Will the Justin Fields Move KEEP Kansas City Chiefs at the Top, or RUIN Their Dynasty?

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Trades are a big part of the off season, the Chiefs made one, and it has a big effect

on where they're going next in the draft, and we're getting here all the day from Matt

Derek.

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been doing this going on 10 years with my partner, Chris Clark, who's out today, but Matt

Derek is here because he's always here because it's a Wednesday show, Matt, from chiefstidest.com,

chiefstidest here on YouTube, as well as 41 as the Michael case, HB41, Matt.

Welcome in.

I'm excited.

And the Chiefs met a trade for maybe the least likely position that anyone thought going

into this weekend.

I have to say, I think that I like the direction this is going with, I don't know how you feel

about the player.

That's what I'll ask you about first.

Justin Fields coming on to this roster.

What do you think the pluses and minuses are?

Yeah, the pluses are the, hey, Justin Fields is a younger, upside quarterback, a lot of

athleticism.

I think there's things you can work with.

He hasn't been good, I guess, is the best way to put it, and he's been bad, but he hasn't

been awful.

He's even had stretches where he's looked like maybe there's something that you can do

something with.

I mean, he went four and two with the Steelers, which, I mean, yes, if the Steelers are just

perennially a 10 and 7, 9 and 8 team right now, but he, you know what, there have been some

other quarterbacks who didn't do that well with the Steelers, so that might be at least

a little bit of a tip that there's something you can play with there.

Because touchdown to interception ratio hasn't been bad.

I mean, there's things you look at as numbers, and you're like, like, this doesn't seem

as bad as it could be.

I mean, I think there's something there to work with.

And the fact that he is young and maybe still impressionable, I think, is upside.

When you're looking at the alternatives, and that's the thing, you know, I mean, for a

trade, there's not a lot of guys available anyway.

You know, hey, would I have tried to maybe swing for the fences and do something like

what the Jetsons and the Raiders did with Geno Smith and his contract.

I would have tried that with Kyler Murray, but I don't think that anybody was really interested

in that.

And so maybe that was just swinging too much for the fences.

But the thing is, is that you look at, you know, who were the free agents available?

It was a sad, you know, sad setting of quarterbacks in the free agent market.

I mean, you had washed up older guys like, I don't need a 37-year-old Tyrod Taylor

or 37-year-old Russell Wilson, you know, I don't need a 31-year-old Eastern stick.

I don't even think I need a 29-year-old Skyler Thompson, 33-year-old Cooper Rush.

I mean, it was a lot of retreads that were out there on the free agent market.

So I mean, given up a six-round pick, I don't think it's that, you know, I mean, especially

the way the bread beach uses, you know, six-and-seventh-round picks, they're sweeteners.

They're opportunities like this to just get a player that, you know, you couldn't get

any other way.

I'm okay with it.

And, you know, if Andy Reed, we're going to find out if he can still fix quarterbacks and

if he can develop young guys.

This is his opportunity to show that he still got that club in his bag.

I don't know if he does, but we're going to find out.

Yeah.

I think we will and we should.

And I talked about this a couple of weeks ago.

I was referring to Anthony Richardson, and maybe we'll talk about that coming up after

the break a little bit as well, but I want to get to the cornerbacks.

But this was a concept that I had as well as at this point, we'll call this midpoint

of Patrick's career is where I'm viewing it roughly.

It's probably not actually that might be a third, we'll see what it turns out to be.

But earlier, you always wanted a veteran in the room, someone who could lead film discussion

who understood how to break it down.

Obviously, Patrick had his habits, he had to learn from Alex, et cetera, et cetera.

But you wanted somebody else with more experience in the room to balance things off of for Patrick.

Now that he's at this point in his career, I don't think that that crutch was necessarily

something you had to have, let alone the fact you didn't have many options out there.

There were really upgrades over what you'd had and with the minute you're signing elsewhere,

I think that took that off the table.

So now for me, it's more about Patrick's the brain in the room.

If Patrick can't play, what do you do?

And that comes down to tying into the rest of the offseason for me and what they did

at running back to ensure they have a better running game, at least at that specific position,

hoping that the old line continues that way.

And now you have quarterback that broadens in my sense of the word, what you can do with

Patrick has to miss a game.

