PodcastFrom Bootleg Football
Can a running back really fix the Chiefs?
STACKED extracted the fantasy-relevant player signal from this podcast and kept the full transcript here for context.
1 hr 38 min
Duration
Estimated from transcript
Sep 2, 2026
Published
Wed, September 2, 2026
18
Player insights
12
Players mentioned
Topics
Kenneth Walker IIIPatrick MahomesCyrus AllenKareem HuntBrashard SmithEmmett JohnsonGarrett NussmeierIsiah PachecoJustin FieldsKyle WilliamsRashee RiceXavier Worthy
Player analysis
Player insights
Brashard Smith
NegativeRole25:12
Brashard Smith is projected as the Chiefs' RB4, serving as a wild card pass-catching threat and returner who can contribute on special teams.
Insight pageCyrus Allen
NegativeSleeper50:06
Cyrus Allen is mentioned as a potential answer to the Chiefs' wide receiver depth issues, following the team's trend of looking for late-round or UDFA gems to solve their post-Tyreek Hill receiver slump.
Insight pagePositiveBreakout119:02
Cyrus Allen is a crafty, high-level route runner who has already become a camp darling. Compared to a 'diet Emmanuel Sanders,' he is noted for his ability to separate and understand how to set up defensive backs. The source suggests he is currently a more holistic wide receiver than Xavier Worthy, despite lacking Worthy's elite speed.
Insight pageEmmett Johnson
PositiveDepth Chart24:02
Emmett Johnson is viewed as a quality depth option behind Kenneth Walker and Amari Di Mercado, providing the Chiefs with a versatile backfield that can withstand injuries.
Insight pageGarrett Nussmeier
PositiveProjection122:14
Garrett Nussmeyer's 2025 season is considered an outlier due to injuries, and his recent camp and preseason performance suggests he is playing much better than his college tape indicated. The source draws a comparison to the Brock Purdy arc, suggesting Nussmeyer may be a quarterback who thrives in a professional environment with better coaching and health.
Insight pageIsiah Pacheco
NegativeUsage23:34
Isaiah Pacheco appeared to regress following his injury last season, losing his effectiveness as a 'rampaging bull' runner and failing to break tackles, which left the Chiefs' backfield without any explosive playmakers.
Insight pageJustin Fields
NegativeBust58:25
The source expresses significant doubt regarding Justin Fields as a viable backup quarterback for the Chiefs, stating there is almost zero hope of victory if he has to start.
Insight pageKareem Hunt
NegativeUsage13:54
Kareem Hunt struggled with tackle-breaking, as he was consistently brought down upon contact, contributing to the Chiefs' league-worst explosive run rate of 5.6% over the last two years.
Insight pageNegativeBust40:27
The source suggests Kareem Hunt struggled to provide a spark for the Chiefs' running game early in the season, noting that he lacked the necessary explosiveness to force defenses to respect the run.
Insight pageKenneth Walker III
PositiveBreakout20:18
Kenneth Walker is expected to fundamentally transform the Chiefs' offense by providing the explosive run capability the team lacked; he ranked third in explosive run rate among all running backs with at least 100 carries.
Insight pagePositiveRole36:58
Kenneth Walker is noted for his experience in traditional under-center sets, providing the Chiefs with a runner who can force defenses to respect the run and prevent them from solely focusing on containing the passing game.
Insight pagePositiveValue106:26
The source views the $14.3 million contract for Kenneth Walker as a tremendous deal, noting it is significantly cheaper than the contracts for Jahmyr Gibbs and Bijan Robinson. The source highlights that Walker's primary strength—explosiveness—is exactly what the Chiefs need most, and he is already considered the ninth-highest paid running back, which will look like a bargain in future years.
Insight pageKyle Williams
PositiveValue56:43
The source identifies Kyle Williams as a player who could provide the Chiefs with a 'can opener' deep threat to beat man coverage, noting his ability to consistently win deep despite not being a complete receiver.
Insight pagePatrick Mahomes
NegativeUsage14:05
Patrick Mahomes was forced to be the Chiefs' primary rushing threat last season, recording 51-52 scrambles in the first 14 weeks and generating nearly as many 10-plus yard carries as Kareem Hunt and Isaiah Pacheco combined.
Insight pageNegativeUsage40:32
The source notes that the Chiefs' running game last year was essentially limited to Patrick Mahomes' scrambles, which required different defensive approaches than traditional run-stopping schemes.
Insight pagePositiveProjection60:03
The source maintains high confidence in Patrick Mahomes, citing his extreme toughness and ability to play at a high level even while injured, famously noting he is the best quarterback in the world even on one leg.
Insight pageRashee Rice
NegativeUsage53:57
Rashee Rice is characterized as a yards-after-catch (YAC) specialist rather than a down-the-field threat or a man-coverage beater. His performance and health status for the upcoming season remain uncertain.
Insight pageXavier Worthy
NegativeRole53:29
Xavier Worthy is described as a complementary threat rather than a true WR1. The source notes he lacks the size, contested-catch ability, and tackle-breaking skills to be the primary receiver the Chiefs need.
Insight pageFull transcript
Episode Transcript
0:00Harvey Dent said it best, you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
0:06The Kansas City Chiefs had been so good for so long, they became the bad guys.
0:11But if there's one thing fans love, it's when the villain's luck runs out.
0:16And run out it did for Andy Reid's team last season.
0:19The Chiefs didn't just stumble, they fell flat on their faces.
0:23Reid and company could have packed it in, but that's not what winners do.
0:27They got to work. Getting healthy. Patching holes. And even rounding up some old friends as reinforcements.
0:32Now this team looks a lot more like it did in the glory days.
0:37On paper. Can they make those gains stick on grass this fall?
0:41It's day 26 of the Bootleg Summer Series. We've got our takes on whether or not Kansas City can be the once and future kings.
0:48Or whether or not they'll lose out to the undefeated champ.
0:52Father time. Welcome to Bootleg. Welcome to football. Welcome to the Bootleg Football Podcast.
0:56I'm Brett Coleman. That's EJ Snyder. It's Chiefs Day.
0:59And I'll tell you what, EJ. For damn near a decade, I kept saying I was going to keep picking the Chiefs
1:06until they gave me a reason not to. And last year they finally gave me a reason not to.
1:12That was rough. Like, flat out rough. We were kind of, not even kind of, we were optimistic about this team going into last season.
1:20Because we looked at a lot of their moves on paper.
1:23And it made sense, right? They were addressing their lack of talent on the perimeter, both offensively and defensively.
1:29We thought, okay, maybe the pass rush could be revamped.
1:32And then, of course, the guy we were excited about immediately got hurt.
1:36So that sucked. You know, offensive line we thought was going to be good.
1:41And honestly, the offensive line I don't think was the problem that some people thought it was.
1:46But the team was just bad. Like, it was just a bad football team.
1:51Even with a lot of the moves they made to improve on paper, they were worse on grass.
1:56And so we're going to pick a little bit of that apart today and try to explain why that happened.
2:03And also, maybe, why some of the stuff they did this offseason can get them back on track.
2:08A lot of Chiefs fans hope so. They are not used to this position at all.
2:13Last season showed us all that. And it was one of the teams that was most disparate between what you watched on
2:20the field, the product, and how they made you feel, versus how they have been in the past.
2:26I never turned on a Chiefs game, especially not later in the year, even before Pat got hurt and went, oh yeah, they're going to bury this team.
2:35They're absolutely going to put the nail in the coffin today.
2:38They just weren't that team. They could still win, and they did sometimes.
2:42Obviously, Pat got hurt, but even before that, it never felt like they were that team that could impose their will and
2:49do what they wanted to at the biggest moments, which is what the Chiefs have done for years and years and years.
2:56And newer Chiefs fans, fresher Chiefs fans, and even those that have been around in the last, say, six or seven years
3:03in terms of the Mahomes era were like, what is this?
3:06This is not Chiefs football. And to a point, they're right.
3:10And we're going to dive into why that was today.
3:13It's Chiefs football if you watch them at any point pre-2012.
3:16All the older fans are like, it actually is.
3:19We hid this from you. But we'll talk about the hows, the whys, and like you said, some of the reasons we
3:26have for optimism that they might return to near previous levels of football.
3:30I don't want to call it domination, but at least competence in some areas that they really fell off in last year.
3:37So last year, six and 11, third in the division, five and four at home, which is okay.
3:43But again, most Chiefs fans are like, we lost four games at home.
3:47What are we doing here? On the road, they hid the really bad stuff for the road.
3:52They were one and seven on the road. And of course, oh, and five to finish out.
3:58This team really sort of just fell off. And I think they just, I don't want to say mailed it in because they still played.
4:05But this team knew it wasn't going anywhere. They knew they couldn't beat anybody.
4:10And they just kind of circled the wagons and said, yep, this one wasn't ours.
4:15And we'll come back and get it next year.
4:17That is not typical for fans who watch football in Kansas City.
4:21And it was last year. But some of the reasons for those numbers, which again, are new to a lot of Chiefs fans, are in our effectiveness summary.
4:30How we judge a football team's power, their effectiveness, is how they are passing the ball, running the ball by EPA per play.
4:37How they are, of course, of stopping the pass, stopping the run.
4:41Points scored and points allowed. So we take those six numbers.
4:44We give them their league rank. Usually the Chiefs had tons of single digit numbers here.
4:49Occasionally, they weren't great at stopping the run, but they were very good against the pass.
4:54Their offensive numbers were usually fantastic. And their scoring defense has always been pretty good.
4:59So this is a place where if you've watched this series for four or five years, you're expecting to hear sevens, eights, maybe an 11 here or there.
5:08But nothing lower than that. Well, there is a seven in here, but like it's so, so fraudulent.
5:14We were going to talk about that false seven, but let's just run through the numbers.
5:19We had those six numbers up, divide by six.
5:21We get a raw score. And then we stack those and see how they did.
5:26The Chiefs, yeah, a little foreshadowing. Bit fraudulent. Not only some of the six numbers, but also the total because of that.
5:33So passing EPA per play right down the middle of the league, 15th.
5:37I mean, I guess 16th officially would be the middle of the league, but we are talking about dead down the center line.
5:44Not a place that Kansas City Chiefs fans are used to seeing their team.
5:49Rushing EPA per play. This is the number that really lies.
5:52We will talk about it at the end, so don't freak out.
5:56Seventh. If you watched this team play football last year, there is no way that your eyes told you they were the seventh strongest rushing attack.
6:04In fact, if your eyes told you that they were better than bottom 10, your eyes were lying to you.
6:10They weren't really good. But because of the way EPA has figured, and we'll talk about that, they ended up seventh.
6:17Against the pass, same as they were throwing the ball.
6:20At stop and throw the ball, they were 15th.
6:2315th and 15th. And in terms of stopping the run, Steve Spagnuolo always does a really good job with that.
6:29But they were top 10. Again, 15th and 10th defensive rankings.
6:33Plenty good for a team to win. Usually didn't happen for them last year.
6:37Points scored 21st. This team, again, for those semi-gaudy offensive EPA stats, 15th and 7th, they couldn't score points.
6:43They couldn't put them on the board. They were 21st.
6:46And points allowed, they were 6th. So in terms of total points, they were plus 34 in their point differential.
6:53But if you add up those six league ranks, divide by six, gives them a raw score of 12.33, which sounds great because, again, lower is better.
7:01You want to be near the top. You'd be like 12th out of 32 teams.
7:06That's not bad. It was actually better than that.
7:09When you stack the power scores, it puts them at 10th.
7:12So this power score lies a little bit. We have a couple of teams every year.
7:17A little bit? Yep. It lies a lot. All right.
7:20This is not a top 10 team. Tell them why.
7:23It was not a top 10 team. But tell them why this power score lies.
