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Originally Posted by Baby Lee
Speaking to the 'arm grabbing' quality of Mahomes so far, this is what I'm trying to figure out.
I personally am high on Mahomes' future, but am also wary that the things we don't know about him are the things we'll never know until he's tested. There's been tons of slingers with Achilles of all stripes. For some it's pressure. For some, it's disguised coverages. For others it's over-reliance on diagnosable plays.
There's nearly as many forms of Achilles' heels as there are QBs that didn't meet expectations.
The best thing in his favor, and the thing I'm anxious to perpetuate, is that he's not coming onto a team he has to carry. This isn't a P.Manning rebuild, or a Stafford sole bright spot. It isn't even a Culpepper or Cunningham situation where they were great but not great enough to overcome snakebit franchises [though our 'history' might be another matter, I think Reid is changing that narrative].
But what I can't figure is, if Mahomes is as promising as I think he is, what of all the past angst over not snagging inferior talents. Would you rather have a Mariota or Cousins instead of waiting until Mahomes was on the block? Do you think that we would have made the Leviathan effort to snag him if we already had a high profile prospect in his mid-20s on the roster instead of one entering his mid-30s?
I feel there's more potential in Mahomes than anyone since Luck/RGIII, and even those situations have been wildly mishandled to date. That's why I center my concern away from squeeing over the new toy, glossing over the present, and fixating on getting Mahomes on the field. Instead I center my concern towards maintaining team chemistry, including respect for Alex's position and franchise value. I'd rather operate the franchise under the assumption that the present depth chart is making a serious championship run, and introduce Mahomes organically on a team free of the drama of a QB controversy and feelings of disrespect over tanked opportunities. NFL players live with a Sword of Damacles over them where every play could be their last, and they generally have little patience for playing out a string for far off rewards.
It's like the joke about the calf that wants to run down to the meadow and **** a heifer when the bull advises walking down and ****ing them all. I want to compete this year. I want to compete next year, and I eventually want Mahomes to take over on solid, drama free, footing and compete for 15 years or more additional.
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The transition is Andy's job. We as fans were firing back and forth over the entire month of April about QB prospects and team future while Andy Reid made a phone call to Alex saying, "Look, I don't know when, but we're taking a QB in this draft. Probably in the high rounds. Here's why we're doing it. You just keep doing your thing." That's a difficult conversation to have, but Andy Reid is probably the best coach in the NFL at soothing over any kind of tensions like that if they exist within the team environment.
The point is that we don't even know about 99% of the stuff Andy does to maintain that environment no matter the circumstances. Those are private conversations he has with players, and it's the stuff that NFL fans don't get to see. All we know is that he just does it, and he does it well.
Yeah, it'd be nice to just kind of gradually work in Mahomes to the life of that huddle and team until Alex is ready to move on, but that's not the reality. It's not going to be smooth like that. Hell, just look at the Dee Ford strategy, which I think is very much in line with what you're thinking. The guy only ever got on the field in his first two years if there was an injury. A lot of that was largely because he simply wasn't ready, sure, but now that he's been nicely folded into the team gradually and neatly, the asshole he's replacing is now super pissed off and probably doesn't like Ford or give much of a shit about him all that much.
If the Chiefs could control the situation, Houston wouldn't have been injured, Ford would have developed a little bit faster, and Hali wouldn't have been given that shitmassive extension to keep playing here for three more years. The Chiefs would have waved goodbye to Hali much sooner and moved on.
That's going to have to happen with Alex, man. We can't be ****ing around with this Tiger strategy of "extend him then restructure" so we can keep him around even longer past the two years just so Mahomes is REALLY ULTRA SUPER READY when he takes control of the team. You saw what happened with Favre and Rodgers. Favre was mulling over retiring and kept jacking the team around, and the team had no way of moving on from Favre through his contract running out. They could only cut or trade him, and that's what caused all the butthurt between the two sides.
Alex Smith has two more years on his contract. Ideally Mahomes would be ready in a year, or at least ready enough so that he's not completely drowning when he ends up starting. That way the Chiefs can collect on some of the hit they took when they paid a 1st rounder in 2018 to go get Mahomes.
But let's say the Chiefs want to be more confident than that. I can definitely see that happening, and I wouldn't blame them at all, considering Mahomes still has a lot of shit he needs to figure out. It's perfect, because Alex HAS no Sword of Damocles hanging over his head. He knows his situation. He has two years left on the deal. He'll get paid to be a starting QB for two years. He'll finish out the contract. And then he's DONE. He knows that, the team knows that, and if he's going to have problems with that kind of pressure, or it's going to negatively affect the team environment, he's gotta go. Chiefs will need to cut him.