During the down period of the NFL calendar before training camp, there isn’t usually a lot of news to discuss (unless of course your team cuts their number one receiver or fires their General Manager, but who would do that this time of year?). Instead of breaking news ,we’re left to sift through predictions and speculations about the coming season. This week there was a tweet from Rotoworld’s Evan Silva that sent many Chiefs fans into a frenzy. Here’s the actual tweet:
This tweet has a couple of fair points. The Chiefs have had some turmoil this offseason with the firing of John Dorsey which has been discussed a LOT already here on this site. The Chiefs also have a difficult schedule. Not mentioned in the tweet is the fact that the Chiefs are trying to win through consistency and internal development, which is a nice way of saying they didn’t really add much to the roster this offseason.
For all of those reasons I don’t have a problem with someone predicting a regression for the Chiefs this season. It doesn’t actually take much for a team to go from 12 wins to 8 wins the next season. A key player gets hurt or has a down season, a few breaks go the other team’s way, etc. We see it every year, that is why there is continually new teams in the playoffs every season.
As far as the rest of the tweet goes, I could spend a significant amount of time explaining why I don’t think we’ll see a quarterback change this season. The Chiefs are playing to win THIS year and Smith knows the team, the offense, and has led them to the playoffs in three of his four seasons in K.C. You add that to the fact that they want to take their time and make sure Patrick Mahomes develops correctly, and I think it would take a long-term injury to Smith to get Mahomes on the field. I’d even go so far as to say that if Smith has to miss a series or just one game, it could even be Tyler Bray that plays over Mahomes since he knows the system and would keep them from rushing Mahomes. That having been said, that’s not the topic I really want to discuss today.
“Bottom-5 offensive talent”
That one really got me. I’ll admit it. I turned into “angry internet fanboy” for a little while after I read that. Once I calmed down a little, I wanted to rationally look at this take and see if it had any validity. Silva has a history of not being a big believer in the Chiefs, especially Alex Smith. However, if we’re being honest, we Chiefs fans have been incredibly frustrated by K.C.’s offense on more than one occasion. The Chiefs lost a home playoff game where the other team never scored a touchdown and then they cut their number one wide receiver and their only real offensive addition was a third round rookie running back.
So let’s take a few minutes and rationally look at whether or not this claim has any validity.