7:28I'll start with this. The way that EPA is calculated, it does sometimes cause this issue.
7:33Like in general, it's a great godfather stat for describing the effectiveness of a team passing and rushing.
7:39Because it's relatively normalized, right? It's not a counting stat.
7:42It's not like, oh, this team wins 80% of the time when they run the ball 30 times.
7:48Like, well, yeah, they ran the ball 30 times because they were already winning.
7:52Like it's a stat that I think is really good in a vacuum.
7:56But the way that it's calculated can sometimes screw with us.
7:59Like this, right? Where if you have a team that gets a lot of first downs rushing, they were 11th in first downs converted by rushing.
8:08Then you will get a bump in EPA per play.
8:11Because EPA per play, like if you are getting first downs, if you're moving the chains, if you're resetting your opportunity to
8:18score, it basically takes a drive where you're expected.
8:21Like let's say it's third and two, right? Third and two midfield, your expected points out of this situation are X.
8:27If you then convert a first down, which the one thing Kareem Hunt could do was get you short yardage first downs.
8:34Now you're first and 10 at the 48. Now your expected points goes up.
8:38So they were heavily inflated because of that. But also they were heavily inflated because Patrick Mahomes was their best rushing threat.
8:45Like through the first 14 weeks of the season, I want to say he got hurt in week 15.
8:51Through the first 14 weeks of the season, he had just as many 10 plus yard carries, at least one off.
8:58So he was almost as many 10 plus yard carries as both Hunt and Pacheco combined.
9:03Just him. So when you have a quarterback that gets that many explosive runs, it's going to make your rushing attack look more explosive than it actually is.
9:12Which is then going to make your EPA look better than it actually is.
9:16Because rushing EPA, like a scramble is counted as a rush in rushing EPA.
9:21And I think he had like 51 or 52 scrambles in the first 14 weeks of the season.
9:26Like he was their run game. Not by design, but he was their run game.
9:31So you have to look at that stat as well as this power score in general with a heavy side eye.
9:38Like it's almost like the Bizarro Panthers where like the Panthers were the 27th team and won the NFC South.
9:44This is the 10th overall team. And we're objectively not good offensively.
9:48Like it's one of the few times I'm just going to tell you guys, don't worry about power score on this one.
9:54It's, it's not true. There are two teams a year, typically one and a half to two teams a year.
10:01We've been doing this five or six years on average that we just go, you know, power score work for the other 30 teams.
10:08These ones aren't it either too high or too low.
10:11We usually have one of both a team that looked like it did really well in power score, did not do well on the field this year.
10:20That would be the chiefs and teams that again, have a lower power score because again, EPA didn't particularly favor them, but
10:27they were more powerful overall than that. When you watch them on film.
10:31So in general, very good set of stats and gives us, I would say very congruous results in terms of how teams
10:38actually finished on the field, which is why we use it.
10:41We think it's representative, but there are always outliers on the bell curve.
10:45This year, Kansas city is one of them. And that's why we call them out, right?
10:50We're not just going to blindly say like, Oh, this is the 10th best team.
10:55Like what happened? It's like, well, we know what happened.
10:58They couldn't run the ball, at least not in the ways that matter.
11:02And, you know, when I was doing our season preview show with Trev, we pulled a bunch of numbers about Kenneth Walker and the chiefs backfield.
11:11Cause we were, we were talking about how big of a deal it is that Kenneth Walker is going to be on this team.
11:18And a lot of that is just because the almost abhorrent lack of explosiveness in this backfield, single-handedly killed this offense.
11:25If you're looking league wide at how you score, how you get touchdowns, you need explosive plays, whether through the pass or,
11:32or, or, you know, with the ground game, you have to get explosive plays.
11:36Your touchdown rate on a drive is going to be 42.3%.
11:39If you get an explosive on that drive, if you don't get an explosive goes down to 4%, just over 4%, it's like 4.3.
11:47So you either get explosives or you don't score.
11:50And this chiefs backfield was dead last over the last two years in terms of generating explosive runs, only 5.6%.
11:56They were the only team that was under 7% in the entire NFL could not break tackles whatsoever.
12:02Kareem Hunt, like if you got your hands on him, he was going to go down.
12:07And even though this team was like relatively solid in terms of average yards, average yards before contact per attempt, they were
12:14horrific in average yards after contact per attempt. That's a running back stat.
12:18You compare that to Kenneth Walker, who was third highest in explosive run rate among all running backs of the 100 carries.
12:25And that's the difference maker. Because if you can get explosives with something other than Mahomes scrambles, or like a Rasheed Rice
12:32broken tackle, or Travis Kelsey out slowing somebody, like if you can get an explosive any other way, it's drastically going to increase your ability to score.
12:40And Kenneth Walker, that's what he can do. Better than almost anybody else in the NFL, to be honest.
12:46So if you're looking at number of drives with an explosive play, fewer than 55% of chiefs possessions over the last three seasons.
12:53Right? This is not a new issue. We've been annoyed at the run game for a while here.
12:59Over the last three seasons, fewer than 55% of chiefs possessions have had an explosive play, which, again, shows why they've struggled to score the last few years.
13:08Before that, right, 2018 to 2022, those five magical years where this offense was like unassailable, they exceeded 55% in every single
13:15one of those years, in terms of percentage of drives that featured an explosive play.
13:19And we wondered why they scored so much. So I look at the Kenneth Walker addition, and really the Kareem Hunt and
13:26Isaiah Pacheco subtraction, as fundamentally transforming this offense. And I'll be honest, even if they have lower than seventh in EPA per
13:33rush this coming season, I bet they're going to be a way better run game because they're going to get explosives.
13:40And that's really what matters to me. There's almost no way that they cannot be a better run game.
13:46Again, that stat is a lie. If you erase that and go back to film, the floor fell out of this running back room last year.
13:54They went from being, eh, not great. Like you said, this is not a new issue.
13:59We've been annoyed with it to like, oh my God, they cannot move the ball on the ground, except for those short
14:06first downs, which was what they could pick up.
14:09But again, couldn't break tackles. Pacheco just looked like he never really came back from the injury.
14:14He ran, he still ran super hard, but the, the result was not the same.
14:19He wasn't that rampaging bull of a runner. He couldn't get away from contact and neither one of them could.
14:25And it wasn't usually, if you have one runner that falls off, you have maybe a young buck behind them and, or
14:32an undrafted free agent, something like that. They didn't have anything.
14:35They had nothing in the running back room. So Kenneth Walker is the start to remaking that running back room, but Amari
14:42Di Mercado, who's right now RB two and Emmett Johnson, who we're going to talk about when we get to the draft, completely sort of transformed this.
14:51This is the shotgun approach of, look, we need multiple options because we know this position that gets injured.
14:57We cannot be where we were last year. We know if we are, our chances of winning are bad.
15:03And while the window's not rapidly closing, you don't want to waste years, prime years of Patrick Mahomes career, when he's going to be healthy at the start.
15:12So you do what you need to do. And Brashard Smith is still there as well as a sort of wild card,
15:18pass catching threat, returner, a sort of do it all guy that can make it on special teams and therefore sort of be RB four.
15:26That's a good room. Like that is a good and versatile room and it can withstand some injury and still be productive.
15:33Even if Kenneth Walker gets dinged up. Cause I know a lot of people are like, well, that was the, that was the knock.
15:41That was why Seattle didn't want to pay him.
15:44It's because he wasn't always on the field. That's true.
15:47But if you have to go to Amari, and I know a lot of people don't know his name, but he is
15:54a very quality runner and Emmett Johnson, who we really liked in the draft.
15:58If you have to drop down to that pairing, you're going to lose a little bit, but you're not going to be
16:05anywhere near where you were last year. And that to me is the most important thing.
16:10You're going to be able to sustain on offense through these guys getting dinged up because again, you just didn't bring in one guy.
16:17You're not pinning all your hopes on them. You went, nah, nah, nah, nah.
16:22We're starting, we're starting from scratch. We're getting your racer out and we're going to fill in these spots so that we can be an effective offense again.
16:31I'll look at it this way. Even if Kenneth Walker is only getting 15 carries a game, which I would imagine is, is probably in the ballpark.
16:39I would say 15 touches. I would say maybe 15 touches, right?
16:43Touches. If you project that explosive rate to that many touches, that's probably about two a game, which means you're getting 34 explosives on the season.
16:51And I want to say combined last year, uh, Pacheco and hunt had 22, right?
16:56So if one guy is giving you a 50% increase in explosives out of the backfield compared to two combined, like that's
17:03it's worth everything that they spent to get him.
17:06Absolutely everything. And I think actually that's probably a good segue to just kind of bring in our patron note.
17:12Normally we say that normally I've actually done this a lot of the series.
17:16We put it where it's appropriate. We put it where it's.
17:20We're originally planning on doing these at the end of the show, but they just tend to be really good talking points for, for this section.
17:28So, uh, this one comes from skitty bug over on the Patreon says for the chiefs.
17:33What opportunities do you think finally having a run game that isn't just my home scrambles will open up in the passing game.
17:40A lot of teams wouldn't bite on play action in recent years, causing a pretty abysmal TD to turnover rate on those plays.
17:47And can that running game allow our subpar wide receiver room, uh, to play above billing.
17:52So one of the things when you have a Kenneth Walker and you're giving him 15 touches and he's ripping off explosives.
17:59I think the way that you get those explosives is by going under center more.
18:04And boy, a lot of what we've heard this off season is like, expect the chiefs to go under center more.
18:11Same thing with the Bengals. Same thing with the commanders.
18:14Like that, that's a, a drum beat around the league is under center, under center, under center because you're going to get more explosive runs.
18:22And that's what teams want. And if you have a chiefs offense that last year was 80% gun, I would be very
18:29surprised if they're 80% gun again this year, like maybe they'll still be majority gun.
18:33They're not going to be 80% gun, especially because Kenneth Walker, you know, he's one of these backs that quite frankly is
18:40better when you're giving him carries from under center versus the gun.
18:44Some backs are better in the gun, like Javante Williams, a better running back from shotgun.
18:49Kenneth Walker is not that like he is better from under center.
18:53So if you're spending all that money on a running back, you're going to do what makes him more effective and play
19:00action from under center is also more effective compared to play action from the gun.
19:04Like statistically speaking, you see bumps in EPA, you see bumps in yards per attempt, explosive rate, like under center play action
19:11is so much more effective than shotgun play action.
19:14That's part of the reason why their shotgun game or their play action game has always been bad is because the majority
19:21of it is from the gun where it's like this little weak sauce, half-assed fake of like, Ooh, maybe we're running inside zone again.
19:29It's like, we know you're not like we can see the ball.
19:32You're not turning around. So these linebackers don't bite on it because they don't have any problem getting vision on the action.
19:39And so like, they don't even step up to it.
19:42They'll step up. If you do it from under center, like they have to step up.
19:47They're not going to do it if you do it from gun.
19:51So I think their play action game is going to be better because they'll be under center more.
19:57Their run game will be better because they're under center more.
20:00And it's just going to take a little bit of pressure off Pat.
20:04Like he's not going to have to do everything.
20:07And for three years now, he's had to do everything.
20:10I mean, shit through 14 weeks last year. I'm not saying I would have voted for him for MVP, but like this team was objectively broken without him.
20:19As soon as he went down, like they, they couldn't win another game.
20:23They were awful without him. They were at least like sort of kind of almost functional with him.
20:29Like that's how good he is. They were fucking bad.
20:32The second he left the lineup. Yeah. They were relying on him to do everything.
20:37Again, like you said, he was there leading rusher in terms of explosives.
20:41He was obviously trying to do everything he could with a receiving core.
20:45That wasn't great either. And it was a one man show.
