How quickly can Chiefs retool and contend?
Mike Florio and Chris Simms analyze the Chiefs reportedly trading away cornerback Trent McDuffie , questioning where Kansas City goes from here and how quickly Patrick Mahomes and co. can return to contender status.
Video Transcript
But the other thing that's interesting off of this, just to, you know, move the conversation, Mike, Rams, awesome, way to go, big move, but there's gotta be a little bit, at least in my mind, of like, what are the Chiefs doing right now?
What's the state of the Chiefs?
What do they think of themselves?
Where are they at right now?
I, I, you know, they, they don't have, you know, a ton of blue chip players on their football team.
This guy was one of 'em, and he was young, and he's in his prime.
And we got another corner in Jalen Watson out there who's gonna be a free agent.
Somebody might pay him, and the Chiefs might not be able to get him.
So it's, it's just funny here, two years away from the Chiefs winning the Super Bowl and a bad year last year, it kind of looks like they might be on the way to kind of retooling their team, a soft rebuild on the fly like we see a lot of teams do.
I'm just, I'm interested in the Chief's approach and mindset right now.
Well, now they have picks number nine and 29 that they can either re-trade or take players with, but they do have plenty of needs.
We've talked about that.
This is not going to be just a little tweak here or a little tweak there.
They've got key players like Chris Jones who are on the wrong end of their prime.
We've got Travis Kelsey, who may or may not be back if he doesn't come back, and I think at this point, like, I'd like to think if he was retiring, he would've retired by now, but who knows?
Who knows?
All the indications have been he's coming back- Yes but you still gotta work out a contract with him.
He ain't gonna play for free, nor should he.
Your running backs, your top two running backs are gonna be free agents in Isiah Pacheco and Kareem Hunt.
The offensive line, they cut Jawaan Taylor, or they're going to.
I, I think it's gonna be official the first day of the league year- Yes unless they've already cut him.
They've just got some real questions.
Josh Simmons had that, you know, that period of time where he wasn't playing last year, and, and so they, they, they've- Rashee Rice and th- They've- Yeah, I mean, you know, you talked about that the other day.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, Rashee Rice facing another suspension for, this time, allegations of domestic violence.
Last time it was for the street racing incident.
So they've got issues, they've got needs, and you know, this is one of the great things about having a franchise quarterback, you, you have that guy cover up a lot of stuff for you, but you're gonna get to a point in that guy's career where you're rebuilding the team around him, and it's either gonna be subtle or it's gonna be dramatic, and it feels like for the Chiefs it's gonna be dramatic.
Yeah, it, it, it does.
you know, it, it, it's almost, and then it's funny just because this is the guy we compare him to, and you've joked about this before, like, with Tom Brady 'cause he basically had like the first three Super Bowls, lost in the undefeated season.
That team, the shelf life there, he hurts his knee, comes back.
It's The, the Patriots are competitive and good, but they're not great, and Brady wasn't great at first, th- as far as, you know, being aggressive.
There's a reason they drafted Jimmy Garoppolo and all of that, like we've always talked about.
But they go to the Super Bowl again still and lose to the Giants, but they're, they're in the mix, as we know, and a big part of that was Brady, and we know Belichick and all of that.
But really in the meanwhile of doing that, they were kind of retooling their team there, and that was amazing.
They were like in rebuilds, and we're like, "Oh, they're in the AFC Championship in a rebuild year."
That's where they were incredible.
And then they got to a point where they're like, "Okay, now we're ready to go beat the Bronco- or win these AFC Championship games and go to the Super Bowls, and we're gonna win the freaking things."
And it's just amazing how there's some parallels between Mahomes and the Chiefs and that Patriots dynasty and all of that.
I just was thinking of that, that it was, you know, somewhat ironic last night.
I was kind of thinking about the show today and what we were gonna s- talk about.
And remember, after the Patriots won their three, it was a decade until they won their fourth.
Yeah.
And the Chiefs have their three, and they could go on another run, and they could win three more.
It just may take a while for them to get back to that point.
And, or, or they can just be back this year.
When you look at the rest of the landscape of the AFC, they could maybe just figure it all out this year because there's plenty of turmoil and transition for some of the top teams with new head coaches and questions about where the Bills are gonna be, where the Ravens are gonna be, where the Steelers are gonna be.
What are the Texans gonna be with C.J.
Stroud?
Is he gonna snap out of whatever it was last year?
Can the Broncos keep moving in the direction that they've been moving in?
Can the Chargers finally put enough around Justin Herbert?
Yeah.
The AFC's wide open, but it feels like the Chiefs got a lot of work to do, but they at least have an extra pick in round one to try to address their various needs.
and speaking of needs, I think if Sneed, L'Jarius Sneed, various need, L'Jarius Sneed, it kind of rhymes- Mm-hmm.
They traded him two years ago under the franchise tag.
Yeah.
So they just, do they not value their secondary?
Is that, is that what it comes down to?
Well- They don't market value their secondary?
I, I think there's two things.
L'Jarius Sneed, I, I think there was concerns about his knee.
And remember that?
That was a little bit of a hold up there.
Yep.
And I think they kind of saw that and were like, "I don't know if we want to invest big money into this guy 'cause we're just not sure how long he's gonna last."
So I think they were, they were kind of, you know, buyer beware about wanting to give him too much money.
I think a little bit of the other thing with the Chiefs is al- a little bit consistent with what we say with the Rams.
I think the Chiefs are a little bit like, "Oh, we know how to evaluate guys in the secondary.
We're pretty good at it.
We'll find some new ones."
A- and I think so.
I think there's a, a confidence there that they feel like they can do that.
They, they've had a pretty good secondary, Spags, Veach, Andy Reid, they, they seem very good at evaluating that part of the football team.
They've drafted guys in middle rounds that have become out- c- you know, came to be big-time football players.
So maybe there's that confidence there, and then, you know, we'll see what they do here with Jalen Watson and a Joshua Williams, who are guys that have been there and had, big roles, especially Jalen Watson.
I mean, he's kind of become the guy opposite of McDuffie, but they're gonna let him test the market.
We'll see where it goes, but yeah, it's odd.
It's just odd because there was a f- it just, it, this just shows you how quickly the NFL moves.
It was three or f- three years ago we were going, "Man, the Chiefs just got ballers everywhere, and they got difference makers."
And here we are three years later, and some of those guys got older, and they're not on the football team, and the NFL business happens, and guys go to different spots.
And we go, "Damn," you know, "Chris Jones is a difference maker," but it's like you said, coming to the end.
It's, it's not like it's still going up.
The offensive side of the ball, you go, "Damn, is anybody a difference maker other than Patrick Mahomes right now?"
I know Kelsey's real good, but he's not a danger like he once was.
He's just a good tight end at this point.
And so that's what's just amazing about the NFL and, and specifically the Chiefs, Chiefs situation.
