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Can we still progress next season with a youthful side?


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All the indications suggest Veach and co are going for young players this offseason. So the question is my fellow Chiefs, can we still continue to be a winning team If the plan comes to fruition? I guess everything will come down to the talent of said young players. Although the likes of Terez Paylor was saying he expected an "8-8 or 9-7 season In Mahomes's first season", and was pushing the notion that it will be a "transitional year". Do yall agree? Should we have much lower expectations If we have several youngsters starting for the team next season? Or will we still have enough quality to get through that? It's gonna be very interesting to see what happens. Personally I'm all for the youth movement. We've seen many of these vets fail us time and time again when it really matters. So I say it's time for a change now. 

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I think 8-8 or 9-7 is realistic. Mahomes might play well overall, but he’s bound to have poor games which will likely mean turnovers. We all got used to Alex and his 5-8 ints per year; dude had 33 over his entire 5 yr stay with KC! I think a step back this year and then two forward in 2019 is doable. Could be better or worse based on the defense, also.

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I expect 9-7, 10-6. There will be growing pains but last year we went on a 8 game stretch of crap. We have great offensive weapons, our line should be better and we have money, draft picks, and some big time players coming back healthy. There is an argument that could be made that we could be better.

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I think this is absolutely a case of Veach saying right now with a completely inexperienced QB is the time to go young and grow as a team together. As such I'm not sure how we can't reasonably expect a step backwards. Even Clark Hunt acknowledged we won't be able to fill all the holes and expect a consistent product next season. But he also said this isn't some rebuilding project either. I think the 7-9 to 9-7 record makes sense.

 

A team that could be very dangerous if we can get to the postseason or a team that just needs one year to get it's footing and go to an even higher level than we've been in the Reid era by 2019. Who really knows with a young team and a 22 year old QB. 

 

We do know this team will still have a lot of proven talent and it is possible if the young guys progress quickly we could be good again next season. I'm pretty much ready for anything. I'd like to be a fly on the wall in Andy's office as he talks about the style we need to play to win next year. Because there's no way he's okay with it being a give up type year. I do believe we will be one heck of a fun team to watch. 

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No steps backward. We'll be more consistent than last year and end up 9-7 - 11-4. Obviously injury will play a role. Berry, Houston, Ragland, Jones, Peters gives us a solid start at every level of the Defense and will hold that end down. There's plenty of talent on the Offense (I'm assuming it'll be added to this offseason) to maintain. Mahomes will have mistakes but many are short-selling the impact he'll have and the fact that he is not as interception-prone as many believe.

 

It's hard to progress from a division title in the regular season but as long as we make the post-season with health, the sky is the limit. Even next year.

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It all depends on a solid O-line and a healthy defense.  A rookie QB can win if the rest of the team gives good support.  Even with a youth movement, there's not many departed players that were critical to the Chiefs' wins.  The away schedule is brutal, but 9-7 sounds about right.

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Unfortunately I do think there is a chance Patty Cakes cost us a few games with interceptions so 8-8 sounds quite plausible. Not gonna trip about it unless he throws 22 picks and 22 TDs or something like that though.

Even those numbers aren’t really indicative of what’s possible. Favre had 37 TDs, 37 INTs his first two seasons as a starter. Somehow the Packers still made the playoffs in year two though and started a run of six straight seasons where they won playoff games inckding a Super Bowl.

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I think the offense will progress and the defense will probably play about the same but with upgraded talent. Anytime you add in a bunch of new faces on one side of the ball players tend to think more and react slower regardless of talent. I think the Chiefs could win the division still because quite frankly unless the Broncos upgrade the QB position they are not going to be a threat. The Raiders I expect to be better then 2017 so they will be the team we are fighting with for the division. The Chargers are going to be the Chargers like they are every season, a non issue.

 

9-7 could win this division next year, but I think 10-6 would be safer to take the division. Anything beyond that I don't expect much unless the defense surprises me with vast improvement.

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I wouldn't be surprised to see the Chiefs lose out on the playoffs as there will be some growing pains with Mahomes and even though our aging veterans were regressing they still came up with critical performances such as DJ later in the season. There won't be an issue with a solid FA & draft but that's always a tricky situation.

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I think if there is regression, it will not be due to any of our youth outside Mahomes.  I don't mean that as a negative towards him, I just believe that it will be darn near impossible for any of the people that are replacing our aging players to be worse than the parts they are replacing, with maybe the exception of Colquitt.  While people on this board love to argue about our oline's abilities, we still had one of the best passing games and one of the best running games in the league.  Plus, Alex Smith will LITERALLY be the only piece of the office that is replaced with youth.  I don't expect any players drafted to the offense to take a starters place, and the only way our core offense changes is if we get a veteran receiver or TE to take snaps from Conley or whatever they do with Harris' spot.

 

As far as defense goes, I think we can only get better.  Just because Veach says he wants to go younger, doesn't mean we are exclusively building through the draft.  It means we could be replacing a 35 year old DJ, a 34 year old  Hali, and Zombo/Parker who will be 31 by the time the season starts with players that are 25-28 years old and still have a few years of peak performance while we develop our younger guys.  We already got younger with Fuller(compared to revis of course) and I think parkers play suffered big time because of Berry not being there.  However, with the combination of Peters, Fuller, and Berry in the secondary, we can plug in a ton of people at  FS that don't have to be amazing and will be assisted by the other three. 

 

We all saw what happened when Vermeil let us get too old.  We need to learn from that lesson and make sure we don't do that again...

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