And who will they be?
I say for sure:
Patrick Mahomes
Travis Kelce
Chris Jones
Creed Humphrey
Trent McDuffie
Maybe make it:
Harrison Butker (only reason he's not above is if they ice him out for his comments)
Joe Thuney (may not make it because of his injury, but he should be above)
George Karlaftis (should absolutely make it but doesn't draw the spotlight despite great performance)
Out by technicality:
L'Jarius Sneed (will make it as a Chiefs player but Titans get credit for it)
5-8 players out of 100 is still pretty outstanding. The fact that all of them except Butker and Thuney were draft picks is a testament to Veach.
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Originally Posted by Hayneplane:
Disagree. Not many players outside an elite QB are the difference between winning and losing close games than a clutch kicker that is consistently major to nail 50+ yard field goals.
Having a Butker or Tucker is far more valuable than having the 5th best off ball linebacker or safety.
Hard disagree. The difference between the 5th best safety or LB and a replacement level player at said position is MUCH more valuable. Justin Reid plays roughly 90% of defensive snaps. A top end safety playing 980 snaps per regular season is going to be much more impactful than the difference between a high-end kicker and a replacement level kicker.. How many drives are stopped because of the better talent that is playing on 90% of snaps?
I'm not trying to undercut Butker, I genuinely believe that he is the best kicker in the game currently, and I think he deserves to be the highest paid kicker in the league, but when his elite skill is only accessed 35 times through the course of the season (Not counting PATs as replacement level players are pretty much on par there, especially including Butker's troubles with PATs a few years back), of which he succeeds 33 of them, and a replacement level player would make 29 of them, we can't in good faith say that he's more valuable over a season than a Top 5 Safety or LB. Hell, we saw what having someone like Mathieu did for us for a few years.
Kickers and Punters are specialists for a reason, they're playing a much different game than everyone else. It's important, but it's almost a 'sub-game' within the game if you will. I'm not attempting to undercut his performance or his value to us in clutch moments, but typically a safety or linebacker will have MUCH more impact on how a game turns out than a specialist.
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Originally Posted by smithandrew051:
Should be the top 53 IMO
For marketing reasons, they need it to be more than 53 so some non-Chiefs players can get on the list.
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