BullBuchanan

Great question. The chiefs did change 3 out of their 4 top weapons between 2021 and 2022 including their Top RB and their top 2 WRs. More importantly though, they had less work that was required because their team was already championship caliber with the Best QB and the Best TE in the game having netted a SB Championship two years prior. Their main deficiency was on defense where they added multiple new starters at linebacker, corner, and safety and saw the emergence of second year star linebacker Nick Bolton. I hope that answers your question.

If the goal isn't to win the Super Bowl in 2023, you have the wrong goal. It's not pessimistic to expect a rookie TE to need 3 years, it's close to best case scenario. Teams draft piles of tight ends every year, and there's only ever a handful of good ones in the league at any given time and there's been even less elite ones over the last 20+ years. Expecting Kincaid to be an all-star just because he was one of the top TE's this year is what every team hopes when they draft players like Hayden Hurst, OJ Howard, Hunter Henry, Maxx Williams, Eric Ebron, Coby Fleener and on and on. Look at this list of people you barely remember and realize that trying to draft an elite TE is about as hard as drafting a franchise QB: http://www.drafthistory.com/index.php/positions/te

Based on the addition of a mid-tier guard and a 2nd round rookie? We've made only 1 change to our top 4 weapons of offense (Diggs-Davis-Knox-Singletary) to (Diggs-Davis-Knox-Cook). I could very reasonably see Kincaid slotting in as the number 5 contributor, but that isn't a mindblowing shift for me the way adding someone like Hopkins at #2 would have been. Sadly, so do I. I keep hoping that I'm wrong about this stuff, but unfortunately here we are. Be sure to @me when we raise the banner for our 2023 Division championship.

You're adding extra reps that don't exist though. He's taking part of McKenzie's job and his presence puts Shakir on the bench. There's only so many catches to go around.

If he does that, he'll be one of a couple of guys in the last 20 years to have done it. You're banking on winning the lottery with a guy who was not an elite level prospect despite being near the top of the class. This isn't Kyle Pitts or Vernon Davis. He's an undersized and relatively slow TE that doesn't have a TE1 skillset. Again, maybe he's great in a few years, but I'm seeing 40 catches for 450 yards and 4 TDs as his likely 2023 output.

It's weird because our starting 11 on offense likely only has 2 changes. One is Cook, and the other is one of the guards. Given that we had Cook last year and he played plenty, we're expecting a guard to be the difference unless you're of the opinion that lack of offensive depth is the reason that we haven't gotten tot he Super Bowl. I'm not of that opinion at all. I think we're missing top-end talent, and in that regard we've made no improvements. On defense, we're also lacking top-end talent and we also made no changes to our starting 11 besides losing Edmunds. We're worse on paper, and the lack of playmakers on defense is why I think we've been stuck being a regular season champion.

Like I said, he may be a top end talent, but it's highly, highly unlikely he'll be a top-end contributor year 1 for the reasons I stated in addition to the learning curve of being a TE in the NFL or even the WR learning curve. He's goign to have a niche role. For 2023, we would have been better served by getting a player who could have filled that role plus a full time job. Over the long haul, who knows. Maybe he becomes a stud, probably not, but maybe.

I addressed Kincaid. He'll be a part-time player in 2023. Maybe he'll be a great player down the road, but I think expecting anything more than McKenzie level production is unrealistic next year. As for the guards - that's truly one of the more puzzling developments. I don't see both of them playing as I expect Bates to retain his starting job as he was probably our best lineman last season. I don't see McGovern as an upgrade at all really and the rookie is a wildcard. Right tackle was a much bigger concern to me than guard and they appear to be running it back with Brown. that's really weird but ok.

Rashaan Evans would seem to fill a need.

I think we're in worse shape on paper on both sides of the ball than we were at the end of last year. As a vocal detractor of Edmunds and a believer that we needed an upgrade at WR2 and RB1, I think we're worse in all 3 spots. It seems like every player on this offense besides Allen and Diggs are role players good for a play here and there. We've brought in a plethora of people that will likely be part-time contributors in 2023 including Harty, Harris, and now Kincaid but we're still lacking top end talent. Gabe Davis is not a #2 NFL WR and yet it looks like he's cemented in that role for another year, so now you have Knox, Shakir, Kincaid, Harty and whoever else all fighting for the same reps, not to mention Sherfield and the rookie. In the RB room they got their goal-line back, but they decided not go get a proper 3 down player that take over games in the event conditions are poor, josh is ineffective, hurt or the game script calls for it. Cook is not built to be a 3 down between the tackles RB, but it looks liek theyre gonna make him do it anyway. Looking forward to another year of wasting Hines career. On defense, Edmunds is gone (yay!) but his replacement appears to be a chef's choice of Dodson and Klein (WTF?). It's insane that for the second year in a row they wasted a 3rd round pick on a special teams linebacker with the build of a corner back. They were 5 picks from Trenton Simpson, who was drafted by the NFL's version of Linebacker U in Baltimore. How much could it have cost to go up and get him? a 6th? Instead, we're gonna roll with someone terrible at one of the most important positions on defense. I don't see how we're going to be any more prepared to slow down KC or CIN with what we're bringing to the table on defense this year unless a scheme change can have a massive impact and overcome a talent deficiency. I think we win the division again and get bounced in the first round.

Well you had Matt Ryan, Matt Stafford (twice), Eli Manning, Andy Dalton, Lamar Jackson in there. Multiple pro bowlers, a league MVP, multiple top 10 offenses and perhaps even a Hall of Famer or 3. Is that not good enough?

The Cincinnati Bengals and Josh Allen did that. There aren't a lot of top 5 QBs that are in situations where they aren't "perennial contenders". Beane and McD have completely failed to build and utilize a roster that can get this team tot he next level, and I'm not sure that's debatable. What beneifit of the doubt have the earned exactly? Beane makes trades for guys McD won't play. He drafts players McD won't play. He gives big contracts to guys that McD won't utilize. How do you excuse all of that? How many young up and coming stars do we have on this team?

It's all just so terrible. There was a solution for this problem, but I guess they decided a 6th guard was more important.

Because you already did. Or did you forget?

Reed NEVER had back to back 1000 yard seasons. He hit 10 TDs only ONCE in his career and had 8 Seasons with 5 TDs or less. Stevie Johnson had a higher consistency of production. If you have a fact-based argument that Reed is better than Diggs I'd love to hear it. I also never said Derrick Henry could carry a team to a Super Bowl. What I said is that he can carry games by himself, which is factually true. He's carried Tannehill and co over his career to be top seed when they had no business being there. The plan isn't to get a guy like Henry and cut Allen, it's to have both.