20:48And you don't want to do that. Even if you have a superstar quarterback, that's not the recipe to win.
20:55The recipe to win is the one you were talking about, where you take pressure off the quarterback and you give him
21:02other options and you make defenses respect multiple things instead of going, well, we're just keen on Pat.
21:07Cause if the ball's not in Pat's hands, we don't really have to worry about it.
21:12If it is, we do. So we're just going to make sure Pat doesn't beat us and nobody else is going to step up and do that.
21:21Again, if you go in and remake the running back room, I just want to say, I love bootleggers.
21:27They're smart. They're really keyed into their own teams.
21:29They understand they ask good questions. And sometimes they answer their own in the question, like this one from skinny, but in
21:36terms of like, do you, you know what opportunities will it open up?
21:40Because you know, they wouldn't bite on play action.
21:43You're walking right through it. You're on the right track.
21:46Absolutely. And they're going to have to, and you, on top of that, you rebuild the running back room.
21:52You, you know, you add some Joe's to go with your X's and O's and say, look, great.
21:58Now we've got multiple different ways that we can run a different system.
22:02That is going to give us a better chance.
22:05We've got personnel. That's more aligned to that. Like you said, some runners are better in their older system.
22:11These runners, like Emmitt Johnson was a great runner from, I would call traditional sets under center sets, uh, in college.
22:18He's got a ton of experience with it. Kenneth Walker, same thing.
22:21Like you, you sort of go, okay, we're rebuilding this.
22:24And then the defense can't just go, Oh, okay.
22:27Well, it's the balls of Pat hands. It's like, Oh, well now the balls and Kenneth's hands.
22:33Oh, he can burn us. We got to respect that again.
22:36We're going to bite on fakes. We're going to, we can't just sit back and say, all right, if we can contain
22:43this passing game, which quite frankly, it was containable last year.
22:46But if we could just contain this passing game, we're not going to get burned for big plays.
22:52And we really don't have to lose. And if we think over the course of possessions, and this was, it's so funny
22:59because this was exactly the opposite with Kansas city for years.
23:03If we give them enough possessions, they're going to beat us.
23:06Now it's if we contain this passing game, and we go possession for possession, we're pretty sure we're going to come out on top.
23:13And they were right more often than not. So skitty bug, having a revamped running game in multiple ways, both personnel and
23:20scheme is going to allow the chief's offense to be multiple in ways the defenses have to respect.
23:26And as for that last question, our subpar wide receiver room playing above billing.
23:30How about I say they'll play what's billing. Let's I'll say they play at billing.
23:35I don't know that they're going to outperform it, but they underperformed it last year because again, they were the focus defenses were planning on shutting them down.
23:44Nobody respected the run, whether it was under center or not, right?
23:48They just didn't respect the run game short yardage.
23:51They would key up against it. Other than that film doesn't lie that way.
23:55You turn on the film, like nobody was loading up against the run.
23:59Even early in the season, they were, they were loading up to clog passing lanes or create enough pressure that the ball had to come out quickly.
24:08So it was a short pass, like doing all the things you do to limit a passing game.
24:13They were not loading up to limit the running game.
24:16They on film after about week six defenses were like, no, we got the book on these guys.
24:22They can't run the ball. I would even say earlier, I was trying to be generous.
24:27Two weeks, two weeks in like checking in. It's like cream hunt still doesn't have it.
24:32Okay, cool. Yeah. Nobody's got gas. You know what they are field outside of, again, trying to contain my homes on a
24:39scramble because that was the running game. Like, but that's not a, to stop scrambles is not the, you don't load up
24:46your dish, your defense in the traditional way that you do to stop and understand a running game or even a shotgun running game.
24:53Scramble rules are different, right? You can assign spies, you can do other stuff, but like it's, it's not typically the same approach.
25:01So again, a lot of it comes out of the defensive line and just like being disciplined and rush, it's not even
25:08about what, what am I doing with my linebackers and safeties?
25:11It's just, so, Hey edges, don't go 12 yards deep.
25:14Yeah. Don't give him the opportunity to gas you because he can, and he will.
25:19And that's really the only thing. So again, if you don't let them do that, you're going to get your wins.
25:25You're going to get your chance to pass rush on third down because they're not going to be near the sticks because
25:32they're going to run twice for two yards and we're going to have third and long.
25:37Let's do it. So, and once that was kind of the book on how to play Kansas city, everybody just adjusted.
25:44Cause look, everybody was ready to beat Kansas city.
25:47They've been taking beatings for years. The NFL is heartless in that way.
25:51Nobody cares. Like, Oh yeah, an off year. Oh, bummer.
25:54We're going to do it. I was at that game.
25:57Texans at chiefs. I was there for that in November.
26:00And you know, I was, I was wearing my Texans gear and everything.
26:04There wasn't that many Texans fans there. It was my first game at Arrowhead.
26:09And, uh, damn dude, that was a broken crowd.
26:12It was a one possession game late and they were leaving.
26:15And I was like, Oh no. like they're, they're broken.
26:18The fans stopped believing. Like Pat was healthy in that game too.
26:22Like he wasn't out yet. Magic got the fans just straight up gave up.
26:26Yeah. They're like, nah, like it's, and they were right.
26:30That's the thing. They were right. Yeah. They had no shot of winning that game.
26:34Kansas city fans for everything that they are, are very smart fans.
26:38Like we know a lot of Kansas city fans and they know ball.
26:42Like it reminds me of like Steelers. Steelers fans are incredibly passionate and sometimes irrational, but they know ball.
26:48Right. Sometimes. Anyways, it's not that they didn't know it's that they did know.
26:53And that made it worse. Yeah. Yeah. That, uh, that crossing route that Petra came down and just absolutely smacked with she rice.
27:00And everybody's like, well, I got work in the morning.
27:03It's cold. I'm going to go turn the car heater on.
27:06It was cold. It was like, I, it was single digits.
27:10Um, or no, it was in the teens. I remember you posting about the game.
27:14I was actually supposed to be there. Side note.
27:17Uh, my plane made it halfway to Kansas city and the pilot said, so we might have an issue.
27:23And if we go all the way to Kansas city and find out that we do have an issue, then basically we
27:30kind of have to call an Uber. Whereas we got all the tools back in the barn.
27:36And so we're just going to turn around literally two plus hours into the flight there.
27:41We were over like lower Montana and they were like, Oh yeah, you were almost there.
27:46Yeah. Like literally we're fifth, like 52% of the way there.
27:49And they're like, well, we're close enough. We're going to turn around, go back.
27:53So I had, I had to call Brett and the rest of the gang and be like, well, I made it halfway there.
28:01I'm back in Seattle. And I was like, what?
28:04Uh, but their end result was you decided to go to that game late.
28:08Like you didn't have tickets beforehand. That wasn't something we were planning on doing, but somebody was like, Hey, you want tickets?
28:15And you, I remember you, I thought, Oh, California boy, you're going to find out now it's going to be real cold.
28:22Well, so I was packed into a section where there was a bunch of people.
28:26And so I was actually fairly comfortable during the game.
28:30You know, I had my three layers on, I had gloves, you know, beanie, everything like that.
28:35It's when the chiefs fans started leaving. Hey guys, it's really fucking cold.
28:39Now all of you were breaking the wind. I was, you know, enjoying your body heat.
28:44And then it was just us at the end.
28:47I'm freezing my dick off by the fourth quarter.
28:50Cause the, the seats emptied out and, it was worth it.
28:53I saw the Texans end a dynasty, but, uh, yeah, we, we hauled ass.
28:58Oh, the quick shuffle. Great stadium though. Love, I love the vibes.
29:01Like it's, it's a really beautiful, it's a wonderful environment.
29:04Obviously the food in Kansas city is. Yeah. Oh yeah.
29:08We had, we had a lot of fun there when we went for the draft.
29:12Um, and I think that might be the year that I picked up this t-shirt.
29:17Um, but yeah, the food is, the food's great.
29:20The people are great. It's a really, it's a really, it's a great city.
29:24And again, they love the chiefs, like love, love, love the chiefs.
29:28They are one of the, just the most invested fan bases.
29:31One of the smartest, one of the most passionate, again, that can lead them over the line now and again.
29:38But again, they knew like they, you didn't see a lot of them late in the season going, Oh yeah, we're better than this.
29:45They were all like, we're not, we're not, it's over.
29:48We're not, but you know, as soon as they signed K walk, then it was like, all right, we're back.
29:55We're good. We're good. Check Pat's knee. We all expect the superhuman healing factor to kick in.
30:00Yep. There it is. All right. Suckers line up.
30:03Now they do acknowledge they still have receiver problems for sure.
30:06Unless Cyrus Allen is, you know, the answer, which maybe he is.
30:10Uh, it feels like every single year there's like a day three pick or UDFA at chiefs camp that it was like,
30:17all right, this is the one he's going to, he's going to get us out of our, our post Tyreek receiver slump.
30:24Maybe it's Cyrus this year, but I do want to bring up the receiver group last year because once more for third
30:31season in a row, they did not have anybody who could separate against man coverage.
30:36And even though they were decent in terms of explosive pass rate, they were 13th in explosive pass rate.
30:42I'm going to throw this chart on screen and you can see the X axis is explosive pass rate.
30:48The Y axis, um, is yards after catch per completion, right?
30:51So if you're right of the center line, good, you're explosive.
30:54If you're above the center line, it means you're great after the catch.
30:59If you're below the center line, it means you're probably getting your explosives by throwing it down the field.
31:04Six of the eight most explosive passing offenses in terms of explosive pass percentage were teams that were at or below average
31:11in terms of yards after catch per completion, because they stretched the field, right?
31:16It was green Bay. It was Seattle. It was the Colts.
31:19A lot of that was pre Daniel Jones injury, but still it was obviously the Patriots and their gazillion nine routes they threw every week.
31:27Uh, it was the Rams and the Cowboys. The only two teams that were really, really, really explosive and did so predominantly
31:34with yak were Buffalo and the lions. And the lions were a similar kind of thing to Kansas city where their run game was really up and down.
31:43Um, and it's interesting. They're actually kind of polar opposite in some ways because their EPA was not great, but they got
31:50a bunch of explosives from Gibbs, whereas the chiefs were not explosive, but again, this is quirk of EPA.
31:56All that to say, if you're looking at the chiefs passing offense, if they didn't get yards after the catch, they didn't get anything.
32:03They had nobody who could separate against man coverage.
32:06They had nobody who could really win down the field.
32:09They drafted Xavier worthy to be that guy. He's not that guy.
32:13He is a complimentary threat, but he is small.
32:16He's not a great contested catcher. He's not somebody who's going to like break a bunch of tackles.
32:21Like he is a, he's a complimentary threat. He, he has never become the guy that they thought he was going to
32:28be when they took him in the first round.
32:31They need an actual wide receiver. They can go out there against a press corner and just win.
32:37And where she rice has never been that either for, for what it's worth.
32:41Where she's always been a yak guy. He's never been a down the field guy.
32:46And he was a good yak guy pre injury.
32:49I don't know what he's going to look like this year.
32:52We'll see. But they, they have not had a man beater.
32:56That could also win down the field and win contested catches.
32:59Like all this, the stuff that a true wide receiver one does.
33:03They have not had that since Tyreek Hill. They've been a successful team since that trade.
33:08I'm not discounting that, you know, going to super bowls, winning super bowls, but that is more through the brilliance of Patrick
33:15Mahomes than it was through the receivers. And when you pair lack of a good receiving group, sans Travis Kelsey with arguably
33:22the worst run game in the NFL, that's how you end up like the chiefs offense last year.
33:27At that point, they had nothing they could rely on other than Patrick Mahomes being Patrick Mahomes.
