Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501:
Fair point about poles. But it was still a massive overhaul. Losing tyreek, ward, mathieu and even hitchens, Jarran reed and Sorensen… this was our boldest offseason of cuts. That isn’t even factoring in that we restructured Frank clark so we can eat his dead money in 2 years instead of one. A miraculous save by veach.
To your question about 2022, what made us successful despite that? Having prime hall of fame GOAT level players like mahomes, kelce and jones helps. One of them playing on a mind blowingly cheap contract. Having an almost unblemished run on defensive players in the draft and right DC right time helps. It helps that we were only weighed down by a very friendly future mahomes contract and not a previous one too. But mostly it was having lots and lots of picks who contributed right away. Our future success came because unlike buffalo or the chargers we cut our losses at the right time and we had a clean cap.
Our next rebuild won’t include kelce and jones or even a peak version of mahomes. Our best way out is when the time is right, stockpile lots and lots of picks. And that comes with major sacrifice. So on the one hand, the next rebuild will be harder. On the other hand despite your concern about spending draft capital and dollars, did Orlando brown or Frank clark or mathieu send us in a death spiral? No. If we make bold moves today we will bounce back quickly.
They stockpiled picks, by trading Tyreek. That's it. So yeah, if there's a situation like that, maybe trade a guy for a bunch of picks. I'm skeptical that happens again, but who knows.
Frank Clark was the reason the defense cratered in 21, but they got it build back fairly quickly.
But they also didn't have to cut any of those guys you mention, outside of Hitchens. Letting guys walk in FA, happens yearly.
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They were 25th in dead cap in 21, 29th in 22, and 28th in 23.
They let those guys walk, traded Tyreek and gained 2 extra early picks, IIRC.
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