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 O.city

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

I agree. No reason we can't find a Terry McLaurin in the 2nd.

[O.city]

Originally Posted by -King-

I agree. No reason we can't find a Terry McLaurin in the 2nd.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence all the teams that have paid wrs big money have qbs on rookie deals.

Just keep firing away in the draft imo

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by O.city

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

Let me ask you this… would you entertain a 1-2 year stopgap veteran to allow time to develop a draft a WR? I’m open to that idea. Let’s assume hypothetically an Adam thielen or mike evans.

[O.city]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

Let me ask you this… would you entertain a 1-2 year stopgap veteran to allow time to develop a draft a WR? I’m open to that idea. Let’s assume hypothetically an Adam thielen or mike evans.

Wouldn’t hurt

They’re both about washed though. I’d look more towards a young under performing guy who wants to build value similar to how jjss has been here.

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by O.city

I don’t think it’s a coincidence all the teams that have paid wrs big money have qbs on rookie deals.

Just keep firing away in the draft imo

But we likely won’t see this insane kind of talent infusion where you have Justin Herbert playing for free where you can afford to pay two $20m contracts. I really believe this stretch of a few years is a real anomaly with the number of elite rookie contract qbs.

And it’s why I think you entertain getting a low end wr1. teams with bad QBs won’t be nearly as aggressive about getting these guys. Way less likely of overpaying.

Worst case scenario if you can even call it that… we land a stud in the draft and we bump that we down in the rotation. The beauty of WR is that if someone better comes along now your low end wr1 becomes a high end wr2.

[O.city]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

But we likely won’t see this insane kind of talent infusion where you have Justin Herbert playing for free where you can afford to pay two $20m contracts. I really believe this stretch of a few years is a real anomaly with the number of elite rookie contract qbs.

And it’s why I think you entertain getting a low end wr1. teams with bad QBs won’t be nearly as aggressive about getting these guys. Way less likely of overpaying.

Worst case scenario if you can even call it that… we land a stud in the draft and we bump that we down in the rotation. The beauty of WR is that if someone better comes along now your low end wr1 becomes a high end wr2.

Because if you pay that guy and then draft another one and bump said guy down you’re gonna miss out on the DE you could have signed.

Just play the drafted young guy. Keep drafting wrs in the 2nd 3rd round and go from there.

If some of these teams wanna let some of these 2nd level wrs go and get overpaid, let them. The league is littered with the Kenny galladays and such.

If you can get a good deal or if you hit on a few good cheap defensive players in the draft, sure go spend on some offense

But you have the qb and head coach we have. They’re gonna have to develop some sky Moore’s and toneys into legit wrs because of the money and the need to build up a defense as we’ve seen historically

[BWillie]

Originally Posted by TwistedChief

But we had Tyreek Hill for several seasons and our offense was generally less productive than it is now.

Thats because we had no #2.

We think Sammy Watkins is good. Thats how shitty our receivers have been. Last year they just needed to key in on Kelce and Hill.

Kelce, Hill, Juju and this team goes 16-1 and we are huuuge Super Bowl favorites instead of even money vs Bills/Cinci.

[BWillie]

Originally Posted by O.city

If you wanna go pay a wr 22 plus, fine.

But don’t bitch about the defense or the tackles

Orlando Brown Jr is the 3rd higest paid player on the team and Frank Clark is the 4th.

You can pick up garbage off the scrap heap for 1000% less and maintain their level of play.

We have some money to play around with this offseason.

I'll listen to the argument of trying to draft a #1 WR...or buy one. Refusing to upgrade that position going into next year would be a big mistake. As Travis Kelce ages, we need to be continually improving our wide receiver corps at the same time.

[TwistedChief]

Originally Posted by BWillie

Thats because we had no #2.

We think Sammy Watkins is good. Thats how shitty our receivers have been. Last year they just needed to key in on Kelce and Hill.

Kelce, Hill, Juju and this team goes 16-1.

We paid Sammy Watkins 16mm/yr so the assumption was certainly that he'd be a very fine WR2.

And yes, we have no #2, but we also have Kelce who is as much a WR as any TE in the league.

Hill/JuJu/Kelce is on par with Chase/Higgins/Boyd as it relates to pass-catching options. But in that world, we basically have the best or second best WR3 in the league in JuJu. And is that something that's needed right now?

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by TwistedChief

We paid Sammy Watkins 16mm/yr so the assumption was certainly that he'd be a very fine WR2.

And yes, we have no #2, but we also have Kelce who is as much a WR as any TE in the league.

Hill/JuJu/Kelce is on par with Chase/Higgins/Boyd as it relates to pass-catching options. But in that world, we basically have the best or second best WR3 in the league in JuJu. And is that something that's needed right now?