It's not just the same offense that is based on Patrick Mahomes, you can use the legs.

You can go outside of running the same RPO package or down field packages that you're looking

for.

I think that's the biggest caveat here.

I think it's well worth the sixth round pick.

Do you think that's how they entail it to or is it more about the process of developing

a quarterback to then maybe move again for a higher draft gap?

Yeah, I felt that it was in a case with which you just don't know what the situation is

going to be with Mahomes.

You can't be 100% certain that he's going to be able to start week one.

You might have to start a backup week one.

You're also not going to be 100% certain that Mahomes is going to be able to play all play

17 games.

I mean, that's a distinct possibility, whether he misses games at the beginning in the

middle at the end.

I mean, it could be anywhere that you have to assume that you're going to be playing

some games without Mahomes this season.

If you don't great, but you got to be prepared and you know, the chiefs, hey, they muddled

by sometimes and maybe got lucky at times because Chad Hennie Matt Moore didn't always

have some great outings, but they were good enough that they were able to still win some

games with those guys.

Last year, the kind of hit rock bottom.

Last year was, you know, hey, they couldn't muddle by even when Mahomes got knocked out.

Nothing went right for men's shoe.

Nothing went right for oladoke and I mean, it was, it was just a absolute mess and they

don't want to be in that situation again.

They want to try and be competitive if you're going to play some games without Mahomes.

With fields, yeah, I think there's elements of what they do all the time that you can

still run.

You can still, you can put some pistol in for him.

There's still some remnants of option runs that they still throw out there from time to

time, which never made sense to run with the homes, but they worked periodically.

And with fields, you could probably have a little bit more of a field day, pardon the

pun.

But, but that's the thing, you know, I think that they, you know, the cheese and to me,

I think what the best comparison I can say with Justin Fields, like that would like to

develop out of him is honestly to make him probably closer to an Alex Smith than trying

to turn him into a Patrick Mahomes.

You got elements of the old Alex Smith playbook that's around that I think that Justin Fields

could run pretty effectively and especially things that are going to depend on him to use

his legs.

And one thing that I think is of the cheese that you do need to get out of him that I've

heard from other stops around the league with fields as a criticism of him is that he's

always going to be just too quick to take off and run in passing situations.

And that's one of the things that Andy really is usually pretty good at about getting

quarterbacks out of an OTA's in training camp, because he doesn't want, he does not

like wasting downs in training camp and practices OTA practices with quarterback scrambling.

So that's one thing that Justin Fields is going to get beat out of him pretty quickly

is that every rep is a passing rep in practice, so it's going to be throw the ball every

time.

And if he gets in that habit, then maybe he's not going to be taking off and running

for as many undesign, you know, not typically designed runs.

And if that can keep him in the pocket a little bit more, I think that could be a good

thing.

I agree.

And I want to relate this to one more thing when we get back from this, but we also have

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Cornerback is the other end of the connection defending what Justin feels will do, but just

real quickly before we move to that.

I like the concept as well and this is what I had theorized about Richardson, obviously

a different situation in a different figure to ring in the locker room, but both have

been characterized as a bit of a malcontent, that kind of thing.

I also feel like any recon can work on that and it's good at sorting that out.

But here's the thing that you mentioned about the willingness to run.

It also allows them to put pressure on defenses when Patrick cannot play because they prepared

so much for my homes, the stylistic differences is still functional, but that dual thread in

particular changes the way defenses have to play them.

And if they haven't prepared that way, I think that gives them like a week to week

advantage when they do have to start the backup.

Yeah, it could absolutely.

And you know, and one of the things is it would give them an advantage, especially if there's

a period of time early in the season when they have to go with fields instead of

an at the swimming fields makes the team and wins the backup job, which done a hundred

percent, but when you give them a draft pick, it's over 90% for sure.

But if he's the guy, then early in the season, you're not going to really have any

film by and large to be able to go off of and know what this chief's offense, what fields

would look like.

I mean, like I said, if I'm defensive coordinators early in the season, I'm probably going

back to some Alex Smith film and looking at that as a way to defend this chief's offense

because it's not going to be the same thing that my homes does.

You know, you're going to, you're going to do some different things and sure, we'll, we'll

see.

