Worrying about worst-case scenarios for KC Chiefs is a silly exercise

Earlier this week, Pro Football Focus ran an interesting look at best- and worst-case scenarios for every NFL team. Included in it were, of course, the K.C. Chiefs with two scenarios that included a “best” case of a team going 14-3 for the season (remember that we’re now in 17-game seasons going forward) and a “worst” case of 9-8. They ran through such an an exercise for every franchise and gave reasons why each could take place.

While reading the piece, it was easy to come up with reasons why neither one of those sounds very good. After all, the Chiefs won 14 games this season in which several things didn’t go all that well, including key injuries up front to players like Eric Fisher and Mitchell Schwartz. A best case for the Chiefs would likely be something like an undefeated record, and even Patrick Mahomes has stated his goal is 20-0.

As for a worst-case scenario, a team could go 9-8 if injuries happen and yet the Chiefs seem set up to win with loads of talent in key places even if one of their stars does go down. Then again maybe not. It’s hard to say what the Chiefs would look like if a star player were lost for the year, say someone absolutely integral to the piece. And here’s where PFF’s words came in:

"“The top-heaviness of Kansas City’s roster rears its head. An injury to Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, Tyreek Hill, Chris Jones or Tyrann Mathieu leaves the Chiefs scrambling for solutions.”"

Here’s the thing: it’s not hard to find a conversation between Chiefs fans online worrying about this very sort of thing. What should the Chiefs do at wide receiver since there’s no one behind Tyreek Hill who is as good? What if something were to happen to Travis Kelce? The Chiefs, they might say, are too limited and should have done more work in free agency.

No NFL GM can have his team prepared for a worst-case scenario.

But here’s where it all begins to sound so silly. Worrying about a worst-case scenario is a fool’s errand because there’s nothing that anybody can do about it. Perhaps if the NFL were to do away with the salary cap, then a team like the Chiefs could afford Patrick Mahomes and could also choose to trade for Matthew Stafford in an offseason in order to make sure they wouldn’t suffer any serious fallout in case of injury. Unfortunately for the Chiefs (and every other team), there’s no such ability to make sure you’re “set” in case of emergency.

How could the Green Bay Packers stomach the potential loss of Aaron Rodgers for the season? They can’t. They might have a wild card, but remember how big of a curveball that move was in the first place. How about Seattle without Russell Wilson or Buffalo without Josh Allen? There’s no answer there because those teams are lucky enough to have the real thing as the starter.

The same can be said of other positions. A fan can worry the Chiefs don’t have enough behind Tyreek Hill, but the reality is that no team is set behind their star. How dynamic would the Cardinals passing attack be without DeAndre Hopkins? What do the Packers have beyond Davante Adams? Do the Titans have some clone of Derrick Henry waiting in the wings?

Last year, the San Francisco 49ers suffered several injuries and ended up with the No. 3 overall pick in the draft. Some teams are cursed in some years. It just happens. Jimmy Garoppolo goes down. George Kittle is injured. Nick Bosa is lost, as is Dee Ford. Suddenly a team finds itself looking like a shell of itself and the season is lost. That’s the worst-case scenario.

But the lesson we should know by now is that no one can weather it. No general manager has the resources to ensure his team is okay at a specific position if a superstar is lost. It’s one thing to lose a key contributor, perhaps even a Pro Bowl talent. It’s another thing to lose one of the most popular players in all of football. If the Chiefs lose Mahomes or Kelce or Hill for the year, you’re talking one of the top 25 overall talents in the entire game. Brett Veach might be a mad scientist or brilliant genius or both, but there’s nothing that can be done in this scenario other than to shake our heads and pray the injury heals as quickly as possible.

Worrying about worst-case scenarios is a silly exercise, a fool’s errand. No, the Chiefs don’t have enough behind Travis Kelce because they’re lucky enough to have Travis Kelce. No, they aren’t set if something happens to Tyreek because they’re fortunate to even have one of him in first place. Yes, the season is lost if Mahomes is out for an extended period of time because, dang it, somehow Brett Veach forgot to draft yet another first-round quarterback.

If something happens, it happens and we would all lament it if it did happen. But worrying about such things as if the GM of any team could foresee such an event and get ahead of it is unaware of the limitations of the position.