Is this a rebuilding year?

[onejayhawk]

It seems certain that the roster will undergo a significant change. Most of the starters return, except on OL, but the depth players through out the roster are in limbo. With a hat tip to KC-Guy, check the FA list. Few of these will be back, except for those who will take a minimum contract.
https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/free-agents/all/kansas-city-chiefs/

For example, the Sausage says he wants to return, hinting he would take the veteran minimum. Yet, I doubt he does. Kelce has already essentially replaced him in the field and his ST contributions are somewhat fungible. 

We lost our two best OL players just before the playoffs. It's a tribute that we were able to make the Super Bowl, but it leaves serious questions for the OL going forward. Similar things are true of the LB. Our WR have two significant players who will be difficult to re-sign. Kelce is 31 and there is no depth of note. Only two startable DE are under contract and that is being generous to Mike Danna. Et cetera, et cetera.

Is this a rebuild, or are we ready to to a Patriots trick and reload with people no one has heard about?

J

[kingseanjohn]

Re-tooling is what I would say. Our core is still here. We're just switching out some role players and hopefully drafting guys who can hopefully become core/role players over the next few years. We're still in win now mode and will be barring a terrible draft or bad luck.

We all know that 2021 will be tough with the cap. Our estimated available salary cap in 2022 is 65mil+ with 22 players under contract. This is before signing anyone in 2021 with a backloaded deal. So we need to hit on the upcoming draft and lower tier free agents. We'll have four guys (rounding) that each make 10% or more of the cap; Mahomes(15%), Clark(12.6%), Jones(10.9%), Hill(9.9%). But that can be worked with extensions(Hill/Jones), restructures(Mahomes/Jones), or cutting(Clark). 2022 will be the real test imo for if we'll have to "rebuild".

Veach needs to hit on draft picks this year more than ever imo. As of today, I'd prefer we trade back from 31 to get more day two picks unless a few certain players fall. We need more quality players on rookie deals.

If Fisher and/or Schwartz weren't injured and potentially missing 2021, I think this would be a whole other conversation.

Edited February 14, 2021 by kingseanjohn

[RedGold]

I’m not sure I’d call it rebuilding,  but we definitely won’t have the veteran presence we did this year.  
 

As long as we have Mahomes, Kelce, and Hill the offense will hummm.  Pringle is adequate enough even if we don’t replace Watkins/Robinson with a high level FA/DP.   
 

Defensively we actually have a good chunk of the veterans coming back.   Breeland being the only one that “might” be tough to replace,  though Spags/Veach seem to have excellent cohesion on what they need in a CB.   Taco/Tanoh/Okafor might be the only others that I’d consider big loses,  though not really sure any were that dominant enough to not fill adequately.  I would rather we draft guys behind our High Cap defensive guys,  than draft to replace guys we might lose.     

[onejayhawk]

I think there is a good chance they get Taco back, though we may lose the Bell part. Still, he's a situational pass rusher, not a full rotation guy. 

We do have frontliners back. As you say, what will be lacking is the veteran presence. How well the new people step up, when the inevitable problems arise, will be the key to the season.

J

[Jakuvious]

Not even remotely. The OL is the only thing you could remotely argue is going to be a rebuild, but that's as much by choice as it is by necessity.

[onejayhawk]

That's not true. The LB could be Hitchens and Gay, plus new people. The DE have only one starting player under contract. After Kelce, what is there? There is no fourth much less fifth WR. The only place we are well stocked is DT.

J

[RedGold]

Ehh it’s probably true all those spots are free,  though I’d argue there really wasn’t much there this year either.  
 

Niemann is easily retained.   D’OD and Harris are under contract.  Wilson is the only one we don’t have a choice about leaving.   
 

TE-  Was a black hole this year as well,  Even than Keizer and Yelder are still under our control.  We won’t be any worse than this year.  
 

DE:  I’ll start out by saying I like Tanoh, Taco, and Okafor...   but none of these guys were dominant enough to change a team.    
 

Edge, WR, and OL are definitely spots I could see a bit of turnover,  the rest of the roster I see pretty much being the same though, with some youth injected in some other spots. 

Edited February 15, 2021 by samsel23

[Jakuvious]

3 hours ago, onejayhawk said:

That's not true. The LB could be Hitchens and Gay, plus new people. The DE have only one starting player under contract. After Kelce, what is there? There is no fourth much less fifth WR. The only place we are well stocked is DT.

J

None of what you list translates to a rebuilding year. After Kelce, what was there last year? There was barley a 4th or 5th WR last year. Niemann is an RFA, so Wilson is the only actual free agent at LB, and he played less than 50% of the snaps last year. Sure, DE has only one starting player under contract, but you only start two, so...again.

None of this is substantial turnover. Almost every single free agent we have was on a vet min or a rookie contract last year, or is an RFA right now.

With the exception of maybe Watkins and Sorensen, anyone we don't bring back will be because we don't want them back. We could return Taco and Tanoh and Robinson and Sherman and Remmers and Pennel and Kilgore and Osemele all on cheap deals. I don't expect big markets for Wilson or Breeland, either.

And frankly, all the positions you're listing were just holes. Every team has holes. It isn't a rebuild if we move on from Okafor or Wilson or Robinson because they weren't good enough. That's just normal roster turnover.

[onejayhawk]

Like hell there was not 4th and 5th WR. Hardman was the 4th WR and Pringle was the 5th. Now you are saying they are 2nd and 3rd, with no 4th and no 5th.

