would you like to use?

Offensive DVOA?
Offensive EPA?
Passing yards/game?

And I'm ignoring nothing. But we're trying to make a comparison between this year's offensive output without a WR1 and prior years with a clear WR1. Obviously true WR1 + true WR2 would produce better offensive output, but at what cost elsewhere?

[-King-]

Originally Posted by O.city

I mean sure. Put DJ moore out there and your better

Tyreek? Sure would love to have him.

But if you do that, you take away mcduffie and mvs and one of the 2nd round picks

Yes, you lose McDuffie, but that's part of the game. To keep elite talent, you have to draft and be smarter at acquiring/keeping talent. You don't get to make oopsies like keeping Frank Clark and drafting CEH in the 1st round and if you trust your FO, you trust them to still be good even if they have a lesser amount of money to work with.

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by TwistedChief

I've got no problem at all if they signed a WR1 for 20mm/year or even more.

But who's in that class of WR that will only sign for that?

When we're looking at last year's FA WRs, you're talking about Mike Williams at 20mm and Christian Kirk at 18mm. Both of those were before the Hill and Adams deals which will inevitably set the market even higher.

If Mike Williams were available this offseason at 22mm, would you want him? Or Kirk at 20mm? Because that's the caliber of player you're looking at there.

Yes absolutely. I disagree with o.city that we need a top flight WR1. I’m plenty comfortable with a mid-level to low WR1. We just need a true WR1 who can match up against top CBs. That bumps everyone else down the rotation which makes all other WRs better too. In fact I prefer it because while $20m seems like a lot it’s still a substantial savings over paying a top guy $30m. And we offset that by turning around and immediately cutting Mvs. Hell, a good enough WR allows you to cap what you’re willing to offer juju.

There is going to be an absurd amount of activity coming soon. Josh Allen, Herbert, burrow, hurts, Lamar are going to get huge contracts. The consequences of deals like Russell Wilson will hit. Teams like Tampa and Indy and Carolina will start wrecking ball their roster. Now, I’m willing to be patient if we need to be. But as a perfect example, there’s no way the bengals keep Boyd and Higgins and good chance they can’t keep either. Wouldnt you gladly scoop either of those guys up?

[TwistedChief]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

Yes absolutely. I disagree with o.city that we need a top flight WR1. I’m plenty comfortable with a mid-level to low WR1. We just need a true WR1 who can match up against top CBs. That bumps everyone else down the rotation which makes all other WRs better too. In fact I prefer it because while $20m seems like a lot it’s still a substantial savings over paying a top guy $30m. And we offset that by turning around and immediately cutting Mvs. Hell, a good enough WR allows you to cap what you’re willing to offer juju.

There is going to be an absurd amount of activity coming soon. Josh Allen, Herbert, burrow, hurts, Lamar are going to get huge contracts. The consequences of deals like Russell Wilson will hit. Teams like Tampa and Indy and Carolina will start wrecking ball their roster. Now, I’m willing to be patient if we need to be. But as a perfect example, there’s no way the bengals keep Boyd and Higgins and good chance they can’t keep either. Wouldnt you gladly scoop either of those guys up?

Absolutely. But a lot of other teams probably would too.

My only point is there are a number of ways to skin a cat. The end game is winning a Super Bowl - not having the most potent offense. We know Veach likes the idea of having an explosive offense or else he wouldn't have drafted a RB in the first round or looked at potential trade-ups for Ruggs and Williams. He understands the trade-offs and I think this team will probably continue to lean toward focusing on an explosive offense rather than having an above-average defense.

But I trust them to make those decisions given resource constraints. It's tough drafting late in the first round ever year when you're in needs of can't-miss differencemakers.

[O.city]

Josh allen already got paid

We’ve seen time and again, paying guys that look great as #2s with a guy like chase across from them go on to fall off and not produce like a 1.

Jjss is a prime example

[TwistedChief]

Originally Posted by O.city

Josh allen already got paid

We’ve seen time and again, paying guys that look great as #2s with a guy like chase across from them go on to fall off and not produce like a 1.

Jjss is a prime example

Fwiw - Josh Allen's cap hit is ~16mm this year. His new contract really only begins to impact the cap over the next few seasons: 40mm, 42mm, 51mm....

