I have had a stance from the outset that the loss of Tyreek Hill was addition by subtraction. It is my personal opinion, based on things I've seen and heard, that Mahomes was affected in his performances by always looking for Hill first. Whether that be because Hill was in his ear bitching for the ball, or Mahomes just wanting that kill shot over death by papercut, and passing up open guys.
In a small sample of Mahomes in pre season, we saw him go 6/7 for 70 and a td, all completions to different receivers, and only MVS was targeted twice. This is without Juju even getting a catch.
I think this years offense will be the most dangerous. There isn't a blueprint anymore. You can't just say play shell, double Hill and force Mahomes to throw to trash like D-ROP.
Mahomes won't have as strong of a need/want to hold out for a huge play when a wide open 15 is right there with Hill gone. His progressions will improve, and if an Andy Reid offense is running on all cylinders, with quality talent at every receiving spot, I just don't see how that's going to do less numbers than Hill, Kelce and trash behind them.
We will still be top 3 in scoring, and likely fielding a much better defensive unit. We will win the west, home playoff game, and play for a 5th straight AFC title. [Reply]
Originally Posted by MIAdragon:
IMO the running game is the key. Get that at least decent and you could run out a field of Pringles and no one could stop it.
5 years into the Patrick Mahomes era and we still have folks saying the running game will make the difference on this team...
Aight.
Teams aren't going to adjust away from Patrick Mahomes to stop Isiah Pacheco. It's just not happening. [Reply]
Originally Posted by O.city:
I think we all hope this is the case.
But could one make a case that it's Kelce and then a bunch of guys that could be good but we don't really know yets?
I think you could certainly make the case that Kelce will see even more attention now.
Teams will double Kelce and beat the shit out of him in the first 5 yards. He's the only known quantity and was Mahomes' favorite target even before Tyreek was traded.
Teams will be focusing on taking Kelce out of the equation and will now feel they can dedicate even more resources to do it.
Much like teams "dared" the Chiefs to run the ball, teams will "dare" the Chiefs to rely on one of these receiver winning their matchups consistently.
Ultimately i think Mahomes and Co will still be a top 5 offense in the league and will have plenty of regular season success.
My fear, as it's been all offseason, is what happens when you play the best of the best in the big games? What happens when you play a good defense with a good secondary and you NEED to score to keep up and you need big time players to make big time plays?
The best teams will take Kelce out of the game and rely on their corners to win against JJSS, MVS etc. And despite all the camp buzz, none of our receivers are particularly scary in a 1v1 matchup.
My worry is that we become like the Bills of 2020. You take away their ONE guy, and then the rest of their average/good receivers get locked up by a decent secondary.
my guess the first few games will be a bit of a struggle or appear to be a backslide (relatively) but by week 9 they'll have gelled and destroy defenses and be unstoppable again [Reply]
I see no reason to think Hill was causing Mahomes to look his way too much. He did it because besides Kelce no one else was consistently trustworthy so he forced it at times. But hopefully with JuJu and MVD they are more reliable which should make up for the loss of Hill. It was great that Hill opened up the field but we were incapable of taking advantage at times because no receiver besides Kelce could go over the middle and our RBs were average at best. Hardman can now just run fast and and not worry about routes or blocking. [Reply]
Teams aren't going to adjust away from Patrick Mahomes to stop Isiah Pacheco. It's just not happening.
Right.
But we need a back that can punish them for it.
While Reid and the Chiefs aren't going to all of a sudden become a running team, we need those 15 carries per game to yield much better results and hopefully get some chunk plays out of it. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Detoxing:
My fear, as it's been all offseason, is what happens when you play the best of the best in the big games? What happens when you play a good defense with a good secondary and you NEED to score to keep up and you need big time players to make big time plays?
The best teams will take Kelce out of the game and rely on their corners to win against JJSS, MVS etc. And despite all the camp buzz, none of our receivers are particularly scary in a 1v1 matchup.
My worry is that we become like the Bills of 2020. You take away their ONE guy, and then the rest of their average/good receivers get locked up by a decent secondary.
Pacheco is the real wild card here.
My concern there is consistency.
JJSS is, as you noted, not a real concern 1v1. He's...fine. Possession guy - he'll move the chains a few times but against elite secondaries he CAN be shut down.
So you're looking at 3 guys in MVS, Moore and Hardman who have consistency concerns. MVS and Hardman because of their track records, Moore because of his lack thereof.
So I guess the question becomes, when you NEED a play, have we piled enough depth there to be confident that when the time calls for it, one of those 3 will get the job done?
I dunno. It's a hard guess. I mean we all remember Hill's dagger route against the Browns to send us to the SB. Do I trust JJSS to win off the line? No, no I do not. Do I trust MVS or Hardman to actually catch that ball? No, no I do not. Moore is still a small-school rookie - gotta long way to go still. [Reply]
While Reid and the Chiefs aren't going to all of a sudden become a running team, we need those 15 carries per game to yield much better results and hopefully get some chunk plays out of it.
True.
I'm still of the 12-15 carries/gm is all we need school. But you're right - WHEN they're blocked up, our guys have to actually hit them. I don't think that makes the running game the 'key' to anything, but it sure would make things a lot simpler.
