So the bye week has come and gone and there are several things to talk about in review.
We lost Hollywood Brown and Rashee Rice for the season for all intents and purposes. There is a slim chance Brown could make an appearance this year in the playoffs. That would be 14 weeks (98 days) away assuming we get the #1 seed. That would be 5 months since his injury.
Skyy Moore has done absolutely nothing to prove he belongs on this roster. He has had 0 receptions on 2 targets. Additionally he has a fumbled kickoff that he recovered.
Justin Watson is a good #4 option but he isn't going to strike fearing the hearts of opposing defenses.
There is a 50% chance the Chiefs stand pat with their WR corps and end up calling up Remegio or Washington to help round out the room. There is also a 50% chance the Chiefs go out and get someone. Lots of names have been floated around and I think there are a handful of choices that make the most sense.
1 - Tyreek Hill. The Dolphins are 2-3 at this point and without Tua until week 8. A lot of this depends on the Dolphins. Are they selling and looking for draft capital for a Tua replacement? Tyreek is 30 and not happy with the Miami offense. Could it happen, sure. Will it happen, I don't know. A lot of variables in play on this one including Brett Veach. Still, if all the cards land correctly he could be a Chief again. Compensation would probably be multiple picks from day 2 and/or day 3. Hill has $19.2M in guaranteed money and $12.7M in SB.
2. Christian Kirk. The Jags are 1-5 & DP is on the hot seat. With how their schedule looks they could easily be 2-7 (Patriots, Packers, Eagles) at the trade deadline. Does Jacksonville want to blow it up and start thinking about next season? Kirk fits this offense because of DP as a Reid tree disciple. Kirk should be able to be up to speed on our O pretty quickly with similar concepts. Kirk is 24/39 for 296 yards and a TD. Not sure what the trade compensation would be but at 27 years old I wouldn't be opposed to giving up our 3rd from the Sneed trade for him. Kirk currently has $1M guaranteed with $7.8M SB this year and next with $0 guaranteed next year.
3. DeAndre Hopkins. The Titans too are also a mess at 1-4 and circling the drain. 2-6 could be a real possibility before the trade deadline (Buffalo, Detroit, New England). Levis was 16/27 for 95 yards with 1 TD and 1 INT today. Hopkins would be good because he is a seasoned veteran and still has lots left in the tank and most likely has the ability to pick up the offense fairly quickly. I think he is hungry for a ring and would be a good addition to Worthy/JJSS/Hardman/Watson. He is 14/20 for 175 yards and a TD on a terrible Titans team. Compensation for Hopkins should be fairly palatable possibly a 5th rounder. Hopkins currently has $4.4M Guaranteed and $1.9M SB with other built in bonuses (Workout $250,000 and "other" $2.3M)
4. Amari Cooper. The Browns too are literally a brown paper bag of poo on fire in front of an old mans home (1-5). Their next three before the trade deadline are Bengals, Ravens and Chargers, they could easily be 1-8 by that time. It's plainly obvious Cooper doesn't want to be in Cleveland anymore and is making "business decisions". Coopers restructure deal with the Browns, basically converting all of his salary to a signing bonus, makes a deal more friendly for the Chiefs. They could pay him the vet minimum and Cooper would most likely be okay with that. Cooper like Hopkins is a seasoned vet and could most likely pick up the offense faster than a younger WR. He is 24/53 for 250 yards and 2 TDs. Asking compensation has been rumored to be an early day three pick or better. $1.2M guaranteed.
5. Demarcus Robinson. I'm sure there will be a lot of laughing at this one. The Rams are a bad team (1-4) and looking like they could be 2-6 by the trade deadline (Raiders, Vikings, Seahawks). Robinson has familiarity with the Chiefs offense and really thrived with the Chiefs as a #3 when he had Hill and Watkins around him. Juju and Worthy could be the type of receivers that help him be a solid #3 and in turn elevate Juju and Worthy. He is 12/23 189 yards 1 TD. Compensation could be as simple as Moore for Robinson and a pick swap. At the most a late day 3 draft pick. Robinson currently has $2.5M guaranteed and $1.5M SB.
I put all of those stats up to show you where are are production wise with our current WR's. All of the above except for Robinson are #1 or #2 WR's on their team.
The RB room got stronger with bringing back Hunt. I love Pacheco but he lacks vision in the running game sometimes. I forgot what having a RB that can see the seams in the blocking is like. Hunt just has good vision. He can routinely get between 4-7 yards per attempt. I heard a stat watching sports talk the other day -- Hunt rushed for 27 attempts in the win over the Saints. That was the most attempts he has had in a game since the last time he was with the Chiefs. Hunt truly will be the next Marcus Allen...able to play well into his mid-30's because he never carried a full work load in Cleveland. Once Pacheco returns the combination of him and Hunt will make our running game very dangerous. I could also see Steele used as trade bait for one of the above WR's knowing we have Pacheco coming back and Hunt/Perine carrying the workload.
Offensive Line looks amazing. The tackles are improving, Morris really has stepped up since winning the job back. Taylor still has bad plays with false starts and holding calls but they are significantly less than last year. What else needs to be said about Thuney, Humphrey and Smith.
Defense - as a whole still looks great. Even with the loss of Gay and Sneed Spags just knows how to put guys in the right spots at the right time. There isn't a whole lot to say about the Defense other than they are going to save our bacon again this year while the offense figures it out. [Reply]
Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501:
I’ve always wondered what goes through these guys heads and does it ever reach a point where a player is so embarrassed that they just quit. Like what pioli did to Haley. The orioles did this to Chris Davis and he just kept going out there, playing historically bad baseball and collecting his check.
