Understood. Just curious but what level of consistency do you expect for someone that’s a 4 year pro? And should that be expected at this point?
It's a lot of things.
Footwork, throwing off back foot, touch and accuracy on timing passes, a lot of those things were evident in year one and no one seemed to care much because the team won his rookie year.
Here we are in 4 years in and personally I've seen little (if any) improvement in footwork and mechanics. If improvement is shown, it's been minimal imo.
I still think he isn't seeing the field and the progressions as quickly as he should be at this point.
Seems to me, Dak's greatest strength is when he extends plays with his feet, play breaks down, someone busts open and he hits them downfield.
But that's a great strength to have as a backup plan when the play breaks down. That's a contingency plan.
Schoolyard ball is not a QB skill that you build an offense around. Sooner or later, you need to properly read and diagnose the defense pre snap, and be able to quickly and efficiently get the ball out on time and on target, in stride, to the correct guy. Does Dak do that once in a while? Yes. Does he do it consistently? Again, it's just my opinion, but no. Even some of the passes (many of the passes) he completes, there is meat left on the bone. Receiver is reaching behind, off stride, leaving valuable yards on the field because the ball was late, behind, etc. Others may see it differently. I get that. But to me, this is more the norm than an isolated incident. And after 4 full years as the unchallenged starter, I expect more from him in those areas. I haven't seen the gains that I'd like to see to make me comfortable going forward.
Especially at $35-40 million a year.
Go back to a comment someone made I think earlier in this thread--but you watch A Rod, Mahomes, etc. They literally cut up defenses. Good defenses. Playoff defenses. A Rod is doing it with a bunch of scabs. I mean, other than Davante Adams, his receiving corp is absolute garbage. Jimmy Graham is 33. Guy's only a couple years younger than Witten and a shadow of his former self. Geronimo Allison? Valdez Scantling? Etc? C'mon man.
People talk about "drops" on this website. That first quarter or two of the KC/Houston game yesterday, Mahomes guys couldn't catch a cold, much less a pass. They were down 24-0 early 2nd quarter. And still scored 51 points LOL. Yeah, he had a short field there on that kickoff fumble, I get it, but my point is--those guys are at another level.
Is it fair to expect Dak to be at that level? No, Probably not. I will grant you that. Those guys I mentioned are very unique talents. But I look at us going 8-8, and we scored 15 or less points in 4 games this year. With the talent we have on the offensive side of the ball, we had 4 games with 15 or less points. And we lost them all.
Mahomes? 2 full years as starter. You want to know how many times they've scored less than 20 in 2 years of his starts? One time. Once. That's it. In two years. Without anything close to a 1000 yard rusher in the fold. I will concede Kelce is a stud and Mahomes is fortunate to be working with him. But that goes both ways. Kelce's 2 years catching passes from Mahomes are the two best years of his career.
3 playoff starts for Mahomes, they've scored 31, 31, and 51. if they get shut out against Tennessee (which ain't gonna happen, LOL) KC will still be averaging 28 points a game in Mahomes 4 playoff starts.
And we play in the worst division in football and we miss the playoffs because we had 4 games this year with 15 or less points? With the talent we have on offense? Frankly, that kind of pisses me off.
Is that all Dak's fault. No, of course not. But he is the only guy (other than Frederick) who handles the ball on every single snap. He's the guy expected to facilitate, and be the engine. He's the guy demanding to be paid like a Ferrarri. And in 25% of our games this year (Dak's best year so far, statistically), our offense performed like a Yugo. That's the consistency issue I'm struggling with. After 4 years, with our talent, we should not be losing multiple games in a season (New Orleans, New England) where 14 points or more would have won it. Just shouldn't happen. You can't make that guy the highest paid player in league history and bank on him for your future. (in my opinion, you can't, I know and respect the fact that others disagree)
I get the idea that Mahomes don't grow on trees. I understand. But that's the perfect example for why you don't settle. The Chiefs had Alex Smith. Safe player. Took care of the ball. Smith's last year in KC (2017) --68% completions, 8.0 yards per attempt. 4100 yards. 26 TD. 5 INT. Compare that to Dak's 2019 (his best year ever): 65% completions, 8.2 yards per attempt. 4900 yards. 30 TD. 11 picks. Pretty close comparison there.
Smith better in completion percentage and interception avoidance. Dak better on yards. TD % virtually identical (Smith 5.1% throws were TD's, DAk 5.0% throws were TD)
Point being, those are pretty identical stat lines. And KC made the playoffs that year. They won their division at 10-6. They had a choice to make.
Do we settle for "good enough"? Or do we think we could do better.
We know what they chose. Will it work out the same for us? Will it work out worse? Dare I dream, better? Can't say for sure.
What I can tell you is, if we pay $35-40 million a year for a guy who statistically in his best season performed pretty similarly to Alex Smith, then we get what we deserve. Double down on what we have now, because we are afraid of the possibility "doing worse" isn't a recipe for greatness. It's a recipe for ensured mediocrity in my opinoin. And I can't abide by that.