We aren’t better because we lost hill. We’re better because of a philosophy shift. Because mahomes is much much better. But people pointing to last year are basing most of this on one bad half of football. We were dominant the second half of last season. And for 2.5 playoff games we were dominant on offense. Including putting up back to back 40 pt games vs Pitt and an outstanding buffalo defense. Including 20 first half points against cincy.

Ok, so we’ve reset. We showed mahomes a new way. Now build on that. Tyreek is arguably not the ideal fit because we’ve moved on from being a fast break offense. My problem with last years offense is we were so one dimensional. Speed speed speed at a time when defenses were daring us to play short. Juju would have been a difference maker. But we’ve shifted too far in the other direction. Now we can play short but our speed guys are so easy to neutralize they’re invisible for the majority of the game.

So I don’t think it’s fair to compare last year to this. It’s a scheme adjustment to teams that have adjusted to us. I would rather a guy with more size and better ball skills than tyreek. That’s the reality of our new offense.

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by O.city

Because if you pay that guy and then draft another one and bump said guy down you’re gonna miss out on the DE you could have signed.

Just play the drafted young guy. Keep drafting wrs in the 2nd 3rd round and go from there.

If some of these teams wanna let some of these 2nd level wrs go and get overpaid, let them. The league is littered with the Kenny galladays and such.

If you can get a good deal or if you hit on a few good cheap defensive players in the draft, sure go spend on some offense

But you have the qb and head coach we have. They’re gonna have to develop some sky Moore’s and toneys into legit wrs because of the money and the need to build up a defense as we’ve seen historically

That’s where I really disagree. You want to put all our money and resources into making mahomes less pivotal. I want the ball in his hands.

I will probably never be comfortable relying on our defense to make a final stop. I don’t want to trust our defense to hold the other team to 20 in a playoff game because our offense barely puts up 21. That doesn’t mean you make your defense bad. One WR isn’t going to tilt it that badly. But we certainly have a good enough gm and (hopefully) a dc who can make the defense plenty good enough to support an explosive offense. We should do everything we can to give mahomes the chance to dominate in these situations. As of now we are asking him to be Superman. And if we’re being real we’re seeing some of th3 kryptonite show in these situations and I don’t blame mahomes for that.. We had opportunities to close vs buffalo and cincy and didn’t. We couldn’t do anything in the second half of Seattle or Denver or LAR.

Meanwhile our offensive strategy is relying HEAVILY on asking mahomes to do little work and ask his weapons to do the work. Runs, quick hitches, check downs, screens. Again I am fine with using these more but on third down it makes me deeply uncomfortable that lately we are asking these guys to make plays instead of putting it in mahomes hands.

[O.city]

We’re asking him to be Superman

We’re asking him to do little

Which is it?

[TwistedChief]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

So I don’t think it’s fair to compare last year to this. It’s a scheme adjustment to teams that have adjusted to us. I would rather a guy with more size and better ball skills than tyreek. That’s the reality of our new offense.

Absolutely it's scheme vs talent. But that's kinda the point. Tyreek Hill's marginal return in this offense was diminishing as other teams had caught up to what we were trying to do (and of course, his cost was going up at the same time). In 2018, no one had any clue how to stop us. By 2021 the blueprint was out there and it was starting to pay more dividends.

So you make adjustments. Maybe devote fewer resources to the WR position because you're going to be running a different style of offense while building a young defense. It's constant evolution.

It's entirely fair to compare our offense this year versus last because we're having similar levels of success with a different formula. And as I said before, that's just a reminder that there's a lot of ways to skin a cat and I think we have the right people in charge (Reid + Veach) to be able to figure that out more times than not.

The tension with regard to tackle vs pass rusher vs WR is the exact thing that's going to define Veach's life this offseason. I may favor some avenues over others but I think I'll end up trusting whichever road they head down.

[O.city]

You know what would help him not have to check it down or rely on those guys as much?

Making him more comfortable in the pocket and throw it to the guys open.

[O.city]

Originally Posted by BWillie

Orlando Brown Jr is the 3rd higest paid player on the team and Frank Clark is the 4th.

You can pick up garbage off the scrap heap for 1000% less and maintain their level of play.

We have some money to play around with this offseason.

I'll listen to the argument of trying to draft a #1 WR...or buy one. Refusing to upgrade that position going into next year would be a big mistake. As Travis Kelce ages, we need to be continually improving our wide receiver corps at the same time.

Look at the teams paying big free agent money or big contracts to wrs vs teams spending it elsewhere.

I feel like this is all right in front of you guys but no one wants to see it.

The chiefs and packers punted on doing it. The raiders and dolphins spent big resources doing it