I think the 'key' is MVS or Hardman stepping up as a reliable weapon. If one of those guys can take the next step, we're in pretty solid shape. And if both can, we're gonna be awfully tough to deal with. [Reply]
Man, I just have the softest dick for MVS. Based on what I saw in Green Bay, I really really don't like him. I just saw far too many times where he struggled to be on the same page as Rodgers. He's dynamic, but not dynamic enough of a playmaker to make up for his low reliability, which I think is kind of the same boat Hardman is in.
And I know Andy Reid's history with rookie WRs and everything, but I'm honestly putting a lot of my faith in Moore. Don't think he'll be the top dog, but he seems smart and wily enough to get open at key times, and I think we'll see a dramatic improvement in chemistry between him and Mahomes as we get later in the season. [Reply]
Biggest thing is that Andy is going to have to make sound decisions this season, especially during the early parts of the year where these guys are getting the feel for the scheme. We need to be prepared to swallow a couple losses due to pant shitting on Andy's part. Every season, aside from second sb run where we just beat the brakes off everyone, we lose games on some questionable Andy decisions.
Andy is a big picture guy that can scheme you to death. However, if you're able to throw a wrench in there and say, drop 8 in coverage, he's not able to move away from his plan. He can't recognize I NEED TO RUN THEM OUT OF THIS DEFENSE, or if he can recognize it, he's just not willing to. Moving to scheme for the current situation, it's just not his forte'.
Also, avoid ANY big decisions just before half, as Andy mentally checks out right before half of big games. Here's a couple of his finest sideline defecations in the most important games.
You can't make decisions like going on 4th with no timeouts. You gotta kick the 3. On top of that you not only don't kick the 3 but you call a route that doesn't go into the endzone? Now you get 0 points, you give them life, and put the Bengals in the exact same spot they were in at home a few weeks earlier, down 11 at half.
You can't be down 8 in a superbowl with your offense doing NOTHING all half, and defense hanging by a thread, and see the Bucs surrendering a possession at the end of the half content to go in up 8 and kickoff, and you take a timeout because you think your offense that hasn't done shit all half is gonna do something with 20 seconds and no timeouts. Then your d gives up 2 spot fouls and a score when you could've just accepted the gift they tried to give you. Now you're down 15 and shitting all over yourself.
We have Mahomes, so those dreams of a 25-30 carry running game are never going to come to fruition. We've had AMAZING running backs under Andy. Sometimes they didn't crack 10 touches, even with Alex Smith.
We just have to hope these guys gel early and Mahomes can keep us in positions where Andy isn't needed to make big calls in the crunch. I'm hoping our revamped defense can assist here as well, and not give up 100% of red zone opportunities for 7 weeks.
I fully expect that Andy Reid trademark string of victories riding into the playoffs on a hot streak. Right about the time the Chiefs are written off after some early season speedbumps and another AFC West team is crowned mid-season prematurely. [Reply]
You didn't have this poll option, but it's possible the offense is pretty good and the team struggles to make the playoffs. The AFC West is insanely loaded at this point, hands down the strongest division in the league. If you have a defense getting torched, it won't matter what the offense is doing. Both sides of the ball will need to be pretty dang good to make the playoffs. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Wallcrawler:
I have had a stance from the outset that the loss of Tyreek Hill was addition by subtraction. It is my personal opinion, based on things I've seen and heard, that Mahomes was affected in his performances by always looking for Hill first. Whether that be because Hill was in his ear bitching for the ball, or Mahomes just wanting that kill shot over death by papercut, and passing up open guys.
In a small sample of Mahomes in pre season, we saw him go 6/7 for 70 and a td, all completions to different receivers, and only MVS was targeted twice. This is without Juju even getting a catch.
I think this years offense will be the most dangerous. There isn't a blueprint anymore. You can't just say play shell, double Hill and force Mahomes to throw to trash like D-ROP.
Mahomes won't have as strong of a need/want to hold out for a huge play when a wide open 15 is right there with Hill gone. His progressions will improve, and if an Andy Reid offense is running on all cylinders, with quality talent at every receiving spot, I just don't see how that's going to do less numbers than Hill, Kelce and trash behind them.
We will still be top 3 in scoring, and likely fielding a much better defensive unit. We will win the west, home playoff game, and play for a 5th straight AFC title.
I personally like where we are going. Not because we're better without hill. But because we needed a juju or a Watson or a skyy Moore. I don't feel like thats a homer take. I've been screaming for several years about how we had way too many speed guys and we just needed reliable shorter range guys.
Tyreek would have slayed next to juju with Watson as an added option. But I feel really good with where we ended up. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DRM08:
You didn't have this poll option, but it's possible the offense is pretty good and the team struggles to make the playoffs. The AFC West is insanely loaded at this point, hands down the strongest division in the league. If you have a defense getting torched, it won't matter what the offense is doing. Both sides of the ball will need to be pretty dang good to make the playoffs.
Yeah you'd just have to take struggles to make the playoffs option, because in years past with pretty terrible defenses, we've still hosted 4 straight AFCCGs. So if he can't do the same with these guys, it would count as him struggling to replicate what he's done with the other guys.
I don't feel that the defense will be as big of a liability this year. There's so much more speed out there, and guys that WANT to hit people. Compare that to the slow and business decision makers we had last year, it's not close.
We've got a hungry group of guys on both sides of the ball again, which should translate into better production. [Reply]