What’s really wild is that this defense is built almost entirely on homegrown talent. Of that talent, only two of those players were first round picks. KC gets more value from those picks than almost anyone which is why trading high picks or multiple picks for a player is not always the best option. Not saying that trading should not be an option, it just needs to be strategic.

It’s also why this “F it, whatever it takes to threepeat” logic is silly. Those willing to mortgage the future on a non guaranteed chance to threepeat will be the first ones screaming about KC not being as competitive in future seasons because they went all in this year.

I will just trust Veach and this staff who has created a dynasty in a salary cap era which is so hard to do.

Tyreek back in KC is more than a pipe dream. I can't see the Dolphins trading him. They have Tua coming back and they still foolishly believe they can amount to something.

If the dolphins believe Tua can come back for any sustained period and not suffer another concussion, they need to find another industry. At this point, I'd literally be afraid muss his hair or drive over a speed bump with him in the car.

If Tua doesn’t come back they will probably be looking for another QB and having Hill makes developing their QB easier.

They're just not in the model of doing the things you're saying here. They've drafted and developed and drafted and developed, picked and chose to who resign and let walk.

They'll let Reid walk and plug in the safety they drafted last year. As long as they keep drafting the way they have, they'll be fine. Now, will they? Probably not, in terms of hit after hit in that it's just really hard.

The defense will atrophy as we'll probably become more of an offense driven team again at some point. It's the way it works. Be flexible and move and shake.

But they aren't an old aging team that needs rebuilt.

But they are aging in ways you have to come to grips with. Our 2 critical playmakers on both sides of the ball, kelce and jones, will be out. Our qb will be well into his 30s and isn’t gonna just gonna run his way out of trouble all the time. Our draft picks will turn into veterans and they will soak up cap. All the while we will have 6-7 picks every year in the back of each round to close the gap. That’s not gonna get it done.

We’ve done this before. In 2022 we committed to cleaning our cap to prepare for a new post mahomes contract era. We gutted guys like clark, mathieu, Sorensen, etc… With that comes dead money that you’re best served getting rid of quickly. We accumulated 12 picks between the tyreek trade and going quiet in free agency to stockpile comp picks. That was critical to who the chiefs are today. We won the Super Bowl immediately with that strategy. It will probably take a little more time this time because we have mahomes’ contract to contend with. Pick a year to gut your veterans and clean your cap, get rid of all the dead money instead of spreading it out, stockpile draft picks. If that wastes a season, fine by me. The saints for years tried desperately year after year to bandaid their team for one last run and it didn’t work well for them.

This is really what made New England long term sustainable. It was their ability to do lots of mini resets. Baltimore was notorious for piling up draft picks. Our best opportunity for long term success is to have that reset year where we commit to cleaning up the cap and stockpiling draft picks. It’s going to be really hard to do that without the picks to do it. So if that is coming anyway, then it doesn’t hurt to get a little greedy. As long as we don’t overdo it we can both maximize our success today while transitioning to success tomorrow with a very tiny bump in between.

I think I just must value Kelce and Jones more than most people on the board. I've never even seen Mahomes without Kelce so TBH who knows what he looks like without the best TE of all time. He will be good but how good?

Well....yeah. When you have hall of famers age out, shit is gonna change. They'll not be as good at TE and DE. They'll need to find the next Chris Jones or Kelce.

What made NE sustainable was they had the best coach of all time and the best QB of all time. Similar to what the Chiefs have.

It's interesting to see someone say the QB isn't gonna be able to run around when he gets older, when he doesn't always need to do it now, yet continues to do it.

The vets will soak up cap, because they're worth being paid. This group isn't really into paying "good" players elite money.

Yeah, they've won 3 SB's together.

How anyone at this point can't just say "yeah, they'll figure it out, whatever" and bitch about it is kind beyond me.

Have opinions on this or that? Sure.

I saw the other day they said Tua will play again this year.

You're gonna need a Chenal or Karlaftis or someone recently drafted to develop into an elite player to replace Jones and one of Rice or WOrthy to do it on offense.

It's just the way of the league.

You don't go throwing things like picks and money away chasing things that aren't valuable.

In the next 2 years they're going to use a 1st or 2nd round pick on a DT, it's coming.

Maybe...if there's one worth it.

But I wouldn't go chasing to replace Jones. That's not likely to happen, go find the next thing IE a DE or something.

They focused on need 2 years ago and passed on Sam LaPorta. Cannot emphasize BPA enough

Yeah our qb is more mobile than Brady is. It’s going to require a significant adjustment and will probably increase our focus on OL and a specific type of WR. It is not a drastic change but it is enough to be worth taking a step back to restack. The curse of being great at drafting is that you accumulate guys who eventually get paid a lot and if your approach is to just maintain a modest cap to be competitive every single year that means we’re gonna have to let lots of guys walk over the years. We will have less picks to work with. We will have more and more dead money pumped into aging players underperforming contracts. It is hard to do that for years and years without some kind of reset. Sorry but even if we are conservative we will hit a fork in the road where we have too much bloat and need more young guys in the pipeline. Even dynasties like the patriots hit these bumps all the time.

At some point you have to trim the fat. You have to cut veterans knowing dead money is going to limit your cap. You need to trade some guys away and stockpile picks. You need a season where you definitively cut veterans and sign nobody so you can max out our comp picks.
That is way easier and way more fun to do all at once versus spreading it out. Until then let’s get the most of what we have and deal with that part later.