33:33And as great as he is, he's one of the greatest players in the history of the sport already.
33:39There are 11 people on the field. You got to get some help from the other 10.
33:44And it's, it just, it finally came back to Biden last year.
33:48They need real receivers. Hopefully Cyrus Allen is that.
33:51Maybe. I just had an intrusive thought while you were talking and I'm going to say it and it's going to be my fault.
33:58Oh no. Oh no. I'm just going to say Beetlejuice three times in a row.
34:03So cover your ears. Okay. What if Kyle Williams ended up as a chief?
34:07Oh, Ooh. Ooh. Would they do it though? I, I don't.
34:11Irregardly. I do not believe that the pay that the Pats would do it or should do it.
34:16To be fair. This is not me saying, but if this is just purely like for what you're talking about and the
34:23role they've been missing and what Kyle Williams is really good at, because he's not a complete receiver.
34:29I'm a huge Kyle Williams fan, but what he is going to do like a clock is beat man coverage deep twice a game and make the catch.
34:38Like that is what he is going to do.
34:41Guaranteed all the other stuff. You're going to need all the other guys, but once a quarter with Pat, who can still
34:48throw it, you're going to roll Kyle Williams out and you're going to say to EB, dial it up.
34:54Right. And we might not even throw three of them.
34:57We might even only throw two of them. Right.
35:00You're going to scare the shit out of those safeties.
35:03That's for sure. You're going to see a very different look because he's going to run one.
35:08They're not going to throw it. And everybody's going to go, Ooh.
35:12Okay. He was, he was a little open there.
35:15Glad they didn't throw it. They're going to run it in the second quarter.
35:19They're going to throw it. He's not going to complete it.
35:22Ooh. Okay. We dodged a bullet. Everybody goes to halftime, forgets about a third quarter, maybe late in the third quarter.
35:29Everybody's kind of forgotten. You're going to run when he's going to hit it.
35:33He's going to go 60 yards and you're going to get six out of it.
35:38And then everybody's going to go, damn. And then you're going to do it the next week and the next week and the next week.
35:46And he's going to have one every two or three weeks.
35:49He's going to have a 45 plus yard touchdown.
35:52Everybody's going to be like, Oh my God, it's back.
35:55And it's the Tyler Lockett special, man. I, you know, it's, it's what Tyreek used to give them in one part of it.
36:03Not again. I'm not saying that Kyle Williams is Tyreek.
36:06He's clearly not again, not a complete receiver, but that piece where Tyreek would beat man coverage, torch it, take it.
36:12And he's fast enough and tough enough that you're not getting him.
36:16And Kyle Williams can do that part. He can't do all the other stuff that I read can do, but Oh man,
36:23because the Patriots just don't seem to like, want to use Kyle Williams in the regular season.
36:28In the preseason, they'll show everybody scare the hell out of him.
36:32Then they just put them on the bench and use the other guys.
36:36And look, they have a good receiving core. I like it.
36:40But like that one thing is the exact thing you were talking about that the chiefs don't have and desperately need, which
36:47is one guy who twice a game can be a can opener, whether or not you hit him, everybody knows and the defense has to respect it.
36:55Yeah. MVS that can catch. Right. Cause that's what, what MVS was for a time here was the guy that we can take a couple shots.
37:03If we complete it. Great. But I think you would, I think you would hit those with higher regularity.
37:09I almost guarantee it. Certainly more than the modern version of MVS, but I think Kyle Williams, that is a, it's, it's
37:16a superpower or a Trump card or whatever you want to call it is the one thing he could do with regularity against almost anybody.
37:24I mean, he, he shows it in the pros.
37:27They, they, for some reason, don't do it a whole lot.
37:30They did it a lot more to, to booty in new England than they did to Kyle Williams in the regular season.
37:37But every preseason they'll roll Kyle Williams out there.
37:40He's had two and three games and you know, it's, he can do it.
37:44He's just like, put me in coach. That's my thing.
37:48And it would be terrifying if he was in Kansas city for that one reason.
37:52Well, we'll see if Kyle Williams gets any usage whatsoever in new England this year.
37:57He should. But I do want to touch on both the defense and the special teams a little bit for Casey before we move on.
38:05So for starters, special teams, Bucker had a bad year, right?
38:08Yep. Missing extra points. He wasn't particularly great on kickoffs.
38:11You know, he just drilled a 69 yarder week ago or so in the preseason, but it's, that's great, but you still have to hit extra points.
38:20So we'll see if he can do that this year.
38:23It's just very, very inconsistent last year, which did not help.
38:27And then defensively, you know, talk about a team with metrics that kind of lied to you a little bit.
38:33They were fifth in pressure rate, but not because they were a good pass rush.
38:38Like they led the league in six man pressures, like not even five, like six.
38:42Expans is like, screw it. I'm going to send the house.
38:46And he did it a lot, like several times a game.
38:49And it still wasn't great for actually getting quarterbacks on the ground.
38:53Again, fifth and pressure rate because they were so blitz happy, but they were 22nd in pressure to sack conversion rate.
39:00And you have guys like George Karloftis who gets 66 pressures because again, they're sending so many blitzes oftentimes like, okay, he's
39:06the one who's spiking inside and then blocker peels off to handle the extra man coming off.
39:12And like, he gets like these manufactured pressures or if they are rushing for, he's just running like the stiffest arc you've
39:19ever seen to like a 13 yard depth. And like, I guess he gets behind the tackle, but like he's never actually
39:26flattening the corner to, to get after the quarterback.
39:28It's a big reason why it's 66 pressures, which is top 11 among edges.
39:33We only had six sacks because a lot of his pressures just were not really high quality pressures and not all pressures are equal.
39:40It's great to have a high pressure rate, but if they're not actually affecting the quarterback, if you are not beating the
39:47man across from you and really making the quarterback uncomfortable, it's just kind of empty calories.
39:52And you compare that to two guys that are, uh, you know, kind of right next to him in terms of pressure
39:59count, firing young and Tully to a below two.
40:02They doubled him up on sack total because they get more high quality pressures that are actual real chances to get the quarterback on the ground.
40:10So if that's your quote unquote best edge is George Karloftis, which he's really not.
40:15Chris Jones was their best edge, even though he's a DT like, yeah, you're going to have to blitz over and over
40:22and over again to get anything done as a pass rush.
40:25And because they were sacrificing so many bodies with these five and six man, like even just in five men pressures, they
40:32were, they were quote unquote average in terms of sending those.
40:36But when you combine being average and five man pressures and leading the league and six man pressures, that means you're just
40:43throwing a bunch of pressures at people, which means you're taking bodies away from the backend.
40:48So you're less likely to get turnovers on tip drills.
40:51You're less likely, you know, to get hustle turnovers where like somebody pokes the ball out and you have somebody who's just
40:58perfectly positioned there to, to grab it. Like all of those really fortuitous turnovers that we were used to this Spags defense
41:05getting, they weren't getting because they had less bodies back there because they were all rushing the quarterback.
41:10So bad pass rush, maybe the worst nickel play in the NFL last year.
41:15Like, good God, did you watch Shamari Connor? Not more than I had to bad.
41:19He was bad. Yeah. Which is a bummer. We liked him coming out, but it not, not necessarily in that role.
41:26Like we, we thought that if he grew a little bit, that he would be really good in that role because he
41:33played mostly, well, he played between nickel and safety in college, had a split of those snaps and he played pretty well at safety.
41:40He's an absolute hammer. He's super aggressive. And we thought, Hey, move that up closer to the ball.
41:46And you know, if he continues to improve in coverage and if anything, he regressed in coverage.
41:51I feel like he's just going to be a full-time safety this year.
41:56And I would bet that Legerius Sneed might be the new nickel.
41:59And then, you know, we'll figure out what they're going to do without, I mean, obviously Delaney's going to be one of
42:06their outside corners, but I, I don't think you can survive another season with Shamari Connor at nickel.
42:12I think he's just, he's your safety. And you leave him there.
42:16Kind of like, you remember when they had a Sorenson back there?
42:19Yeah, for sure. Whereas like, all right, if he is 12 or more yards deep, we're, we're okay.
42:25If he's closer, we're not okay. The good news is actually, yeah, the good news is for this defense, if they, and
42:32again, we've been talking about this all summer throughout the summer series with different teams and different defenses, like what really is
42:39the extra defensive back going to be? A lot of teams are going towards true three safety looks.
42:45That's the case. I still watch Amari Connor back.
42:47You could bring in, you know, Jaden Hicks. He can be around a line again, not necessarily great, but this team has a bunch of options this year.
42:56If they want to go with a more true sort of classic nickel, not a big nickel look or a third safety
43:03or dime back or whatever you want to call it.
43:06Like cater co who is on this team. We're going to talk about him in additions.
43:11I don't know how healthy he is, but when he was healthy in Miami, he's an absolute demon as a nickel.
43:18He was great. One of those underrated nickels who you may not have heard the name of, but we called him out
43:25on bootleg week after week when he was healthy because he was a player.
43:29And the other one is an EJ Snyder special Jaden Kennedy.
43:33I was wondering if you're going to bring him up for Taylor made for this particular thing.
43:38I am absolutely going to bring him up. So if Legereus need is not the guy, or maybe they play Legereus outside
43:45because that's where he wants to be. And they try Noel Williams there or whatever.
43:50If it doesn't work, they have co who and Kennedy.
43:53And those are two players who have the skill sets.
43:56Again, co who it's more health and how, how fully back is he Kennedy is a rookie, but you know, is set to step into that role.
44:04And look, if you want to go small and fast on dime against four wide receivers, and they're not big guys, like
44:11you could play both of those guys inside as well.
44:14Player outside. They have options in this defensive backfield.
44:17And I like that for this team. I actually feel better about this defensive backfield than I had in a while because
44:24they added Delane Kennedy co who all in this off, season Christian Fulton is there as well.
44:29Like we haven't mentioned his name. They have a lot of defensive back talent that they can sort of pick and choose.
44:36And just like an offensive line coach goes, I want to find my best five.
44:41Spags is going to go, I'm going to find my best five or seven or whatever it is for a particular set
44:48that may change throughout the season, but he's going to know like, okay, if I want to call this one set, this is my guy.
44:56I have him inside. He's a good matchup this week for whoever they're putting in the slot in, in years past.
45:02It's just like, who's lining up where like, we just need a body in that spot because we're short.
45:08Yeah. And that's, I feel like they're going to have so much more choice this year.
45:13They still have to make the right choice, but they just have so much more choice.
45:19It's very similar to when, um, when the Texans had like an embarrassment of riches at corner, all the nickels, right?
45:25It was, it was, it was Jonathan Joseph. It was Kareem Jackson who kind of migrated between safety and corner, depending on,
45:32on the whims of the DC that year. Cause he could play both.
45:36Uh, I thought it was a better safety than a corner, but he did both.
45:41Uh, they had young Kevin Johnson. Um, and they had AJ Boye, AJ Boye was their fourth corner.
45:46Yeah. And he was their anti tight end guy.
45:49AJ Boye was who they put on Travis Kelsey back in the day.
45:53Well, like in the Alex Smith chiefs era, like right before they got my homes.
45:58And I think the chiefs might be able to do something similar, right?
46:02If you got Noel as your outside guy, Delaney is your other outside guy.
46:07LeJerry says your nickel. And then if you have a tight end that you need to solve a problem with, like maybe that's where Christian Fulton comes in.
46:15Like he only played, I think four games last year, uh, cause of injury.
46:20So I, I, I think there's a way where you can make this all work.
46:24It's, it should be better than it was last year.
46:28I'll say that much. Yeah. And I think the pass rush would be better than last year and the running back room would be better than last year.
46:36And the offensive line should still be pretty good.