I mean, maybe the chiefs, maybe Andy Reed's going to be convinced that the RPOs have

run their use and that they're so overused now that they're not effective.

Maybe he's going to scale them back significantly, but you're right.

I mean, schematically, I think you're going to use Justin Fields in some different ways.

And that could surprise some teams early on if they had to play him for a few games.

Well, that surprise is exactly what I think is most important here across the division,

the division's competitive.

It always is.

And I do think those guys out in Denver continue to make decisions specifically around the

chiefs that they will face.

That is also coming true today.

That will tie in here a second, but the chiefs have a new cornerback that I think is likely

get targeted by what the Broncos just did in go who coming on to the roster, I got coming

off a complete ACL missed all of last season, but brings what I saw in film is kind of a spicy

nasty kind of streak that fits in with the SPAG system, but it's all dependent on this

recovery that I haven't heard anything been able to find anything about.

It's, it reads is a bit of a risk.

I'd like to know what you think of that risk and where you see him fitting in on this roster.

Yeah, Ryan, you mentioned the injury, which for me, with that ACL, it's the biggest

X factor with co-hoo that you've got.

Last when you saw him in 2024, he was a really effective slot corner.

And somebody that I think you can get a lot of production out of.

And if that's the way that the chiefs use him as a rotational piece in the slot without

putting a whole lot of stress on him and that knee, that's the best way.

I mean, now you're always going to be concerned about a guy coming back off an ACL, especially

a corner.

We've seen it with the chiefs in some of their corners in the past two that first year

back, you're never as good as you're going to be in the second year back.

But again, if it's a rotational piece, if it's a part time player and they're not asking

them to play full snaps and move inside and out.

And he may end up in probably even sharing that slot, which from Ari Conner and maybe

a little Chris Roland Wallace, it'll probably still be some rotation in there for the chiefs.

But at least now give him another piece for matchups that if they've got a week where

they feel like that co-hoo's going to be a better matchup than maybe a corner, they'll

have that option.

And that's assuming that he hits again, this was a signing that's to me is very low risk,

high ceiling.

If it doesn't work out, you can walk away.

There's no real penalty.

If it hits, then you've got a really nice, you know, slot corner that you can use.

And it doesn't make up for Trent McDuffee and Jaylen Watson?

No.

But it's at least a beginning.

And you can see at least what Brett Vitch is trying to do in rebuilding that corner

bedroom.

Hey, I think you hit on a very important aspect of this as well.

And it ties in with last week's signing of Gilman as well is the role for Tamara Conner.

Steve Spaddon has been pretty stubborn about leaving him in the nickel and leaving him

in the nickel.

Do you see that this is a bit more of an admission that that hasn't really worked out as well

as they wanted, certainly not as well as we've observed?

But Gilman gives them, and in Jayden Hicks, maybe a duo that could start Chamari Fills

in where needed, I love him in more of a robber role like we used to see Ty and Matthew

play.

Could that be on the table here?

Yeah.

I mean, Steve Spagnolo still feels like that Chamari Conner can do everything.

And the reality of it is that I think he's okay in the slot.

He's not as good as I think that Spagnolo is acknowledged or thinks that he is.

And it's just don't, I mean, as much as they like to think him as a flexible defensive

back that can play almost any position except outside corner, he's really not much of a free

safety either.

He's at his best in the box, maybe as a strong safety.

And that's the bigger part of the problem is that until the cheese brought in Gilman,

all they had were just a bunch of strong safeties.

So again, the addition of Gilman helps that a little bit, the addition of Kohu helps

that a little bit.

But it's going to depend on Spags, you know, and what he's got and how comfortable he

feels using it.

You know, Kohu, it could go a lot of different ways.

If the injury is he's not fully recovered from that, or if he's a little bit like Christian

Fulton, and if he doesn't get involved a lot, if because of the ACL, it limits him in

any ways and OTAs and puts him behind schedule, maybe he's going to be somebody that takes

a while before he rotates in.

A lot of things could happen there, but again, you know, you see at least that Brett Vitch

is trying to give them some options about what that they can do and Kohu, if healthy, can

do that for them.

But I still don't know how much it's going to affect Connor because Spagnolo is in love

with Chamari Connor.

