Categories: Kansas City ChiefsLaddie Morse

Chiefs: Fits, Bits and Old Drips Under Pressure

by Paul Pulley, | May 16, 2019

Having almost no free time lately to spend doing any meaningful research for an actual article, I thought I would jot down a few odds and ends that pop into my feeble mind.

UDFA’s and Camp Invites

A lot is being made of the UDFA’s and camp invites that the Chiefs have signed recently, but I refuse to get my hopes up for any real contribution from them. There are a handful that I think could make the team and eventually contribute, but we’ve all been down this path before, with some fan favorites at camp that everyone assumes will make the team, but end up looking for work elsewhere.

The truth seems to be that the vast majority of the 53 man roster is already set, barring injuries, and almost none of these young kids will be anything more than a practice squad player, at best. But that doesn’t mean we can’t root for some of these young kids to make the roster and provide us with some excellent play.

The 2019 Defense

I think David Bell’s unwavering optimism might be rubbing off on me, as I am starting to believe this new defense, commanded by Steve Spagnuolo, is going to kick some major backside and will actually be the reason we win a couple of games.

Yep, I really did write that.

I’m more impatient to see this defense hit the field than any time since Reid became the head coach. The LB corp is still a concern (however, the Chiefs did trade for 1st round LB Darron Lee yesterday), but I believe this DL will be a vast upgrade over the past couple of years. I know a number of you are concerned about the secondary, but I’m here to let you know that these new safeties are going to make a world of difference. Mathieu and Thornhill are going to make so much of a difference, it will be unbelievable. I’ve been winding down in the evenings by re-watching parts of last years games, and it’s amazing how often it looked like Sutton only had 10 men on defense. My word, was the safety play bad! It’s absolutely no wonder that Coach Reid intervened and inserted different players in the secondary, prior to the Seattle game.

In all honesty, there were a lot of times that the linebacker play was absolutely horrid, but again, I think Laddie and David are correct and this was primarily due to Sutton’s scheme. What I’ve been seeing is, a number of times Ragland looked like the best ILB on the team. Especially when he (or Hitchens, for that matter) could attack the line of scrimmage, their play was vastly superior to when they sat back and waited for the play to develop and come to them.

Top 51 Cap Hit for Drafted Players

As I wrote some time back, the Day-3 drafted players would have a rookie salary small enough that they wouldn’t count toward the top 51, and that is in fact the case. Both 6th round picks, Rashad Fenton and Darwin Thompson, plus 7th round selection Nick Allegretti, will not count against the cap during the off-season while we are under the Top 51 rule.

The Chiefs first 3 draft selections salaries, 2nd rounders Mecole Hardman, and Juan Thornhill, as well as 3rd round pick Khalen Saunders, will count against the top 51 salary cap.

As I have written previously, during the off-season, when the top 51 rule is in affect, when a player is signed that fits as one of the highest 51 salaries for that give season, the lowest (or 51st) salary is subtracted.

In this case, our first three draft picks will have a rookie salary that will fit in the top 51. In this simulation, I’m going to use the numbers provided by OTC (overthecap.com) simply because they are higher than spottrac’s. Even though Juan Thornhill and Khalen Saunders have yet to sign a contract (as of my writing this), we know pretty much what their rookie salaries will be.

Our first three draft selections and their rookie draft salary will be:

Mecole Hardman, Pick 56, $908,191
Juan Thornhill, Pick 63, $839,139
Khalen Saunders, Pick 84, $723,794

For a total cap hit for the Top 3 picks: $2,471,124.

Since the top 51 rule is in effect for the off-season, once all three of these are signed, the bottom three players, (salaries 49, 50 and 51) will be added back to the cap. Since the players at the bottom 3 cap hits of the top 51 (players 49, 50 and 51) each have a cap hit of $570,000, those will be added back to the cap as they drop out of the 51 highest cap hits.

Therefore, with our top 3 draftees having a combined cap hit of $2,471,124 and then adding back the bottom 3, that have a combined cap hit of $1,710,000, we end up with a total cap hit, in order to sign our 2019 draft selections, of approximately:

$2,471,124 – $1,710,000= $761,124

That’s it folks, $761,124: just over three quarters of a single million dollars to fit the 2019 draft class onto the offseason salary cap.

Words from an Ex-Spurt

A recent article on a national website, written by an expert (at least I assume this guy fancies himself as an expert) says that there are only five teams with a legitimate chance of winning next year’s Super Bowl. The five teams he lists, are the New England Patriots, New Orleans Saints, Philadelphia Eagles, Seattle Seahawks and the Los Angeles Chargers.

His reasoning is because of the play of these teams quarterbacks. He claims that in order to win a Super Bowl, by far the best chance is to have a Hall of Fame caliber QB, plus the fact of having won the title previously.

Now, we all know what an ex-spurt is, right? An ex is something old and a spurt is nothing more than a drip under pressure.

Apparently this writer has been out of touch for the past several months, or even years, or he would realize that the Eagles won the Super Bowl with a QB that is no longer with the team and their current starting QB, really hasn’t done anything.

Although the Chargers QB, Philip Rivers, might well be a Hall of Fame QB, he has yet to get to a Super Bowl, let alone win one. But once again, the Chargers are the off-season media darlings.

Now, I can see including the Patriots, Seahawks and Saints, but the Pats and Saints both have QB’s with father time knocking on their NFL door and I would imagine, knocking rather loudly. How much longer do these guys truly have? Seattle seems to be in a bit of a rebuilding mode, so are they really contenders?

Lastly, is this guy so out of touch, that he doesn’t know that the Kansas City Chiefs starting Quarterback is the reigning NFL MVP. I mean, come on, if he is saying a high calibre QB is a must to win the Super Bowl, how is a team led by Patrick Mahomes II not included?

So much for an ex-spurt’s view.

Paul Pulley — ArrowheadOne

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