46:39Like there's a lot that's positive now. Um, but it, it is, I'm less willing to just take their word for it, I guess now.
46:47And say they'll figure it out last year. Yeah.
46:50Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, I see the vision, but now I almost need to see the vision work before I'm like all in.
46:57Like I was this time last year. Hi, alternate timeline, Brett here before we get to all the 2026 stuff.
47:04If you've liked a lot of the data that we brought up so far, we have companion infographics for every single team,
47:11including the one we're talking about today with over 15,000 total data points that we have collected throughout this summer.
47:17Each team gets its own companion infographic, which is roughly about 20 pages long.
47:21It has all the data on this team. You can think of whether it's alignment data, personnel data, cap allocation, coverage data
47:28broken out by down and distance blitz data. I mean, basically anything you can think of, we've got it.
47:34So if you want access to that, you can find that down at the link in the description below or at the QR code on the screen reminder.
47:43We also have bonus episodes that go live every single Friday over on Patreon recapping every single division.
47:49We're going to pick division winners, MVPs, rookies of the year, all that stuff.
47:53So if you want bonus episodes, plus more data that you could probably handle, that is over on the Patreon.
47:59Thank you once again to all of our patrons that have made, honestly, this series possible to make in the first place.
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48:12So thank you to our patrons. Thank you to all of our executive producers on Patreon.
48:17Their names are on screen right now. They have been OG supporters of us and made so much in our lives possible
48:24while we try to chase this dream. So thank you.
48:27Thank you. Thank you. And with that, let's get back to the show.
48:31Okay. From here on out is the 2026 portion of the show.
48:35Although a lot of these guys have been here since way before 2026.
48:39It's a very stable power structure in Kansas city.
48:41Are we sure it's not 2023 again with Brett Veach is the GM, Andy Reed, Dave Tobe is the associate.
48:48Or 2020. Sorry. Or 2018. It's like the same guys.
48:51Yeah. I was going to say associate head coach.
48:54I'm sorry. It's assistant head coach. There are differences and special teams coach.
48:58He's been that in both of those roles for a while.
49:01EB is back. Eric B enemy is the offensive coordinator.
49:04And I will say again, because he was before and Steve Spagnuolo, who we've mentioned many times already during the show, still the defensive coordinator.
49:12So while it is 2026, it could be 2022 or 2021.
49:16We're going to talk more about the assistant coaches on this staff.
49:19And the old line coaches, Andy heck who up until last year in this episode, we said, look, he's got a lot of pressure on him.
49:28He's got a lot of things he needs to solve.
49:31They cannot be as bad as they were the year before at that point, which was 2024 or sorry, 2023 when we
49:38were recapping two years ago, he has stabilized line.
49:41They have also brought in more talent. Like you said, just before the break, we do think that the offensive line is going to be better.
49:49There are some question marks about Simmons health that are a little odd.
49:53I'll say, cause it started off as a, Oh, it's just a back thing.
49:57He'll be fine. We're just resting him. And now it's like, Oh, we're having other people look at it whenever it's an offensive line.
50:05And it's a back thing. And that's the sort of course that takes everybody's ears prick up a little bit.
50:11Some concern I would say is the current level of concern.
50:14But heck does a great job again, longtime player in the league himself, longtime offensive line coach, has worked with Andy for a long time.
50:22I actually think he will eventually probably get a shot at being a head coach, not super common for offensive line coaches,
50:29but if anybody gets one, I think Andy will probably get one.
50:33If he wants it, there's some assistance on this staff that don't really want to be head coaches.
50:39They might want, he might want to be an offensive coordinator at some point, but he might not want the top spot.
50:46Some guys don't, uh, the past game coordinator, another guy with pressure on him.
50:50Joe Blaymeyer fourth season in the role, 11th season with the chief.
50:54So not an unfamiliar face in any way, but when you look at how the past game has been really for like
51:01the last two years, yeah, you got some more pieces, but in terms of turning the heat on the seat up a
51:08little bit, uh, you got to make it happen this year.
51:11You can't be the way you were last year, which was just Pat slinging it and the guys not getting it done.
51:18You need to have them working in concert and Blaymeyer is going to have some pressure.
51:23Now, Andy famously doesn't cede to, or really even listen to outside pressure for the most part, but internally you got to
51:30think the staff is saying, okay, we've got a decent offensive line.
51:34We've got a bunch of weapons, Pat's back healthy.
51:36This, this has to click. We have to be a threat through the air again.
51:41Running backs coach is DeMarco Murray, very familiar name to NFL fans.
51:45He gets to work with this redone running back room, which I think is a lot of fun and has a lot of potential.
51:53Not really sure how he is as a coach, but I'm not going to say he's short groceries.
51:58That's for sure. Brett features stock and covered here.
52:01He's got plenty to work with. Uh, we'll see how that relationship between coach and running back room develops throughout the year.
52:08And then another coach with a ton of pressure on him, obviously wide receiver coach, Chad O'Shea.
52:13Now he spent the last six seasons with the Browns as long as their wide receiver coach and say what you will about their quarterback situation.
52:21Cause it has not been great. And that obviously impacts wide receiver stats.
52:26Here are the Cleveland receiving leaders for the last six years.
52:29In 2025, it was actually a tight end. It was Harold Fannin Jr.
52:33With a whopping 731 yards. Jerry Judy led all the wide receivers.
52:37You just wanted to prop up Fannin again. Don't lie.
52:40I really had to poke you in the ribs with that one.
52:44I did. 2024. Jerry Judy had 1229, but much like the chief's power score this year, bit of empty calories.
52:50The Browns just threw it to Judy early and often everybody said, CC Judy's good.
52:55And it was like, yeah, but what did it add up to?
52:58I'm not saying Judy's not good. It was certainly one of the career years for him, but in terms of impact as
53:05a sort of leading wide receiver, was it all that great?
53:09And it really wasn't the two years before that 23 and 22 was both Amari Cooper, 1250 and 1160.
53:15But again, Amari was more of a finished product by the time he made it to Cleveland.
53:20I'm not really going to give Chad O'Shea a ton of credit for developing Amari Cooper.
53:252021 Donovan Peoples Jones with 597 yards. Now DPJs.
53:28I cannot believe that was a leading receiver on a team with less than 600 yards.
53:33Correct. Oh my God. And we liked DPJ as a player.
53:37We thought, Hey, he's a good developmental wide receiver.
53:39But again, to have him as your leading wide receiver on a team at under 600 yards, I'm not gonna again, pin
53:46that on my bulletin board as a wide receivers coach and be like, see, see, that's what I got done.
53:53And in 2020, it was one Jarvis Landry. We have entered guys, name and dudes territory with 840.
53:58Probably took 135 catches to get there. Probably. Probably.
54:01Is Wondell Robinson before Wondell Robinson? Possibly. Defensive line coach, Joe Cullen.
54:05Fascinated to see how the, again, reinforcements that they brought in when we get to the losses section, you'll understand what I'm talking about.
54:12And that's Peter Woods and R. Mason Thomas in terms of who they brought in.
54:17They need one of those guys to develop as a true pass rush threat.
54:21If they don't, it's Chris Jones, another year older than 30 without another guy in the wings who is coming up to
54:28help support him, take pressure off him and eventually take the crown from him when he moves on.
54:34If you don't get that done. And again, the chiefs have not, they have invested high round picks and pass rushers.
54:41Felix and you Diki is ama. You know, you were talking, you were talking about your favorite pressure getter from last season
54:48who never became an alpha as a pass rusher.
54:50It's not that the team hasn't tried. It's not that Brett beach hasn't spent the capital, but they've not developed a young
54:57pass rusher in house and they need to. So pressure on Joe Cullen for that.
55:02And the defensive backfield, Dave Merritt starting safety tandem is where I get worried.
55:06Lloyd Gilman and Shamari Connor going to be put to the test in this division.
55:11He's got to hold up again. The corner depth is great.
55:15Safety depth at the starter position. Uh, let's hope that Dave Merritt can help hide those guys a little bit because one-on-one,
55:21neither one of them is great in pass coverage.
55:24Let's get to free agency year. Cause kind of an interesting subplot is how, you know, you know, the, the top line
55:31on the defensive line and linebacking core, largely the same.
55:34All the depth is different. Like basically the whole undercurrent of, of the chiefs front seven depth is getting swapped out this year.
55:42So looking at departures, Mike Pinnell gone, Mike Dana gone, Jerry Tillery gone, Derek Nottie gone, Charles Amenehu gone, Leo Chanel, who
55:48did contribute, uh, in that linebacking group quite a bit.
55:52Uh, gone. He's now with the commanders. Zach Pickens, bears legend, uh, gone.
55:56He's now with the giants. I just threw up in my mouth.
55:59Had to do it. Had to do it. Uh, Kareem hut gone, still a free agent.
56:05Juju gone, still a free agent. Although who knows it's Juju.
56:08He could be back by November. He tends to just find his way back to Kansas city.
56:13Uh, Brian cook is now a Bengal. Gardner Minshew is a Cardinal.
56:17Marquise Brown is an Eagle. Juwan Taylor and Juan, a Morris are both Falcons.
56:21God help him. Isaiah Pacheco is a lion. Trent McDuffie traded to the Rams.
56:26That was how they got the, the extra pick of the first round, uh, in the first place, uh, which gave them Peter Woods, I believe.
56:34Yeah, it was the second. Yeah. Second, first round that they traded him for.
56:38Uh, Jalen Watson is also now with the Rams Rams, just collecting ex chief corners at this point.
56:44So that's a lot of names. Each like a significant portion of their contributors.
56:48Yeah. Especially on a defensive line. When you look at long time chiefs and Pennell, Dana Tillery was more of a mercenary.
56:55Nadi's been there. Omena who's been there. Chanel obviously was drafted by them.
56:59Those guys, when you look at percentages of snaps, we're talking about almost everybody on that list outside of Zach Pickens was 30% or greater.
57:07And some of them over 50%. So while it is the depth, we talk about, you need waves.
57:13It's kind of like hockey lines these days in terms of defensive lines.
57:17They're all contributors. And when you take six of those guys, seven of those guys and rotate them out, it's a pretty
57:24big statement that, you know, it wasn't working for multiple reasons, whether it was age, wear and tear money, or just lack of function.
57:32And we're going to clean out the bottom two thirds of our defensive line rotation and, and refill it.
57:38Um, some with younger players, again, some with additions from outside.
57:41So it's a pretty big statement. Again, teams are going to tell you what they do by what they actually do, not what they say.
57:49They might say, oh yeah, we're totally happy with our defensive line.
57:53And you get to the losses section. You're like, really?
57:56Cause seven of them are gone. And that's off of a 53 man roster.
58:00So, uh, maybe not. Um, the other one, like Gardner Minshew, not being there.
58:05Like it's not, it's not the hugest amount of impact, but it also might be unless, uh, one Garrett Nussmeyer is ready
58:11to be QB two because we'll, we'll get to him.
58:15He's, he looked pretty boy. He's look good. He looked pretty good.
58:18And he's going to have to, because I don't think Justin Fields is going to be the answer when they signed him
58:25to quote unquote, be the number two and possibly even start the season.
58:29If my homes wasn't going to be healthy, I was like, Oh, I don't think that's what you think it is.
58:36But I think they found that out and Gardner not being there forced their hand on that.
58:41I mean, again, they didn't want to resign Gardner.
58:44They wanted to make a change there. They kind of, we'll talk about Nuss when we get to the draft, but, um,
58:51he, he better be ready because if you're going to be rolling out, uh, a QB two and have, let's just say
58:58it flatly, almost a zero hope of victory. You can't afford that in the modern NFL, because even if Pat has a
59:05setback, just knee soreness or something, and you've got to, you know, give him a week off.
59:10Not that Pat would ever take a week off.
