Plays a lot like TO did in his later years.

Younger TO had far looser hips but TO in his Dallas and Philly years was often just bodying guys off the ball and knocking them out of the way.

I could see Metcalf having peak seasons similar to what Owens was doing later in his career. I also don't think he'll age very well because if/when he loses a step and his agility takes another step back, I'm not sure what he'll be able to do at that point.

A guy like Vincent Jackson was a 'be big and fast and high-point dudes' kind of WR and was effectively done at 31.
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Sorry, didn't mean to sidetrack the debate. I'm still walking around in a bit of a fuzz today.

At the draft, I thought DK was more of a project than Hardman, mostly because I hated how he wasted steps and i thought that would hurt him more at the NFL level.

Obviously I was wrong, and/or SEA found a way to minimize the issue. Which I think is probably what happened. Though I haven't seen Sunday's game to be sure.

But from what little I saw last season, it looked like SEA had him running a small number of routes, and they weren't asking him to play like a smaller, quicker more polished WR. They had him running a lot of downfield routes, that take time to develop and where his footwork wasn't going to hurt him as much as it would in small spaces. I'm assuming they're just having him do more of the same this season.

Anyway, didn't mean to derail anything, so I'll stop taking about DK's development or lack thereof.
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Yeah, with respect to VJ I saw exactly what you describe. I thought he'd be a monster for 10+ years, but didn't see his limitations until it was obvious to everyone else.
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Oh, it's a relevant part of the discussion. I didn't want to insinuate you were getting us off track. :-)
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Thanks. Been a day. Didn't get back home until after 3:10 am, had to unpack the truck, so that was an hour, put the left-over food away, eat something, take a shower, then finally to bed. Probably around 5 before I shut my eyes. Then up again around 10 am. Feeling all of that today. Probably would have a hard time spelling my name right now.
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Though at a point, especially if you're utilizing stars and scrubs to a degree in your roster building, don't you need to start drafting more floor?

You have ceiling all up and down this roster. And as a guiding principal I agree - ceiling wins.

But again the true 'fair' analysis there is Hardman vs. Mclaurin. Hardman's ceiling is higher because he can do just unreal stuff if he gets everything figured out. Mclaurin's floor, OTOH, was evidently a #2 WR from the moment he was drafted.

I'm not saying you start worrying exclusively about it - but this team's cap situation over the next 2-4 years will mean they will have to be pretty creative in finding cheap, productive players. At times that's gonna mean drafting for floor instead of ceiling.

To use a different position entirely - Gay vs. Logan Wilson. I'd have taken Gay because I love the dude's ceiling. But his floor is out of the league in 3 years. Wilson, OTOH, is probably gonna do this for 5+ years even if he's never a stud. And right now Gay can't see the field while Wilson had himself a solid debut in Cincy.

There will be some times in the near future where Veach may need to find himself more Logan Wilson's than Willie Gays if we start having cap constraints that prevent quality veteran depth.
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Oh don't get me wrong. You absolutely have to draft both. The Chiefs just happen to be in a situation now where they can draft for ceiling at a position like WR. Given how the LB's looked the other night, you could probably make a case that the situation is less clear at LB, at least right now.
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I feel like we're minimizing Hardman's impact on the return game as well.
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Agreed. They are 2 different type of players.:-)
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4 games in and I have to agree with this. Mecole seems like a mostly glorified ST’s player and overall specialist. I want to see him get more involved.

Mecole is like four deep balls from being De'Anthony Thomas to this point in his career. Special teams, gadget play behind the LOS, and a few deep balls. I don't love his progression through 20 games.

— Kent Swanson (@kent_swanson) October 6, 2020

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4 deep TD’s is still a pretty big deal through 1.25 seasons.

Hardman is not Tyreek 2.0 but he’s way better than DAT.
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Were people expecting a WR that was going to soak up targets like an Edelman? Hardman is doing exactly what’s asked of him. Be another deep threat that defenses have to figure out how to cover. He also allows us to have another speedy WR on the field if Hill needs a breather.

People seem to forget that he’s basically the 4th-5th option in this offense.
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You just kinda have to acknowledge the situation the Chiefs found themselves in at the time the pick was made.

I think they were pretty sure that Hill was gone and Hardman was needed as a field-stretcher from the Z (or, more likely, from the X w/ Watkins sliding over to the Z). Watkins role would've been completely re-imagined and the Hill money likely would've gone to Watkins long-term. At that point Hardman is a complementary player to Watkins over the next several years.

Well we know how the Hill thing worked out and Hardman just isn't the sort of player that Watkins is. And setting aside ability to focus strictly on style, he's not the kind of player Robinson is either.

He got layered. Not through his own doing, but it just happened. So it became important to try to develop him in a way that he can become a complementary player to Hill and in the process continue to make meaningful contributions to the offense.

He's getting there. It's coming along. He's making more plays in holes in the zone and/or on intermediate routes than he used to. He's slooooowly developing into a guy who can play the Robinson role (which is harder than its given credit for given how often that Y receiver is moved around; really complex route tree for that guy).

And I suspect next year we'll see him in the X, which can actually be watered down quite a bit in Andy's system to make it easier. It's what we did when we had a bum like Donnie Avery playing the X way back when. But that's not something you do on a play to play basis so right now, he's just not a viable X player.

So when Watkins goes, I imagine we'll see an altered vision of the X receiver and it will be something similar to what Reid did in 2011 w/ Maclin and Jackson, with Hardman playing a similar style to Jackson and Hill being a super-charged Maclin.

Hardman just got stuck in a style mis-match because he was never drafted to complement Hill - he was drafted to complement Watkins. And he'd have done that well, but that's not where we find ourselves.
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I like Robinson, his block on the DB @ the goal line was killer.
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This is a stupid fucking take.
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