I think the only out they have left is for him to get suspended (which unguarantees some of his money - that’s new to this year) or if he gets implicated in some accusation or crime outside of what the browns knew about before signing him.
His body language is very very bad. He went from not giving a shit to now being completely toxic. It’s gotten to the point where Cleveland is getting tons of pressure to bench a $230m qb to avoid mutiny. So if you’re in that stage, why not just wave the white flag and start stockpiling picks. Either make his life hell and surround him with shit or just give the ball to jameis so at least the fans can have a little fun while they suck it up
Forced myself to watch part of a CLE game a couple-three weeks ago. He was really bad. Also saw part of a breakdown by JTS or someone. A lot of bad decisions, poor accuracy, bad timing, etc. then add in the lack of athleticism and the attitude . . .
I have to admit though, after how they treated Baker, I can't help but laugh my ass off at the Browns' management/ownership. They can reap it. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Megatron96:
Forced myself to watch part of a CLE game a couple-three weeks ago. He was really bad. Also saw part of a breakdown by JTS or someone. A lot of bad decisions, poor accuracy, bad timing, etc. then add in the lack of athleticism and the attitude . . .
I have to admit though, after how they treated Baker, I can't help but laugh my ass off at the Browns' management/ownership. They can reap it.
At some point you have to ask is it management?
Watson
Flacco
Brissett
Mayfield
RG3
McCown
Taylor
.... you could go all the way back to 2000 something - they have had decent signal callers and just couldn't surround them with talent. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DenverChief:
At some point you have to ask is it management?
Watson
Flacco
Brissett
Mayfield
RG3
McCown
Taylor
.... you could go all the way back to 2000 something - they have had decent signal callers and just couldn't surround them with talent.
Yeah it’s a weird history. For decades that franchise had their head so far up parcells ass. He was known to consult the team. And between the outdated parcells rules and a bunch of patriots guys who can’t develop a qb to save their life, it was doomed.
Then haslem came in and micromanaged the team. They finally got a decent enough qb in mayfield then threw him under the bus for having a bad season playing through a shoulder injury. But I dunno… Watson shouldn’t be this bad. He was overrated in Houston but he’s a totally different qb. He lost his swagger and his arm is cooked, and those types of things brought out the absolute worst of his previous imperfections. As someone who wanted to move on from Alex smith I can appreciate that they wanted to take a big shot. But man did it backfire on them [Reply]
But I think we’ve moved on by now and can admit that Dorsey is really good at talent evaluation. He built a really good team in kc and Cleveland, and is doing it again in Detroit. The difference is the chiefs finished the job after Dorsey left by bringing in an all time great qb where the browns destroyed the team by bringing in an absolute disaster. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DenverChief:
At some point you have to ask is it management?
Watson
Flacco
Brissett
Mayfield
RG3
McCown
Taylor
.... you could go all the way back to 2000 something - they have had decent signal callers and just couldn't surround them with talent.
It's Jimmy Haslam, at least according to my buddy who is a born-into-it Browns fan. Baker pissed him off, and Haslam couldn't see past that.
Haslam finally had a QB that could take them deep into the playoffs, as long as the GM kept getting good weapons and bolstering the OL, but his own ego tripped him up and made him do something epically stupid. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Basileus777:
Baker improved because of development that he wasn't getting at Cleveland. He was entirely a coaching failure.
I don’t entirely agree with that. I mean they did surround him with a decent QBs coach in Alex van pelt. He had a real good rookie season, sophomore slump, and a real solid bounce back the year after. He regressed the next year because he was toughening out some arm injuries. Pretty unfair that he got blamed for playing through injury
The fans and front office took that regression to believe he was going to be a Kirk cousins guy who was good enough to win games but not good enough to take the browns deep. The not great relationship with a micromanaging owner didn’t help. So they swung for the fences with Watson. Which in hindsight was a huge mistake. [Reply]
I'm not saying it's realistic in general, but trading for Hill is not bad salary cap wise, assuming he wouldn't demand more money. A lot of the money is in bonuses Miami has already paid. It would actually be tougher to fit Kirk under the cap. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Jamie:
I'm not saying it's realistic in general, but trading for Hill is not bad salary cap wise, assuming he wouldn't demand more money. A lot of the money is in bonuses Miami has already paid. It would actually be tougher to fit Kirk under the cap.
Kirk has 1M in guaranteed money this year and 0 next year. He has a 7.8M signing bonus due this year and next year. [Reply]
Originally Posted by frozenchief:
I’d like to see them go after Diontae Johnson from Carolina. I think he could fit in KC very well at a reasonable price.
Yeah and I have heard Adam Theilens name thrown about as well. I’m just not sure Carolina is ready to throw in the towel with all the young talent. [Reply]
Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501:
I don’t entirely agree with that. I mean they did surround him with a decent QBs coach in Alex van pelt. He had a real good rookie season, sophomore slump, and a real solid bounce back the year after. He regressed the next year because he was toughening out some arm injuries. Pretty unfair that he got blamed for playing through injury
The fans and front office took that regression to believe he was going to be a Kirk cousins guy who was good enough to win games but not good enough to take the browns deep. The not great relationship with a micromanaging owner didn’t help. So they swung for the fences with Watson. Which in hindsight was a huge mistake.
Baker had Van Pelt for just two seasons. His first two seasons his OCs were Todd Haley and Freddie Kitchens. Now, he probably learned some good things while he was with Haley. Starting with certain fundamentals. But I doubt Kitchens helped Baker progress at all.
Stefanski was his first really good coach, along with Van Pelt, of course. But it was also Stefanski's first season as a HC and just his second season as OC/playcaller. He wasn't the widely respected coach/OC he is today, not yet. [Reply]