59:13You have to chop his leg off. For knee soreness.
59:16there's no way. But if for any reason, Justin Fields had to be in the game, I don't think you can have
59:23a reasonable expectation as the chiefs that you're going to win that game.
59:27So that puts a hell of a lot of pressure on a rookie low round draft pick, uh, because you don't have
59:34a veteran like Gardner Mitchell there anymore. I've seen Pat Mahomes after his ankle was turned 90 degrees sideways, take off and scramble at 20 miles an hour.
59:43Like he's, he is so unreasonably different when it comes to toughness, pain tolerance, the ability to just ignore injury completely.
59:49Like I remember watching him like get absolutely enraged throwing his helmet because he had to go get checked out in the locker room one time.
59:58Yeah. Cause he didn't want to come off the field.
60:01Like he is, he's ridiculously tough, wildly competitive, ridiculously tough, and is just going to play through it and play at a high level.
60:08I mean, even when limping on one leg, we saw that, you know, a few seasons ago and it's like, Oh, he can't possibly be as effective.
60:17And he just wills through it in a way that not a lot of people are able to.
60:22I think one of the best Nick Wright quotes is best quarterback in the world is Patrick Mahomes.
60:28Second best quarterback in the world is Patrick Mahomes on one leg.
60:32And I was like, not wrong. Not, not that far from true.
60:36If it is wrong, um, in terms of where the chiefs spent their money in the off season, it starts with one Patrick Mahomes.
60:43And again, this is in re signings extensions. Uh, all of them rolled into one Patrick Mahomes, Travis, Kelsey, drew tranquil as a restructure.
60:51Um, and then two receivers, Taequann Thornton and Nico Remy, Oh, cause he got it.
60:55We got to bring up Nico. Um, again, guy we talked to at the tribal, uh, really modern day alone, by the
61:02way, I was going to ask where every week we get one.
61:06It's going to ask where he went to high school, but has returned versatility.
61:11Again, the Taequann Thornton and Remy Hill contracts aren't large.
61:14Uh, drew tranquil was actually a reduction over year, over year, Travis Kelsey and extension for three years, uh, to keep him
61:21in town, presumably to retire as a chief and Mahomes.
61:24Look, it's Mahomes. You're, you're going to get him what he needs, uh, whatever he asked for, because when you have a
61:31quarterback of that quality in the building, you, you just do that.
61:34It like it's, it's foregone conclusion. You make sure it happens.
61:38As far as, uh, where they spent their money outside the building, bringing in third party free agents, Amari DiMarcato, the aforementioned Amari.
61:45DiMarcato, coming in about 1.2 million cater Kohu about 1.8 million.
61:49Maybe we see him get involved in the nickel.
61:51Uh, not rotation. Scrum. I guess rotation. That's from the scrum gathering.
61:55Yes. Gathering. Kerfuffle. I don't know how you describe it.
61:58Um, Joshua Zudu coming in about 1.3 million. They traded for Justin Fields.
62:02We'll see if he holds, I know he's paying or getting paid $11 million a year, but like Garrett, not sponsored.
62:09Oh my God. I don't know. We'll see. Um, Kearstonga.
62:12That was actually one of the sneakier off season signs by any team.
62:16So good. 7 million for Kearstonga. I was like, sign me up.
62:20I can't believe the bears didn't beat that number.
62:23Well, for, for how much they needed DT for bears legend, curious Tonga.
62:27Oh, that's right. He was there. How did, how did he get out of the building?
62:32He was not the player. He was in new England, but he was good.
62:36And he was cheap for sure. Uh, but they were looking for, you know, they wanted the Javon Dexter's of the world.
62:43They wanted guys that penetrate. They wanted Grady. They wanted Zach Pickens.
62:47Uh, well, they wanted the idea of Zach Pickens.
62:50Let's put it that way. But no curious was a younger player.
62:54I liked him. He was incredibly cheap, but he was one of the guys that filled those very valuable downs bottom of the roster player, right?
63:02He was a, he was a bottom five on a 53.
63:05He was up and down between the practice squad.
63:08Obviously goes, uh, he had another stop and then he went to the Patriots and it for the Patriots just blossomed again
63:15under their coaching and with the other players that he was learning from there.
63:19He was a force. He was tremendous last season.
63:22So well worth the 7 million. I would say that's a value.
63:26And the chiefs are going to literally lean on him because again, all the guys we mentioned that left town that used to do that role.
63:34That's curious his job now. Just a really, really underrated player.
63:38Um, also brought in Lowy Gilman from the Ravens, uh, to be a starting safety for them.
63:43Obviously, Kenneth Walker was the biggest money they spent.
63:46Uh, about 14.3 million, which I think is what eight or 9 million less than what B.
63:51Sean and Gibbs got off the top of my head.
63:54I think they were in the 22, 23 ballpark.
63:57I think that's a pretty good deal. If you're, if you're getting him at rough napkin math, 60% of the top of
64:04the market, that's a really, really good deal for running back.
64:07That was top three and explosive. Yeah. Especially for that fit, that piece specifically, the thing he's best at is the thing that chiefs need the most.
64:16So for that, it's a tremendous deal. In fact, I'm just, I'm looking it up right now where he is in terms of highest paid running backs.
64:24Cause normally if you're freshly signed at your position, you're going to be way up there.
64:29So he is one, two, so 22, five is the top of the market with you mirror.
64:35And then 22, two fifties B John. So they're right next to each other.
64:39So one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.
64:42So before he even plays a down as a chief, he's already the ninth highest paid running back.
64:48Yep. That's good. In a couple of years, he's going to be like relatively dirt cheap.
64:53Yeah. So I, I like that deal a lot.
64:56That's awesome for the quality of player that he is.
64:59Um, with Jerry Snead, again, also brought in for 1.2 might be the starting nickel.
65:04We'll see Spags has kind of hinted that he's in the mix for that.
65:08But Jerry apparently is down to do whatever. Uh, although I will say as we get into the draft, so we're recording
65:15this during the chiefs last preseason game. Mm-hmm. Man, sir, Delaney just made a hell of a tackle out on the edge in run sport.
65:23And I'm like, Hey man, that's kind of requirement.
65:26Number one for being a nickel these days, you got to be able to play the run.
65:31And I would not say that he was a weak corner against the run at LSU, but the fact that he's showing
65:38like, yeah, I can square up with a receiver, beat the block, get to the running back, make a form tackle, drive
65:45him back like zero yards gained after contact. If he can do that, maybe we consider delaying it nickel and the Jerry's outside.
65:52I guess we'll see. I guess we'll see again.
65:55That's going to be a call for the defense coordinator to say, where do my guys work the best?
66:01And if you've got that capacity from both of them, you don't really care.
66:05If you go, all right, man up switch release.
66:08Oh, you're actually going to follow the receivers. That's fine.
66:11You, you know, I don't feel worse about you being in that fit inside.
66:16I don't feel bad about the offense, trying to manipulate me or you to put you in that spot because jokes on them.
66:23You can do both things. So never bad. Again, the more you can do in the NFL, the more you can do.
66:30But again, getting into the draft, UDFA, it did start at pick six overall with Mansoor Delaney, the excellent corner out of
66:37LSU, my top corner on the board. It was a huge need for them, obviously after the trade.
66:42And I think they did as well as they possibly could.
66:46And very, very well. That is not to say, Oh, well in this class, I guess that's the best you could do.
66:53You did great. You got a corner who is going to be a perennial starter on the outside from his rookie season.
67:00That's what you need. If you're drafting a corner in the top 10, that's what you need.
67:05I think they got it with this player. I love his tape.
67:09And when they traded up, that was them basically saying like, nobody else in this class is even close to him.
67:15Like, we don't think we can get a day to value, or we don't think as far as defensive linemen that, or
67:22rather I should phrase it this way. The shelf at corner hit a lot faster than almost every other position in this draft.
67:29And so they thought they could get a defensive lineman late day one.
67:34They thought they could get receivers late. They thought they could get an extra running back late.
67:39They thought they could get a pass rusher, an edge rusher on day two.
67:43And they were correct. They could not get anything remotely as good as Mansoor Delaney at corner on day two.
67:50It's just the nature of what this corner class was.
67:53There were players that we liked. Like, I genuinely like Chris Johnson a lot as a prospect.
67:58It's not the same category as Mansoor Delaney. Like, that is a guy who, if you told me in three years, he's
68:05getting the market resetting deal at corner, I would 100% believe it.
68:09He is incredible in man coverage. Tough, physical, technically refined, physically gifted.
68:13As far as tier of corner coming out, somewhere in like the Gonzo realm, I would say for me.
68:18And Gonzo's incredible. He's amazing. He's been worth the pick.
68:22Can't believe he fell to 17 or whatever it was with the Patriots.
68:26He shouldn't have been available that late. So I think the Chiefs were like, he's there.
68:31We're going to go up. We're going to get him.
68:34And we trust that we can find, say, a Peter Woods at 29th overall, because we're not going to get a corner that good that late.
68:42Yeah, I think they took one look at Spaggs and said, which one do you want?
68:47And he was like, I want that one. If you're asking me, I want that one.
68:52Do what you need to go get them. And they did.
68:56I don't think they're going to be sorry about that at all.
68:59They come back in the back half of the first round at 29, get Peter Woods, defensive tackle out of Clemson.
69:06Penetrator. Was it divisive figure in draft circles? Because has flashes.
69:09And again, had, I think higher highs on tape earlier in his career than this year.
69:14His last year at Clemson felt very much like a letdown.
69:18And everybody was like, okay, which one are you getting?
69:21Is this going to be a bounce back year?
69:24Or is this going to be a continued downward trend?
69:27And I think however teams saw that debate is where they valued Peter Woods on their board.
69:32If they thought, Hey, you can get back to where he was last year or year before.
69:38In this case, we'd be willing to pick him back half of the first round.
69:42No problem. If they thought, well, I have more questions and answers about his 2025 tape.
69:47He was probably a day to pick. And that's where their comfort would kick in, in terms of risk.
69:53In case he didn't ascend to those heights. I would say that squarely puts the chiefs in the category of, ah, he's done it once.
70:01We like it. We think we can get it out of him again.
70:05And they really need him to, they need that pass rusher.
70:09Again, they picked one in the previous draft that you really like.
70:13We didn't get to see him healthy. They still haven't gotten one, right?
70:17They still haven't gotten that dominant interior pass rushing threat that can do it a couple of times a game and just puncture pockets and really upset offenses.
70:25And they're hoping Peter Woods can be that guy.
70:28He was one of the prospects that I, I don't think anybody really agreed on.
70:33Correct. Right. When you ask around all of our friends in the draft space, you asked about Peter Woods, you're going to
70:40get 10 different answers from 10 different people. Right.
70:43Some people really believe in the 2024 tape. Some people couldn't get past 2025.
70:47Some people heard he didn't interview. Well, some, some people heard that, you know, wasn't great working out, but was interviewing really well.
70:54And nobody could get a read on him. Like really nobody could get a read on it.
71:00I'm not going to be arrogant enough to say that I have a read on him.
71:05I don't know what they're getting. Like if they're getting the player that was on tape in 2024, sure.
71:11It'll work out. Can I guarantee that's what it is?
71:14No. Like it's very much a wait and see.
71:17I would hope. I hope that the chiefs are right on this because if they are great, they got a massive value
71:24at 29, but I, I have no idea. I have no idea if he's going to work out.
71:29Nobody has any idea if he's going to work out very much a swing for the fences type of thing, but they had an extra first rounder.
71:38And so they were like, screw it. If we're going to do something with this pick, we're going to try to hit home run.
71:45And that's the home run, um, pick or attempt.
71:48Yeah. We should say late in the first round.