So they haven't really paid the piper yet.

[O.city]

Originally Posted by -King-

Yes, you lose McDuffie, but that's part of the game. To keep elite talent, you have to draft and be smarter at acquiring/keeping talent. You don't get to make oopsies like keeping Frank Clark and drafting CEH in the 1st round and if you trust your FO, you trust them to still be good even if they have a lesser amount of money to work with.

You can’t draft rbs in the first round, hopefully they learned that lesson.

In the end, they chose to do what they did, so I don’t see the reason now to go pay a borderline #1 20 million dollars when you already chose not to pay a top guy a bit more.

Keep drafting and signing guys like jjss and mine the draft

[O.city]

Plus you have Mahomes and Andy on offense. I’d love to have elite talent everywhere on offense, but at some point, you can’t have it all

[-King-]

Whether they're on the team or not, Frank Clark and MVS are going to cost at least $13M to the cap next year. This year, they're a $18 million cap hit. If you're ok with that, I don't see how you don't think we can afford a true #1 in the future.

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by O.city

Josh allen already got paid

We’ve seen time and again, paying guys that look great as #2s with a guy like chase across from them go on to fall off and not produce like a 1.

Jjss is a prime example

Yeah but we don’t need them the way others do. We don’t need an absurd athlete like Chase or Jefferson. We don’t need them to be 2000 yard WRs. For several reasons I almost feel like tyreek is a limited fit too. Because you need a juju to offset him and give us some size. Likewise if you sign juju you need an exceptional speed guy to offset him (Mvs and hardman are clearly not it).

I just want a WR1 who checks all the boxes. We need a guy to take on CB1s so WR2s don’t have to and to take attention away from kelce. We need a speed guy who can actually beat press so guys like Mvs don’t waste a good chunk of his snaps. We need a true sideline guy with the athleticism and ball skills to catch difficult balls. Ideal if this guy has both size and speed. I think there are tons of Low end WR1s who more than check those boxes.

And btw Allen got paid but he doesn’t truly get paid until next year. The bills have a TON of escalators that will make shit real VERY soon. While we’re seeing huge inflation of contract we’re going to very soon hit the hangover phase. A lot of this inflation is because there was arguably an unprecedented number of superstars on rookie contracts.

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by TwistedChief

Absolutely. But a lot of other teams probably would too.

My only point is there are a number of ways to skin a cat. The end game is winning a Super Bowl - not having the most potent offense. We know Veach likes the idea of having an explosive offense or else he wouldn't have drafted a RB in the first round or looked at potential trade-ups for Ruggs and Williams. He understands the trade-offs and I think this team will probably continue to lean toward focusing on an explosive offense rather than having an above-average defense.

But I trust them to make those decisions given resource constraints. It's tough drafting late in the first round ever year when you're in needs of can't-miss differencemakers.

I think we had an almost unprecedented young talent infusion at qb and wr. Imagine surrounding joe burrow with three WR1s. Man. And these teams are doing what we did. Loading up for a big run while these contracts are cheap. This was happening all while seeing tremendous cap inflation.

The market will reset shortly. These QBs are gonna soak up a TON of cap. More teams will have way less money to pay for WRs let alone keep who they already have. Teams will eventually need to decide if they want to keep 2 elite high contract WRs. more WRs available, less teams available to bid. If we’re patient we can and should ride the hell out of this tide.

[O.city]

Originally Posted by -King-

Whether they're on the team or not, Frank Clark and MVS are going to cost at least $13M to the cap next year. This year, they're a $18 million cap hit. If you're ok with that, I don't see how you don't think we can afford a true #1 in the future.

I am not ok with that

I’d much rather spend it on a pass rusher though if I had a choice and go draft wrs

[RunKC]

Originally Posted by -King-

Whether they're on the team or not, Frank Clark and MVS are going to cost at least $13M to the cap next year. This year, they're a $18 million cap hit. If you're ok with that, I don't see how you don't think we can afford a true #1 in the future.

Keep drafting good players and it will all work out. Im really pleased with what we’ve done the last 2 years.

If EB gets hired we’ll have even more ammo