Granted, there were no backup TE of note, but that does not mean we are not rebuilding. You only start two DE, but you need three and preferably four in a rotation. We had that with Clark, TK, Danna and Okafor. 

We could return players, if we want them back (Sherman, Pennel, Kilgore), if they can still play Osemele, if they take a pay cut. That's a lot of ifs. 

What part of having holes means we are not rebuilding? We patched together a SB team, but the patches blew out. Now we need to rebuild what had been the a team strength, the OT. Can we retool and play at a similar level, or do we take the occasion to rebuild several areas and absorb the lumps that go with young players?

J

Edited February 15, 2021 by onejayhawk

[Chiefer]

Need to come out of this draft with at least one starting tackle, possibly two, and an interior OL. 
 

The rest of the league knows this too, wonder if we see a run on tackles in the late first round. 

 

Edited February 15, 2021 by Chiefer

[Chiefer]

I don’t necessarily see it as a rebuilding year, but we definitely need a great reload for a 3rd SB appearance.

our rebuild will happen officially once Kelce eclipses 32 and is heading towards retirement 

[onejayhawk]

10 hours ago, Chiefer said:

Need to come out of this draft with at least one starting tackle, possibly two, and an interior OL. The rest of the league knows this too, wonder if we see a run on tackles in the late first round. 

I disagree with you here. Even if Schwartz is done, we have starting OT on board, Lucas Niang. He ranks with any OT we could get at #31.

J

[kingseanjohn]

13 minutes ago, onejayhawk said:

I disagree with you here. Even if Schwartz is done, we have starting OT on board, Lucas Niang. He ranks with any OT we could get at #31.

J

I don't think people realize/remember how good he was in college. The main reason he fell was because of his injury and he's had a full year to heal up. As long as he's kept in shape and he's been learning the playbook, Niang should start. As I said before, there will be rust. But it's going to be fun watching him play.

[Jakuvious]

22 hours ago, onejayhawk said:

Like hell there was not 4th and 5th WR. Hardman was the 4th WR and Pringle was the 5th. Now you are saying they are 2nd and 3rd, with no 4th and no 5th.

Granted, there were no backup TE of note, but that does not mean we are not rebuilding. You only start two DE, but you need three and preferably four in a rotation. We had that with Clark, TK, Danna and Okafor. 

We could return players, if we want them back (Sherman, Pennel, Kilgore), if they can still play Osemele, if they take a pay cut. That's a lot of ifs. 

What part of having holes means we are not rebuilding? We patched together a SB team, but the patches blew out. Now we need to rebuild what had been the a team strength, the OT. Can we retool and play at a similar level, or do we take the occasion to rebuild several areas and absorb the lumps that go with young players?

J

Watkins missed more time than he played. Robinson will be a cheap resign, if they want to bring him back. If the team wants to, they'll have the same corp they had the majority of the season last year.

And none of those players would need to take a pay cut. Sherman, Pennel, Kilgore, Osemele, Remmers, Wis, Hamilton, Charlton, were all vet min guys. There's no, if we can pay them, to those kinds of guys. There's no if they take a pay cut. They're going to be guys that normally wouldn't have a market, and definitely won't now that the cap is lower, that will come back if we want them and they want to, for the same money they'd get anywhere.

Ultimately though, the core of this, I think, is that you have a dramatically different definition of rebuilding than what it is generally accepted to mean, in this context. Generally when people are talking about a team that's rebuilding, they're talking a high turnover, jettison vets for draft picks, we have no chance to compete this year, kind of team. You're talking standard roster turnover. We would no more be rebuilding because we lose Okafor than we were last year when we lost Ogbah. Overhauling the OT position would no more mean it's a rebuilding season than last year when we overhauled the RB position. Like, these are normal year to year things. But the teams outlook is still going to be on winning a superbowl, and that isn't what people generally mean when they said rebuilding. Like, if we were rebuilding, we'd be talking about how we need to trade Kelce while he has high value, we wouldn't be talking about how we need to add a backup TE and a #2 WR.

To me, we were rebuilding in like, the 08 and 09 offseasons, when we had an aging core roster, with Huard, LJ, Gonzo, Waters, Weigman, Welbourn, Edwards, Law, Surtain, Knight, etc. And we jettisoned all of them in like a 2 year span for young guys, good or bad. And when Jared Allen's payday came up, we swapped him for picks, since we weren't really competitive then anyways. Like, those years, we knew we weren't competing for a superbowl, so we were getting rid of guys who weren't going to be useful by the time we might have a superbowl window. That is a roster that's rebuilding. Us losing a handful of vet min veteran signings, 2 or 3 starters, and hoping a rookie or 2 steps up isn't really what people call rebuilding. That's just an offseason.

[onejayhawk]

The thread starts with the premise that they choose not to sign key depth players, or those players choose not to sign. 

If Robinson is a cheap re-sign, it settles the whole unit. Either Schwartz healing or Remmers signing does similar things to the OL, as does TK to the DE.  Four or five veteran signings, none of the headliners, would make this discussion moot. As Jakuvious says, just another offseason. 

Minimum guys are another story. Sherman is likely at the end of his road. Watts needs to look over his shoulder. This is not different from a regular year, except in degree. If the team wants to reload, they keep guys for the sake of continuity. If it's rebuild, we have a lot of WR/DB/LB prospects on R/F contract. 

J