71:51Yeah. That's what it always is until they put it on grass.
71:55It's an attempt in the second round with the 40th overall pick, they go and get our Mason Thomas, the edge from Oklahoma.
72:02Now this is a fireball or off the edge who was flashed in the preseason.
72:07It looked really good again, had limitations on his college tape, but does provide pass rush, splash, flash.
72:12There were a lot of almost kind of pass rushers in this draft.
72:16In fact, I would say most of them were like, Oh, well, great physical skills, but the production wasn't there or great
72:23physical skills, but his technique needs work or, you know, Hey, he's just not that tall or he's got short arms or whatever else.
72:31There were just a lot of nicks on players and our Mason Thomas kind of settled.
72:36I would say pretty solidly into that second tier pass rusher, but he does pop on tape in terms of adding explosion to your pass rush.
72:44He's shown that in the preseason. We'll have to see if he can carry that through to the regular season.
72:50But again, if it works out, if either one of these guys work out, God forbid, both of them work out.
72:57Wow. Perfect timing. Oh, is this an our Mason Thomas rush?
73:00So again, just logging this for myself, first quarter, four 50 left on the clock.
73:05What did we talk about earlier? Right. Where it's George call off this going 13 yards deep in the pocket.
73:11Cause he can't turn the corner. Our Mason Thomas could turn the corner.
73:15Didn't get there, but he, he turned the fucking corner.
73:19Like that's what he can do. He can bend and dip.
73:22He's got great explosion. He's got good power. I would say his arsenal of pass rush moves is good.
73:28Uh, I rank that coming out of college. Does he need to continue to develop it?
73:33Yes, but he is not technically non-proficient as a pass rusher.
73:36He's pretty well schooled with his hands and can get that shoulder down around the outside.
73:41And that is a valuable commodity to the NFL.
73:44It's the reason he went 40th overall. And again, the chiefs double dip with woods and Thomas and say, gotta make this pass rush, not toothless.
73:52We gotta make people fear this a little bit more than they do.
73:57And again, if both of them work out, look out, that would be a terrifying combo with the players.
74:03They already have, man. If he's given me this rep that I'm watching right now, three times a game, he's going to be good.
74:10He's going to be good. Like tackles. Like it was one-on-one with the tackle.
74:14And it's, you think you got deep enough until he's on top.
74:18You realize, well, that's bad phrasing. Yeah. Yeah, it was.
74:21You think you hit your landmark. You know what?
74:24I'm going to move on. Good choice. He's good.
74:27He's good. He's good. You want two shovels? Oh boy.
74:30Fourth round. Anyway, Jaden Kennedy. Yeah. We skip all the way from, uh, early in day two to early in day three,
74:37they go from pick 40 all the way down to pick one Oh nine, which is in the fourth round.
74:43And they get Jaden Kennedy, the corner out of Oregon.
74:47I say corner hesitantly because he played some safety.
74:49He played some nickel. He played some star. He was all over the place.
74:54And one of the players I thought was wildly underrated when I was going to the university of Oregon pro day.
75:00I'm always doing film study the night before just to kind of freshen up and say, okay, who do I really want to watch?
75:08Which drills do I not want to miss? Where should I be on the field?
75:13And like Jaden Kennedy was a guy that I watched and I called a bunch of people.
75:18I texted him at that point. Cause it was like 11 o'clock at night before the pro day on the West coast.
75:25And I said, where did, where are you with Jaden Kennedy?
75:28Like I just watched him again. And I actually think he's pretty good.
75:32Like I would pick him in the middle rounds and a lot of draft sites.
75:37If you're talking about consensus boards at that point, not all the way through the spring had him undraftable sixth round late, late fifth round.
75:45I didn't see him above late, late fifth round.
75:48And I was like, I don't know with his versatility, the way he hits, um, ended up having a conversation locally here with Doug for our about him.
75:57And Doug was like, I'll check him out. Got a text from Doug.
76:01Like two days later. He's like, yes, I fully agree.
76:04We're on the same page. I think he is much better than his current ranking.
76:09He's versatile. He fits in what modern NFL defenses are doing and needing for players like him.
76:14I don't care what the designation is. I don't care what the pedigree is.
76:18One of those guys that transferred later in his career and just kind of got lost.
76:23Didn't have the same amount of impact late at Oregon that he did earlier.
76:28Just kind of got lost in the wash a little bit.
76:31Does not mean he's not a good football player, folks.
76:34He is a very valuable defensive back. And I think he got picked at the right place.
76:40I know a lot of people looked at him in the fourth round and went who, and I was like, actually that's
76:47pretty square with the value I had for him.
76:49He's very spags coded. Yep. I'm not entirely sure what spot he's going to play, but I think he's going to be good at it.
76:57And they've always done this, right? They find their day three darlings at DB that come in and play snaps and are good contributors.
77:05Like would not be the first or the second or the third time that that's happened in Kansas city.
77:11It's actually one of the things they're very, very good at.
77:14Yeah. I thought the Emmett Johnson pick was a tremendous value.
77:18He was my fourth ranked running back in this class.
77:21I thought, again, there was a gap between obviously the top running back, the next running back, there was a gap.
77:27And then there was a gap between, there was only one player in each of tier one and tier two for me.
77:34And then obviously it was a second back in tier three, but that very much felt like a, okay, late, late, late
77:41third round, or really where I was comfortable with my tier three guys was the top of day three or the top of the fourth round.
77:49And the guy right before him was Mike Washington jr.
77:53Who's also been lighting it up for the Raiders.
77:55But Emmett, I thought was one of the most well-rounded backs and the back that had the best chance to be a
78:02sort of one, a starter eventually, especially because he is very good running the ball inside and out.
78:08He's tough. He has good vision. He's decent in the passing game as well.
78:12He doesn't need to come off the field. And there were a lot of backs that had nicks in their armor in
78:19this particular draft where you're like, wow, he's going to be a good situational guy.
78:24He's going to be a good two. He's going to be a good three because you know, he's a better pass receiver.
78:31Like Emma Johnson was like, no, you can just plug him in and ask him to do anything a running back would do for you.
78:39And he's going to do it at a high level.
78:42And he has very productive runner out of Nebraska.
78:45And I feel like probably sooner rather than later, he might take the two spot as much as I like Dean Mercado.
78:52And I really do. I think Emma Johnson could very well be RB two on this roster pretty quickly.
78:58Shall we finally talk about your 2026 Kansas city chiefs wide receiver one Cyrus Allen.
79:02It's about time each. It is time. Everybody else has done it and beat us to it.
79:08So fifth round one 76 Cyrus Allen, the other receiver out of Cincinnati, if you want to call him that who I had a good grade on.
79:16I thought fifth round was a perfectly fine selection for him.
79:20He is not a one trick pony. We talked about Kyle Williams earlier in the program and Cyrus Allen is a better route runner.
79:27That was the thing that jumped out of me at tape was it was like, Oh, he's, he's quick.
79:33And he says, I was like, yeah, but look at the routes, look at the stems, look at his footwork, look at him very speeds.
79:41Look at him make catches again, in breaking routes, outbreaking routes, a little bit down the field.
79:46Like he's not the, the deep, deep threat guy, but underneath routes, inside, outside, good stop game understands how to set up defensive backs.
79:54I was like, this is a, this is a very crafty wide receiver.
79:58Again, incredibly deep wide receiver class. I think I watched 35 wide receivers this year for the draft.
80:04And that certainly wasn't even all of them. And Cyrus Allen held his own in that group.
80:09So I thought fifth round one 76, just like Emmitt Johnson, the other fifth round pick, I was like, this is good value.
80:16I would have taken him right in this range.
80:19Now. I was not predicting that he was going to have the camp that he's had be the darling of Kansas city
80:26before we're even out of August, but wasn't surprised with where he got picked.
80:30Uh, I thought it's going to be a tough room for him to crack because as the way I saw his pre-draft
80:37talent compared to everybody else in the Kansas city wide receiver, I was like, man, he's going to be fighting for snaps.
80:44He's going to be looking for a role. He's going to be wide receiver.
80:48I don't know, five, six, six. He's going to have to play special teams.
80:53It looks like maybe he's better than that already.
80:56One of the comps that I heard, which I thought was so interesting and also so perfect.
81:01Can he be diet Emmanuel Sanders? Similar size, right?
81:04Five 11 buck 80 buck 85, somewhere in there, right?
81:07Great separator, tough as nails drafted as like wide receiver three, but works his way up to being more than that.
81:14Mm-hmm played forever because he has a skillset that translates.
81:17Now Emmanuel Sanders was fast, like really, really fast, way faster than people think.
81:21Um, I don't know if Cyrus Allen has that kind of gas, but as far as that arc of, okay, here's an undervalued receiver.
81:29That's a great separator catches everything. Can he, can he become more than what his draft status status suggested?
81:35I think he can. I think he kind of already is.
81:38Yeah. Just because nobody else in this receiving core really has his skillset.
81:42Xavier Worthy's faster. Sure. Is he better at being a wide receiver?
81:46I haven't seen evidence that he is so far in his third year of his career.
81:51Yeah. Some of that was, was on Worthy's tape too, in terms of everybody's like, well, he's just the fast guy.
81:58And there was more nuance there. There was not as much nuance as there was from Cyrus Allen.
82:03Like Cyrus Allen doesn't have that blazing speed to rely on that Worthy does.
82:08So I think he has to be better in multiple ways.
82:11Like being a wide receiver, any job in football, being a quarterback, being a running back, being a wide receiver, being a defensive lineman.
82:19There's a lot that goes into it. You're required to do a lot of different things, have a lot of different skills, have a lot of understanding.
82:27And in terms of being a sort of holistic wide receiver, being able to do lots of things at a high level,
82:34Cyrus Allen is better at doing many of those at a high level.
82:38Whereas Worthy has some higher highs and does have some versatility.
82:42He's not just a speed threat, but he is also not as versatile as Cyrus Allen.
82:47And we've got Garrett Nussmeyer. This is the one, you know, there, there were some, there were some things he was playing through in 2025.
82:54So a lot of people have said, okay, the Garrett Nussmeyer from 2025, is not the real Garrett Nussmeyer.
83:00You're really more looking at what he was the year before that.
83:04When a lot of people were like, oh, he's going to be a day one guy kind of fell off the face
83:11of the earth last season for multiple reasons, right?
83:14You see what he's done this off season. And it kind of sort of reminds me of the Brock Purdy arc from a few years ago, right?
83:22Where, okay, Brock Purdy goes to Will Hewlett, trains with him out in Florida.
83:27In between his last year, not even in between his last year at Iowa state, in between the shrine bowl.
83:33Yeah. And the combine, and then into training camp added 10 miles per hour in velocity in three to four months because
83:40he was completely tearing down and rebuilding his mechanics.
83:43We like really just was a brand new quarterback compared to what we saw that in the shrine bowl practice week where we watched him live.
83:51We're like, I don't know if that's NFL quarterback get to training camp a few months later.
83:56And you're like, is he the best backup quarterback here?
84:00Which I was still wrong. He was actually the best quarterback there, period.
84:04Right. Took over and, and has really not given that job back since he's, he's been good for them.
84:10So it is possible to see a quarterback who just flat out is better as a pro than in college because they
84:17finally go to the right coach or the right, you know, QB guru, or they've changed their diet or, you know, they
84:23finally get healthy because they've been, you know, something's been nagging them throughout college and they finally have recovery time.
84:30Some guys are just better. Once they get into a professional environment, Garrett Nussmeyer might be that because if you're looking at
84:37what he's done in camp and in preseason, that doesn't look like 2025 Garrett Nussmeyer.
84:41Now this is very much the Peter Woods discussion, which again is an earlier chiefs draft pick on the defensive side of the ball.