I mean, that is evident from the day they drafted him in the reaction and the phone call

that was put out so we could see it.

I think that was pretty evident.

So you're spot on there.

And I think the other important thing to remember and we should mark this down in history.

I'm going to say history again so that I can pull this out later.

Matt mentioned it.

If we don't see Kohu for quite a while, we are on that injury path and that setback path

that is much like Christian Fulton who we right now is slated to be a starter a year after

joining the team.

So keep that in mind, folks.

And I'll tell you what else to keep in mind.

This doesn't mean jack for what they have to draft.

We're going to give you the lowdown of any changes and what still has to happen coming

up next.

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that I still need to get off my chest because I like these moves that we've made right that

we've been talking about, whether it's Killman with co who is certainly as an option.

But in particular, who does not take away the need for a slot corner in this graph.

If one is available at a pick that they like and they have the right grade on, I see no

reason to change that man for for me in particular, I think an early day three selection of

the actual opponents from Indiana makes sense.

He's a smaller guy, but he can play outside.

I am convinced of that.

And much like Trent McDuffie in the over undersized category, that doesn't scare me off.

And particularly at the nickel, I think this is a position they need to look at.

There's a number of them in this draft.

And as you said, co who be an option, have another option that's a young rookie that isn't

Kevin Knowles to like Kevin Knowles outside and maybe you disagree with me.

But I think it's stacking options right now for Bret Vige so that you don't get to the

point where you have to go out for a free agent during the season or anything like that.

Yeah, I think you're right.

And yeah, I'm with you.

I mean, I think the cheesers are also with you too.

And you know, talking about Kevin Knowles is more of an outside option.

And I mean, and that's assuming that they're okay with Kevin Knowles being maybe the third

or fourth corner.

I mean, they may want an upgrade there, which is why I'm not completely ruling out.

I mean, I don't think it's going to be this case because the chiefs aren't quite where

they were in 2022 when they drafted five defensive backs.

So I don't think they're going to do a fab five part duh, but they could still draft two

or three defensive backs and it wouldn't surprise me because, you know, I think they could

still use somebody who could move inside if needed because co who is a bit of a lottery

ticket.

If he pays off great, but you don't know that he's going to pay off, they need depth

outside.

And honestly, they need some big depth outside.

They could use somebody who's six, one, six, two, can play physical the way that Dave

Merritt and Steve Spagnolo like their corners to play.

So they could use upgrades at almost every spot and honestly, they could use a pack up

at free safety too because they've been playing without one of those for a while as well.

So you know, there's a lot of needs that they still have in that secondary.

And I think they could address any any one of them.

I mean, they do have eight picks now, still not convinced that they're going to have eight

picks.

They could have nine again.

They could go back to seven.

I mean, Brad Beach, as we've seen, I mean, he's a trader for a reason and he's going to

continue moving around that board.

And I think he'll do it during draft weekend too.

I think that's super important.

And I embraced that philosophy, Brad, just in case you needed affirmation or something.

And it also becomes clear to me that you can't have enough because I do feel like particularly

the Denver Broncos, but a lot of what goes on in this division does seem to be about countering

the chiefs and what they have and what they have available.

Nothing goes farther than that than the need for for nickel corner in particular, but corner

in general, after the trade that the Broncos pulled off, the sending multiple picks to Miami

for Jalen Waddle who is now going to be in this division is going to play a number of

games here to against the chiefs.

I think this particular spotlight on the corner is about that matchup.

If much of anything else, I won't say that the chiefs have to go adjust their offseason

plan for it, but I think it just highlights the fact that if a team in this division spot

lights an upgrade in particular that's at a given against a given position, that tells

me that they've identified that the chiefs are a little bit lacking in that area.

Do you agree or do you think I'm reading this wrong?

I don't, I don't necessarily disagree.

I mean, I do think that, hey, you know, let's face it, Sean Payton's an offensey first

coach.

And right now he's got a defensive first team.

I mean, he's still trying to rebuild that offense.

And my question is that I don't know if Jalen Waddle is going to be the answer to their

problems on offense and their concerns, because I still think that the problem is that

I think you may have already tapped out the best of what Bo-Nix has.

I maybe have still a very low, you know, high floor with Bo-Nix, but I think it's going

to be a very, very low ceiling.

