I'll miss the balls bouncing off his facemask or being batted straight in the air in a spastic attempt to move before getting clobbered.

If the Chiefs had a really good LT under a rookie deal for 2-3 more years, you don't think it would have had any impact on their decision to trade Hill?

It absolutely would have. Not saying he doesn't still get traded, but it certainly would have weighed in to the conversation.

What exactly is the point of this hypothetical? You’re basically asking, “if the Chiefs had more cap space, would they have re-signed Tyreek Hill?”

Possibly, but when you listen to Veach talk about the Tyreek trade, it’s pretty obvious that they did it so they could acquire more draft picks and have the cap space to be players in free agency over the next couple of years. He specifically mentioned the defense.

To say they chose OBJ over Tyreek is the epitome of an oversimplification.

If KK makes a comeback, is the only real downside. Top Os with losey Ds only get so far

Obviously it's not as simple as "choosing" him over Hill, I'm just saying they went into the offseason thinking Hill was going to cost a certain amount, and when that number exploded it became clear they couldn't have a QB, LT and WR all making obscene money and still build a team. If Orlando Brown wasn't in the equation, they may have approached the situation much differently.

I actually agree with your overall assessment, I do think they were planning on keeping both. The cost/benefit analysis between keeping Hill at the price he ended up demanding or trading him was clearly the determining factor, and I'm pretty happy with how the whole thing turned out.

I do not think anyone is arguing that Veach and company looked at the next 2-3 years and knew they faced a decision at LT and needed to spend significant resources on the defensive side when deciding to trade Hill.

I wouldn't say it's baseless, though.

At the time the Hill trade was made, it wasn't as though a Brown trade was impossible. Brown wouldn't have yielded the kind of return package that Hill did though.

The nice thing about the Hill deal is that the packaging of picks made it pretty easy to just say that we got McDuffie and Moore for Hill. It's a little bit of an oversimplification because we gave up an extra third in there, but if you wash out the 4th we'll get next year and the 5th we got in the trade down, etc... then it's close enough to act as a reasonable proxy.

Ultimately it's the reality of paying a top tier QB - every deal has to be viewed through the lens of potential surplus value. A straight up Hill for OBJ deal is probably something of a wash long-term. Neither guy is likely to present a ton of surplus value - they'll play at/near their respective deals in relation to the market. I think Hill is more likely to play to the level of his compensation for the first 2 years before dropping off, I think OBJ will simply play a little below what we'll be paying him for most of the deal by virtue of being a young LT that can demand a big payday.

But in the end, how you get there will be largely moot- they'll end up in roughly the same spot in relation to their deals, IMO.

Where you make ground is that McDuffie and Moore are likely to produce beyond their paychecks in a way that a hypothetical return for Brown wouldn't. Because we saw what a cheap year of Brown plus the tag season would get you on the market - nothing near what we got for Hill. And now there's a year less on the deal. You're probably looking at getting maybe a 3rd for him.

So lets say Door #1 is trading Hill, saving the cap to allocate to OBJ and ending up with what amounts to: McDuffie, Moore and OBJ. Door #2 then would likely be dealing OBJ, putting his cap allocation to Hill and then let's say we draft Nicolas Petit-Frere with the return we'd get for him - seem fair?

McDuffie
Moore
OBJ

or

Hill
NPF

I still think your surplus value is clearly higher w/ option A. And I think your floor is substantially higher as well. You trade Brown away and don't have an immediate obvious answer at LT, it could be a real disaster in a hurry. And there are no assurances that NPF would be the answer (or anyone else in this draft, for that matter).

Is the ceiling potentially higher for the next year or 2 with option B? Yeah, I could see that argument. But it's not worth the risk, IMO.

Great stuff, DJLN.

I agree on everything except assuming that the 4th and 5th rounders next year are a wash. Tyreek Hill was a fifth rounder. Those picks matter. I think day 3 picks are often dismissed as special teams guys who won't make the squad, but the last three drafts have landed us a starter on day 3.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think trading Hill didn't clear cap space for OBJ. Wasn't he tagged two weeks before Hill was traded? And signing Brown long term would make that number go down this year. I think (hope) the cap space for Tyreek is going to clear the way for another pass rusher, either this year or next with the rollover.

They would wash out the 3rd that we gave up that we got for Poles - that 3rd had nothing to do with the Hill trade so you have to account for that additional capital expenditure somehow.

The extra 4th and 5th seemed like a fair trade-off.

As for the cap question - you're technically correct but practically it's just not how the front office wanted to do it. It seemed they clearly wanted to maintain that additional salary cap flexibility going forward and that was impossible with both a top of the market LT and WR. So they seemed to conclude that they could have one or the other over a meaningful timeline.

They elected the former.

I think it's pretty fair to say that if OBJ were under team control at $3 million/yr for the next 2-3 years, Hill would still be here. He isn't. So a decision had to be made. Was it directly Hill or OBJ? Nah. But practically speaking was it? Yeah, I'd say it was.

Ah, gotcha.

And, as time has gone on, I've had to begrudgingly admit that replacing Brown just seems pretty impossible with the league landscape and where we are consistently drafting.

If we intended to do so, we'd have needed to do it this year.

If the Chiefs weren't sold on Brown, I think NPF at the end of the 2nd would've been an obvious solution. Not that you'd have him starting this year, but that you'd have Brown play on the tag this year and get a year of watching NPF to see if he's a long-term answer or if you'll need a band-aid in free agency.

I don't think it's impossible to find a LT, but it's damn hard to find one that can immediately contribute. If you're willing to 'redshirt' a guy, you can find one on the 2nd day, IMO. But we clearly didn't have that in mind. As much as I like Kinnard, I have a hard time seeing a scenario where he's a viable LT. We know Wylie isn't and I'd say that Niang is dead to this organization unless/until he establishes otherwise.

That’s silly, man.

It’s ignoring everything pointing to KC wanting to keep both of them.

Wanting and being able 2 are 2 entirely different things

It's the same people making the same points time after time after time. I guess they think the more they say it the more legit it becomes.

Jesus. Reid destroyed Todd Leabo in the presser today when he asked about Tyreek’s vid.

“You’re pretty good at asking those. Shock-Jock. That’s a dumb question. Especially since you know I haven’t seen that. Whatever.”