I think Niang is still there but Taco Winnebago is gone

That has to be one badass family reunion with soooo much good food. I want to go!

If Smith doesn't want to play anymore and retire, fine and dandy. But, if he does want to play, he's a known entity to us. He is a suitable one year option.

I'd feel better about Mahomes backside protection while we are chasing the 3peat if we had a known entity back there in case Kingsley needs a year to develop. Lets dont gamble and get Mahomes hurt and down goes the 3peat dream.

I'd love to see a quiet conversion for Morris to IOL this season. If Smith comes back and Kingsley gets traction, Morris with 2 years of experience and some starting reps sliding into the interior line (soon to pair with Kingsley) would be a MASSIVE boon to the salary cap.

And quietly, we may need him early in the season anyway with the Thuney injury. If we bring back Smith it would actually free Morris up to move to LG while we wait for Thuney to get back healthy. Would put a lot of weight on Creed in the middle to get those line calls right, but he's a guy that should be taking on those responsibilities anyway.

Didn't they draft some interior OL though?

It seems, reading the tealeaves, they view Morris as a T. I'm not sure that's a good idea or not.

Listening to Verderame’s show with Eric Foton. Eric thinks Kingsley fell bc he was a terrible run blocker in college. 52.9 run block grade per PFF which was the lowest among the top 50 graded pass protectors in college last year.

Fortunately with our offense that will likely never be amplified bc with our new weapons we are throwing the ball probably 75-80% of the time. A given amount of runs for the lead back is around 20-22 a game, so Kingsley would probably only have about 5-7 snaps a game where the RB runs to his side for a running play.

His pass blocking was a completely different story and that’s why we drafted him

"The LT can't run block" is pretty low on my give a shits about a LT to be frank.

Nourzad feels like a swing player. And the Holy Cross kid was a 7th rounder - that doesn't really move the needle much.

I think they'll continue to layer Nourzad with the hopes that he can have a nice career in the Allegretti mold. And I'm guessing the 7th rounder (Howard? Something like that) ends up on a PS for a couple years and maybe amounts to something, maybe he doesn't. But as a talent he's clearly nowhere near Morris.

I'm just happy we appear to have moved away from the OBJ stuff. And Morris is somewhat similar. Big guys with heavy feet who use functional strength and length to just be in the way.

Kingsley suggests a shift back towards an Eric Fisher sort; more athletic, more agile, more adept at getting into position for a deep set on a longer developing play.

I think they wanted that layer of protection for Creed, Trey next year. And who really knows if they’ll keep Thuney next year with his cap hit.

And if Veach decides to draft a guy like Graham Barton in the first rd next year I will gladly take him.

I’ve loved how Veach has crafted the OL.

It's not quite "Skyy Moore is a great run blocker" or "Frank Clark sets the edge" but it's close. It's probably pretty similar to "Marcus Peters is awful in run support" - I don't like it, but if he does the thing I really care about well, I'll overlook it.

I want my LT credible enough as a run blocker that he doesn't blow up runs between the tackles (and often ours have; Smith lets guys get across his face on interior runs - it's ugly).

It's less about being a guy who blows a hole open off-tackle left and more about being a guy who seals off the backside and gives an interior trap or something time to develop on a short yardage play.

That's my bar. It ain't real high.

Agreed. If his worst trait is poor run blocking, who cares. His job is to stop those DE's that are getting paid $25+ million to ruin Mahomes day and our season.

I'm honestly a little surprised the Creed extension hasn't been signed yet. The market at C is set, he's gonna be at the top of it, there's no question of who he is as a player and honestly if you have to move him to G, friggen Gs are more expensive than Cs now anyway.

So why haven't we gotten a Creed deal done? We have the cap space for it - just seems like the natural thing to have knocked out once Sneed was traded.

Dont we only have $13 million left under the cap? If we sign Smith, wheres the increased money for Creed? Unless the increased money starts next year.

Also maybe since he hasn't fixed rolling the ball back to Mahomes from time to time does that concern them? We would have won the SB last year without going to overtime if he doesn't roll the ball back to Mahomes and he has no chance to hit a wide open Rice for the winning TD.

That said, I love me some Creed!

A year 1 hit of $5-6 million would be super easy on a 5 year deal. You'd have to guarantee some salary in years 2 and 3 to lower the signing bonus a bit and still goose the guarantees, but it wouldn't be hard.

And since Smith missed some games last year, every game played incentive past 12 games would be NLTBE (not to mention a snap share percentage; probably anything about 70%) and would not go onto this year's cap. You can keep that number off the books until next season as well unless Smith's looking for something nearer $8-10 million in guarantees. Even that could be done with a fake 2 year deal where you cut him in the offseason.

The cap shouldn't get in the way of any of this. Wonder if they've just been prioritizing draft prep and FA then they'll circle back after some of that stuff gets wrapped up.