Duncan's Comprehensive offseason plan (March)

[duncan_idaho]

Looking at this again now that we know a little more...Here's a run at one scenario for KC.

1. Free agency

Let walk: Orlando Brown, Juju Smith-Schuster, Andrew Wylie, Derrick Nnadi, Khalen Saunders, Carlos Dunlap, Brandon Williams, Juan Thornhill, Mecole Hardman, Blake Bell, Ronald Jones, Jerrick McKinnon, Nick Allegretti, Deion Bush
Trade: Clyde Edwards-Helaire (Day 3 pick in 2024, save $2.5M in cap space)
Extend Chris Jones (add 4 years, $120M, roughly to his deal and drop his 23 cap hit to about $17M)
Re-sign: Tommy Townsend (4 years, $12.2M), Justin Watson (1 year, 3.8M)
ERFA Tender: Fortson, Buchele
RFA: Tershawn Wharton (2.2M)
Sign:
TE Mike Gesicki (1 year, $8M base with incentives to $12M)
T Andre Dillard (2 years, $14.2M with $4M to sign and incentives to $20M)
T Kelvin Beachum (1 year, $3.5M)
DT Greg Gaines (4 years, $41M, 5.6M cap hit in 23)

These moves leave me short of the cash needed to operate/sign the draft class. So I restructure $20M of Mahomes salary, saving $16M against the 2023 cap and leaving me about $18M in cap space to maneuever with. This increases the likelihood I need to move some Mahomes money over the next few years, but that’s the plan, anyway…

My goal with this was to add depth at the T spots that I can live with if the draft doesn’t break my way. Same at DT. With Gesickki,I’m fully embracing running 12 set as more and more of a primary set, and I drastically upgrade TE2. Having a better option there should also help with load-balancing Travis Kelce.

2. Draft: (mock courtesy of NFL mock draft database)

1.31 – Trade to Houston for 2.33, 3.76 (they move up to take Daiwan Jones, OT, Ohio State)
2.33 – Derick Hall, DE, Auburn
Trade 2.63, 4.134, 6.219, 2024 5th to Seattle for 2.52
2.52 – Darnell Wright, OT, Tennessee
Trade 3.73, 5.168, 6,217, 2024 6th to Carolina for 2.61
2.61 –Keanu Benton, DT, Wisconson
3.95 – Jonathan Mingo, WR, Ole Miss
4.122 – Zack Kuntz, TE, Old Dominion
6.197 –Xavier Smith, WR, Florida A&M
7.227 – Darell Luter, CB, South Alabama
7.251 – Jerrod Clark, DT, Coastal Carolina
7.257 – Brenton Cox, DE, Florida

My goal with the draft is to be aggressive in the middle rounds, where the depth exists, and take the best value at key spots (OL, DL, WR).

Hall is a great long-term complement to Karlaftis. I love Wright as a future RT prospect. He doesn’t give me a long-term LT option, necessarily, but if I can handle one side of the line I feel good with it. With the OT depth, if I wasn’t in position for Wright or didn’t move up, I could have rolled with Freeland or Bergeron or Duncan instead.

3. Post-draft Depth:

QB Mahomes/Buchele
RB Pacheco/cheap vet
WR Valdes-Scantling, Toney, Moore, Watson, Mingo, Smith (I really like Smith’s speed and experience being the “movement” guy in his offense)
TE Kelce, Gesicki, Gray, Kuntz

LT Dillard, Beachum
LG Thuney, FA
C Humphrey, FA
RG Smith, Kinnard
RT Wright, Niang

DE Karlaftis, Danna, Hall, vet,
DT Jones, Gaines, Benton, Wharton, vet

LB Bolton, Gay, Chenal, cheap vet

CB Sneed, McDuffie, Watson, Williams, special teams vet
S Reed, Cook, cheap vet,

4. Summer FA

In the final stage of free agency, I’d be shopping for a Dunlap-like depth piece at DE and have around $10M of room on hand to do it (could always restructure on another player if needed). I'm looking for cheap veterans in a few spots, but nothng that is bank-breaking.