84:49But Nussmeyer's 2024 tape was legit in terms of we're excited.
84:52He gets another year. He's going to hopefully continue to develop.
84:56If he does, he's going to be in the conversation for the top quarterback pick.
85:00Right. And then, you know, what happens happens in college football.
85:04He did not have a great 2025. He was not must watch TV every week and the tape wasn't great.
85:10But if you did, if you dabbled and you went back and looked at 20, 20 for you, like, no, I wasn't kidding myself.
85:18There's some really nice throws there. Pro level ability on tape.
85:21I, you know, not to say I did this with Peter Woods, but with Garrett Nussmeyer, I did.
85:27I came down on the 2024 tape because of the value of quarterback.
85:31And Nussmeyer was my QB three in tier two in this class.
85:35It was not a great class. Mendoza one, Ty Simpson and Nussmeyer were my tier two, only two guys in it.
85:41And I thought if he gets anywhere near 2024, again, lands in the right situation, works with the right coach, gets healthy.
85:48The other thing is he had a really bad pre-draft process.
85:52Teams were really upset with the way he approached it.
85:55He did not kowtow to teams and teams don't like that.
85:58And a bunch of them held it against him.
86:01That's why he lasted the seventh round. We'll show you, you don't have that much great tape.
86:06Your 2024 isn't worth that much to us. And that's why he was available down in the seventh round with all those
86:13skills might be mixed in with some injury stuff.
86:16Again, we don't know about the medical side, but you go back to that 2024 tape when he was firing and I
86:23do mean firing and it looks more like what you've seen flashes of in the preseason.
86:28And you know, if he can put it together, that is going to be the biggest poker chip pick of the entire draft.
86:35I'll let you kind of walk us through UDFAs for the most part here, but I do want to bring up first
86:42Jaden Ott, running back out of Oklahoma. Yeah. DeMarco Murray was his running backs coach at Oklahoma, which I imagine is why
86:49he went to Kansas city because DeMarco Murray likes him.
86:52Yeah. Jaden Ott again, so funny coming off the Nussmeyer conversation because Jaden Ott coming out of Cal was a highly sought after transfer.
87:00Oklahoma was considered to have won his rights and that was going to be, they had their import running back and their
87:07import quarterback and man, weren't they going to set the world on fire?
87:11They didn't really get a great season out of either one of them.
87:15Lots of not great stuff coming out of the Oklahoma program.
87:18But again, if in terms of reports about Jaden Ott, I'm not talking about the program overall.
87:24I'm talking about it didn't go very well for him at Oklahoma.
87:28And that happens for lots of guys for lots of reasons.
87:31But again, having his position coach in college say, no, I'm vouching for this guy.
87:36I'd like to see him come in. But again, a guy whose star was much, much higher in 2024 than it was in 2025.
87:43And again, this entire UDFA class, we talked about this right after the draft.
87:48This was one of the ones we were really excited about.
87:51Cause if you looked at this right after the draft, when they finalize this UDFA class, yeah, Jeff Caldwell, the, the receiver
87:58from Cincinnati, I would say ahead of Cyrus Allen, the big, tall, fast one.
88:02That was just dripping with potential. If you like Ted Hearst, you really were in the Jeff Caldwell camp.
88:08John Michael Gillenboard, my favorite tight end from again, 2024.
88:12There's a theme here. Had I had an injury, didn't play great in 2025.
88:16He's been placed on reserve injured. You know, just looked at this and went, man, they have all this.
88:22And the guy that ends up being the biggest star out of this whole class was not one.
88:28We really sort of thought much about. It's Khalil Benson, who is a roster lock.
88:32I checked with my buddies in Kansas city and said, is it, you know, it looks like that guy is just absolutely golden ticketed to the 53.
88:41And they were like, yes, 100%. Khalil Benson will be on this roster again, right.
88:45Tackle out of Indiana. And we didn't really even sort of have a lock on him.
88:50He goes and works with any heck and he looks like a starter.
88:55And you're like, okay, if you get a starter as a tackle and you do, if I'm not saying he's going to
89:01start on this team, he looks like he has starter level talent.
89:05That's good enough for the whole UDFA class, but all the other names called well, Gillen board.
89:11This was a, ah, this was a star studded UDFA class that really sort of got cut down by injuries.
89:17Um, and made to look not quite as exciting.
89:20Um, speaking of exciting though, huh? Mama, don't let your boys grow up to be wide receivers.
89:25Um, Omari Evans wide receiver. I got to see at the Washington pro day, ran a four to eight 40 and jumped 41 in the vert.
89:33Didn't get drafted. He's a UDFA. He is on this team.
89:37And if you can run a four to eight, not get drafted after playing at a power five school, like, Oh man, shove them in there.
89:45We saw, we saw Husky receivers get drafted like eighth overall for running that before and stay in the league for 15 years.
89:52Oh, but put them in the cornerback line, man, because it's amazing to me that that's the case.
89:58Not that Omari Evans is the greatest wide receiver, but he did have flashes.
90:02His physical skills are off the charts and you end up as a UDFA.
90:07NFL is a tough league to crack full of elite athletes.
90:10Before we get to our ceiling and floor once more, uh, want to plug our partners over at homage.
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91:02And with that, EJ ceiling and floor. I'll let you take the lead on this one because you don't want to, it's going to be one.
91:10It's one of the wider ranges that I think we'll see this series.
91:14Yeah. I put the ceiling at 12 and I put the floor at nine.
91:18I thought about putting it at eight, but then I thought back to all the talent on the team.
91:24And if Pat's on the team, he's willed this team through far worse before.
91:29I can't see them winning. I can't see them being a losing team with this roster of Pat's healthy.
91:35Let me say that. So that's why I went with nine as my floor.
91:39So why I could all work. Pat back slinging it supported by a real running game with K walk.
91:45That's scary right there. Defense was already not terrible.
91:48They added Tonga, R Mason Thomas might be a few ticks better this year.
91:52That would be a huge swing for wins for Kansas city, which is where it really matters.
91:57Not so much the rankings or the power score, but in terms of wins, they couldn't seal games.
92:03They couldn't salt them away with the running game.
92:06If they could do both, it could be five, six wins swing to the positive for Kansas city.
92:12How could all fall apart? Wide receiver core can't separate, can't create on their own.
92:16They have to rely on patch magic. Again, K walk gets dinged up.
92:20Injuries hit the offensive line. Pass rush does not find that current contributor outside of Chris Jones.
92:26Jones Jones is another year past 30 starting safeties that we have some questions about get pushed to their limit.
92:32Even with all that, I will say this cheese fans, even if all that stuff happens, this team will be over 500.
92:39There is no way that they will be under 500.
92:42And if it all works, 12 wins competition for the division title, even with the other teams in their division, they could win it.
92:50If not 12 wins, I think most certainly gets them a playoff spot.
92:54And if you want to play the Kansas city chiefs with this coaching staff in the playoffs and my homes at quarterback, you are braver than me.
93:02So I don't feel crazy then for putting my ceiling at 13.
93:06No, because could totally happen on paper. Right. Okay.
93:09Fix corner. Get it. A real edge rusher. They can actually bend the corner.
93:13Shamard Connor, not playing nickel for me anymore. That right there is probably two or three wins for you.
93:19Oh, that's worth three wins on its own. Yeah.
93:22Um, offensive line, good and deep. Remember it's, it's not, um, it's not just Khalil Benson that they got, they got S a pole last year too.
93:30So like if they take an injury at tackle, they're okay.
93:34Yeah. I was actually more than way more worried about guard.
93:37And then they made the trade for his Zulu.
93:40And I was like, okay, now again, you're filling up the holes that I'm worried about.
93:45You're insulating yourself against worst case scenario. Right. So talented offensive line, good offensive line, great running back.
93:51Great quarterback. Who's just healthy again, because he's Patrick homes.
93:54He's a cyborg. It is what it is. If you can get one more good year out of Travis Kelsey and Chris Jones.
94:01And if Cyrus Allen is what we think he could be, which is just like a competent receiver, that's a 13 win team.
94:08I really do believe that. Like I've, I've, I've seen them win that many games with less.
94:14I'll, I'll say that. And I trust in the quarterback.
94:17I trust in the coaching staff. I trust in some of the talent they've brought in.
94:22I was wrong about him last year. I'll admit that.
94:25Surely I couldn't be wrong twice in a row.
94:28I've never seen it more than never seen more than once a day.
94:32No, we're not even talking about the biggest bump in wins possibly for the Kansas city chiefs, Matt Nagy, but no longer in town.
94:40I don't know that though. My, my floor is still eight though.
94:43Okay. High variance. Because if I am wrong, it'll fall apart exactly the way it did last year.
94:49Yeah. I just don't think where it's like, okay, I just don't think it'll fall as far.
94:54I, I really do think again, because not all of the things will fail.
94:59The offensive line might, but the offensive line and the secondary at the same time, maybe thin chance, the running back room, the offensive line and the second.
95:08No, they, they, there's too much depth there. And again, too much coaching horsepower.
95:12I do not feel the same way about Andy that I did about his contemporary in terms of coaching length.
95:18Harbaugh, right? John Harbaugh. I felt like Harbaugh, the game had passed him by to a point.
95:24And it's why I'm worried about the giants this year.
95:27One of the major reasons I'm worried about the giants this year.
95:30I don't feel that way about Andy. I don't feel that way about spags.
95:35Right. I definitely don't feel that way about EB.
95:38I think EB is a big upgrade. So coaching, if anything, going from Nagy to EB is also, by the way, worth a couple of wins.
95:46That's what I said. You don't even have the one thing is Matt Nagy not being in town is worth at least a couple of wins.
95:54And so if you add him and Jamari Connor together, it's plus five.
95:58That's, that's 11 right there before you even get started.
96:01Anyways, the coaching staff, very, very good. They have, they have done work all over this roster.
96:07Right now, wide receiver. It might not work out.
96:09Right. But still everything. You've got pat back and quarterback.
96:13You've got a way better running back room. You've got more depth at offensive line with players.
96:18We really like, you've got more defensive line depth and youth.
96:21Quite frankly, your secondary is, again, three players we really like have been added to that unit.
96:27It just feels like, yeah, some of them might fall off a little bit, but not all of them are going to
96:34fall off to the level they were at last year.
96:37They've done a lot of work. Well, cheese fans, let me know where you kind of fall in this.
96:43Cause you guys are, you, you guys obviously follow the team closer than even we do.
96:48And we try to cover each team as closely as we can, but we don't see every single day.
96:54The practice reports like you guys. So, you know, if I'm crazy, if we're saying that 13 is the ceiling and eight's
97:01the floor, if you think it's more of a narrower cone than that, please let me know down in the comments below.
97:08We'd love to hear your guys thoughts on that.
97:10Remember tomorrow's episode is the chargers who once again have unreasonable expectations in the off season.
97:15We will see how long those expectations hold up because a lot of it relies on the offensive line, staying healthy and they've already taken a major injury.
97:24And it feels like every single year we say, Oh, if they just stay healthy, they're going to be great.
97:30And then they don't stay healthy. And we look back in December and say, why didn't we see that coming?
97:37Kind of feels like we're about to do that again.
97:40But for now, as long as the chargers stay healthy, they should be a really, really great team.
97:46It's going to be fun to talk about them tomorrow.
97:49Tons of talent out there in LA. So come back for that tomorrow.
97:53And then we got the Broncos the day after that.
97:56And the day after that over on the Patreon, we have our AFC West wrap up where we pick our division winner.
98:03We pick our MVPs players of the year, rookies of the year, bold predictions, coach of the year, all that.
98:09So it is a loaded division, which means it's a loaded week.
98:13Thank you for being here. We'll see you tomorrow.
98:16We'll see you tomorrow.
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