Originally posted by Patton:
Originally posted by genus49:
Originally posted by Patton:
Originally posted by miked1978:
Originally posted by Koldo:
But what good is in having drafted multiple All-Pro players if, when they get old or injured, you don't really have a viable option to replace them?
This is kind of ridiculous to say. You are expecting a team to not only have a viable option at every position but also a viable option on the bench at every position.
Not ridiculous at all. Thats like saying the Niners should have never had Steve Young g on the bench behind Montana, or Aaron Rodger's on the bench behind Brett Favre….Hennessy behind Brendel lol.
It's far from "ridiculous" the expect a team to have secondary plans for injured starters even if the starters aren't hurt. Look at 96/97, T.O. was as talented or more than Rice at that point of their careers and Owens still didn't get as many opportunities because Jerry was still active and producing.
When you have the injury history that this team has, you better make sure you're looking at backups at every position to make sure you can maintain a certain level of success when your starters are out, which is going to happen.
That's not to say "every" position across the board needs that, but you sure as hell better have quality backups across both lines and your secondary.
As mentioned, who TF cares if you have all pros at every single position if they're only playing 3 games a season. Thats far from "dumb" or "ridiculous".
It's dumb because you realistically can't have high level backups at every position lined up like that in this era.
Do the Chiefs have Travis Kelce 2.0 sitting in the wings? Do they have another Mahomes? Chris Jones 2.0?
49ers had Joe Staley and when he was ready to retire they brought in Trent Williams. There are some players you will eventually have to replace but you can't always replace with equal or better if the guys are HOF level players. It will be incredibly tough to replace George Kittle but they will. The replacement may not be as good but that says more about George than the teams inability to keep it going.
Fred Warner is being replaced due to injury. How many guys in the whole league are comparable replacements for Fred? Only so many guys at Bosa's level but the plan is clearly there to retool the whole DL.
While I agree with you (mostly) I'd like to point out that Chris Jones has missed 7 games in 7 years. Travis Kelce has missed 7 games since 2013 and Patrick Mahomes has missed 2 games his entire career.
I guess there's a reason that they have become the dominant champions in the past (going on) decade.
Like I said, with *this* franchise and their putrid history of injuries, they shouldn't depend on having their star players because it hasn't happened in the Lynch/Kyle era. They should expect that every player that has a history of missing games, is just going to continue to miss games going forward and draft for their backups and pay them based on games they have played.
Yes obviously staying healthy is critical to getting it done. No wonder our most dominant season was one of our healthiest...just needed it to last one more damn game!
But I do wonder how much of it is bad luck - if you think about it Bosa and Warner injuries were straight up crap luck. But also how much of it is the type of football we play? Not that I'm calling KC finesse but we all know the difference between Kittle and Kelce and how they play.
I always go back to the Lance trade - it cost us so much in hindsight. Forget the miss on Lance by himself but the move not only cost us valuable draft picks but also had us miss in a super talented draft class.
Jamar Chase, Penei Sewell, Pat Surtain, Micah Parsons, Rashawn Slater even guys like Jaycee Horn and Devonta Smith, Jaylen Waddle were there for us to grab instead of Trey. Obviously we made the move for a QB so it's extra hindsight worthy.
But we also made draft picks with Trey as the QB in mind - Trey Sermon, Aaron Banks, Danny Gray were all Lance related picks IMO. I don't think we draft them if we didn't draft Trey.
The move was clearly an overreaction and hurts us to this day. But they're still battling through it and the result could've been SO much worse if we didn't make it deep into the playoffs when giving away those first round picks or not being able to find Purdy.
I think we should look at the recent draft classes as where we may be heading and IMO they're still some of our best ones even if it's still too early to really say one way or another.