I've thrown numbers at OT and am being creative in trying to find an underrated value to improve the passing attack/replace Juju.

[DJ's left nut]

Hey, maybe I'm low man on him.

I'll accept that.

I just don't see much there.

[kccrow]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Hey, maybe I'm low man on him.

I'll accept that.

I just don't see much there.

Fair. I'm normally the same way on stuff. Hey, we have our opinions and they might differ. Gaines is what I hope Saunders gets to, personally. I think a rotation of the two of them would be really quite good next to Chris Jones. Get another 3-tech for rotation in the draft and you have a pretty quality group of DTs. That's my opinion anyhow. A combo of Gaines and Saunders probably gets you 8 sacks plus a good amount of plugging up the middle. That's not terrible.

[duncan_idaho]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Hey, maybe I'm low man on him.

I'll accept that.

I just don't see much there.

Gaines played through some injuries in 2023 and also was generally absorbing double team. His 2021 season is more of the breakout. I biffed the Spotrac review, though. Definitely saw 4/41 by accident. That makes it do-able for sure.

Another alternative to this would be saying Parris Campbell less than Gesicki (still incentivized) and save some on Gaines. That might leave KC enough room to not dip into Mahomes at all (or at an even lower rate).

[JPH83]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

You're gonna have to sell me on Gaines here. Biggly.

Because your offseason plan says he's good enough to call up The Bank of Mahomes and ask for a loan to pay for him. Don't sign Gaines and you can probably avoid the Mahomes deferrals.

I see Gaines as a 2 year contract guy where the 2nd one isn't even a real year. He doesn't do anything particularly well. He's not an interior rusher, not a good run defender. He's just there. He's a guy you can get in the 4th round virtually every year.

I see zero chance Saunders gets the kind of money you've paid Gaines in this hypothetical and I'd much prefer Saunders over Gaines if the price points are the same (and Saunders is likely to cost far less).

What are you seeing here? This is a street free agent caliber player, IMO.

I feel exactly the same about Gaines. He's a 4th rounder that comes around at that point every year. There's nothing he does that well, or that badly. He isn't a premier run-stuffer, there's no pass-rush juice and he doesn't appear to have developed much since his rookie year. Not saying he's a terrible option but there's guys like Billings, Wormley etc that surely offer just as much for less than we're proposing. I'd take him over Saunders any day if the cost was equivalent, but I'm assuming there's a large gap between them.

[RunKC]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

As for Gesicki - I don't see it being worth the marginal cost.

Would he be better than Gray/Fortson? Sure. Probably. $8 million better? Nah - don't see that. Gesicki is a bit limited in that he's fairly stiff. He's something of a seam runner and I don't know that this makes him an ideal fit as a TE2 because I don't see him as a guy like JJSS who sits in zones really.

He's like a more experienced Fortson in a lot of ways.

So I guess that's to say "Duncan, I do not like your plan..."

I'm not gonna wish an AIDS fire on you or anything because at least you didn't suggest moving Thuney and his T-Rex arms to LT or something. But I think you spent $20 million(ish) about as poorly as one could spend it this side of 8 games worth of Daniel Jones. It just seems like both cases spent a fair amount of cap but didn't get us much improvement at all.

Bad year for Gisecki to hit the market. This TE class is just too damn good.

Could probably find a guy like LaPorta in rd 3 or 4 if you really need that role filled.

[Couch-Potato]

Top 4 picks are rock solid IMO, I'm less familiar with the others.

[Woogieman]

Solid approach, and I like the idea of trading down for more 2-4 rounders, as it is a deep draft with less-than-typical top tier talent. I think you are begging to be fleeced if you try to replace OBJ with anything but a rotation of average verterans mixed with a few rookies that rotate (Duncan, Harrison, Wright), I think only Harrison might give you a majority of snaps as a rookie (but wtf do I know?). I would like to keep Saunders, Dunlap, McKinnon and Bush though (knowing we always over-value our own)

[RealSNR]

You want to secure the Super Bowl's only sack? You call Kahlen Saunders!

No, not really, but that's the kind of stuff that Frank Clark fans would use to fill their pants with buckets of jizz.