I still don't think that's the guy that's going to take you to the Promised Land.

And so if you've got a guy who's a game manager quarterback and you've got a bunch of

weapons, if he's not Patrick Mom's, I mean, what are the weapons going to do if the

quarterback can't consistently get you the ball where you need it to be and on time,

on schedule and all those things.

And those are the things that I still see Bo-Nix struggling with.

And I thought he took a little bit of a step backwards in year two from year one.

So I don't think you definitely saw the growth in him.

I mean, he looked pretty much like the same quarterback and he's getting to be kind of

up there too.

I mean, he's an older quarterback coming out.

So I look at that and I also see what they gave up for Waddle and I got a lot of questions

about that because I mean, I also saw Waddle who's been kind of dinged up the last couple

of years.

Hasn't been the same and I get they've had a lot of issues with two and injuries and

all of that.

But, you know, until the injury, it didn't really affect Tyrick that much, but it affected

Waddle a lot more.

So I don't know what Jalen Waddle is.

I thought that was a lot to give up for Waddle.

I mean, as somebody who covers the Chiefs, I was like, OK, that's great that you're willing

to do that.

Because that means the Chiefs aren't doing it.

I think that's good for Chiefs fans.

We're going to see it because you're right.

I mean, at least the Broncos in an effort to try and stay ahead of the Chiefs.

But you guess you have to say that they moved ahead of them last year.

In order to stay atop the FC West, they want to be able to score points.

And yeah, I think they do see a little bit of an opening there with the Chiefs now having

a questionable secondary.

And they may feel like there's an opportunity that they can challenge them a little bit

more there.

I think it's interesting that I think the Chiefs this year, and we'll see when it comes

to the draft, I think the Chiefs are focusing this year on getting after the quarterback

as a key to improving their secondary, because I still think that they're going to focus heavily

on the defensive line and the draft, and they're going to try and get the quarterback

on the ground.

I completely agree with you.

And that is the last need that is completely unchanged for me, no matter what the signing.

I still think you need a past rest DT at the very least, if not a couple.

I still think you need another comparable edge as much as I like Ash and Jaladi in this

game.

I'd hoped for more as a rookie season, and they need to see significant growth.

If he's going to be a true book, and to a guy in George Carloftus that has to have

a leader on the other side, George Carloftus is a secondary past rest here.

I think we evolved into that.

So for me, number one thing is still primary past rest on the outside from the edge.

Do you see it differently?

I really don't at this point, and I thought that the chiefs were going to go into next

this season.

I've told you before, probably four or five new defensive linemen, and they've added

a couple already.

So I don't think they're done.

I mean, I still think that they're going to add two or three more defensive linemen to

this group.

Once again, that could be predominantly through the draft.

Could still be a free agent.

They're going to still put some faces, and that's an addition to Omar Norman-Lod and

Ashton-Jalotti.

And again, you don't really know what you're going to get from Omar Norman-Lod coming off

the AACL in the first year back.

I mean, that's going to be a question mark.

So yeah, I'm with you.

They're definitely going to be still some additions.

I still think that they're number one dream.

It's not their plan.

It's their dream.

It's for Rupin Bayne to fall down to the mid-9, and if that's the case, I don't think

that Brett Vitch is going to be able to get that card in fast enough.

We know a lot can happen between now and the draft.

Yes, absolutely.

I'm going to have some of my defensive edge-rusher rankings for you guys in the coming days.

I'm also going to run down what those scenarios are, because it is shifting a little bit.

Matt, I think you'll be happy about that and we'll visit with you next week about what

that looks like on the flip side.

But thanks for today and all of your insights as always.

I appreciate you, Ryan.

Take care of my friend.

Folks, you have a great one.

Go check out Chiefs Digest on YouTube as well as 41 as the My Go To NFL 33.com.

Right now for some of my free agent grades, my GM grades, and then you can get the athletic

matrix right now at rogapc.com.

The draft guide is coming.

I'm not going to say it out loud, but I'm not behind schedule like I usually am.

We're feeling pretty good over at APC.

Thank you guys for your time.

Make sure that you get over to locked on sheath.supercast.com to join the Everydayer Club.

Have a great one and I'll talk to you tomorrow.