There was obviously something at play. You don't draft or acquire personnel suited for a 4-3 unless you're planning on heading that way. I'm thinking that Reid and Clark probably had some serious talks about the defense during the 2018 off season and probably decided that new blood was going to be a priority if Sutton didn't start trending back upward in '18. But I think more than anything that Reid's #1 priority for the upcoming 2018 season was to get to work with his Uber-QB and begin putting together a complete vision for his offense with Mahomes as the centerpiece. And with that in mind, he probably DIDN'T want to transition in 2018 and have to juggle TWO massive undertakings in one season.

Clark and Reid probably both agreed that a switch back to a 4-3 would be a more copacetic tandem with Andy's vision for the team, and that BDB had proven itself a road to nowhere for the Chiefs.
My best guess is that Andy, with Clark's blessing, began a dialogue with Spags and maybe some of the other names you mentioned probably around February or March of 18, just trying to get a casual feel for who might have interest. And armed with enough feelers to move forward, instructed Veach to start acquiring the talent necessary. Even if those players might struggle or could only be used effectively in certain packages for the time-being, they would be in the house, signed, and have a full season as Chiefs under their belts in preparation for what was coming down the pike.

So they got players that didn't fit scheme and wasted a whole season?

Eh I think it’s pretty obvious that they could have drafted guys with the switch to a 4-3 in mind. Our entire first two days looked like it.

If that was at all true they would have switched last year if they thought it would have been a wasted year anyways.

If that's how you choose to look at it. I don't think that's quite accurate.

i do think that it does appear that there was a pretty major groundshift happening with both the offense and the defense; and that perhaps Reid didn't want to completely change both in the same offseason, preferring to manage the offensive change with Mahomes-and nobody thought he was going to be THAT good THAT soon.

I don't think they were talking to other coaches behind Sutton's back or anything, but I think a change to the 4-3 was something they were thinking about last offseason.

You keep coming back to that but as I've already said, the players wouldn't have been intended to be a straight-up waste of resources. Maybe the whole notion of giving Sutton a last chance is false and they had already decided to put the wheels in motion. Maybe Spags was Andy's guy all along but wanted to take a year off. Maybe Andy encouraged him to take that year off after not taking one for himself when he had a chance, who knows?

Or maybe Veach is a moron who wanted to put square pegs in to round holes? Yeah, I buy that even less.

THANK you.

Not if they thought( like everyone else under God's sun )that 2018 was going to be a transition year for the offense, hmm???

And when you look at it from THAT perspective, the only reasonable perspective available at the time, it's makes PERFECT sense.

There is no one in all of mankind who expected the Chiefs to come out swinging gangbusters with a first year starter at QB. Only by the time time pre season is wrapping up could you have anything resembling some certainty that things MIGHT be better than you anticipated, but even then it's not a given.

FWIW Mellinger was on The Border Patrol after the playoff loss and talked about this. Said they thought each of those guys were extremely scheme versatile.

Speaks wasn’t as bad as people thought as OLB. Nnandi was really good at NT and DE and DOD fit the money backer position extremely well aka be a LB sized safety.

Then they grossly underestimated themselves and might have costthe team a super bowl.

Maybe one player that fit the scheme better makes a play to win the afccc.

They should've traded up a couple more spots and taken a db instead of speaks.

man, you're right. We should totally just fire them all.

Yeah. That's not what I said at all.

They made a mistake imo. That's it.

So the first three years of mahomes was one where he sat on the bench, the second a transition year for the offense and the third a transition year for the defense. If that's true then that is absolutley disgusting

well, you know...

I mean, how often do you lay out a plan, and then proceed with it..and it goes exactly how you planned it?

Not ****ing often, right?

And how often when it goes differently than you planned, is it worse than you figured?

****ing usually, right?

Now-how ****ing often does the plan go so far beyond your wildest hopes that you can't believe your good fortune?

****ing never, right? **** me. Looka that. Kid threw 50 ****ing TD's and no look passes and ****ing left-handed shit, what the ****. Holy shit.

Well, you shrug and laugh and roll with it.

My thoughts exactly.

And then you look back and say "damn maybe we should've tried harder to fix that d this year" while watching the patriots win another super bowl.