Here we go again

[xen 1,010,218]

I think Spags has a lot of influence on DB development, nnot that Merritt hasn't been great, but its Spags' specialty.  Reminder he spent a lot of formative years in his career as a DB coach including under the great Jim Johnson, which is where he mastered DB blitzes.

[Lamardirts 2,114]

On 3/8/2024 at 8:01 AM, xen said:

Our lack of receivers made winning incredibly hard.  The defense made winning possible.  And CJ took that defense from good to elite. We do not win the superbowl without him last year so let's not get it twisted.

Can we win without him, sure.  But defense goes from elite to ? without CJ and Sneed.  We would need to fix the offense to 3peat in that scenario, which is entirely possible.  With CJ I think the D stays in the elite category even without Sneed and you can still fix the offense through the draft.

I don't think I eluded to him not being elite or not being the 2nd most important player on this team.  I know he holds this D together. Our D last year without CJ drops 10 spots easily.  He is vastly important to this team but there are teams with far more money to spend in FA and there is a limit to what the Chiefs can spend and should spend to retain him.  30 million a year is steep even for a player of CJ's ability and especially steep considering his age and we won't be getting great value for that after a couple years.  It really is being stuck between a rock and a hard space.  You can't replace his impact on this team but giving him 30 million plus on 4 year deal is not wise.  

I'm not overly worried, we have Mahomes and a great core on this team. 

The thing that concerns me a little is this dragging on and any player that could help you replace some semblance of CJ's ability will be long gone.   And again they doesn't cripple us long term but it makes the attempt at a 3 peat far more difficult than it would have been.

I think Sneed is gone regardless, not because he isn't a great player but he was a 4th round pick that we can net at worst a 2nd rounder for and save 20 million in cap space.  That is getting two players for the price of one.  We have a history of developing good dbs and that position from year to year is the most volatile.