Possible dark future for Kansas City Chiefs, plus Jordan Palmer joins the pod.
Albert Breer breaks down Tom Brady winning his record seventh Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, how Bucs DC Todd Bowles was able to put together a defensive plan that shut down the Chiefs, the growth that will come from Patrick Mahomes in the wake of a Super Bowl loss, why it isn't going to be automatic for the Kansas City Chiefs to be back in the Super Bowl next year and some predictions on what will happen with the quarterback carousel in the offseason. We also talk to former NFL quarterback Jordan Palmer on why so many teams had offensive line struggles this season. We wrap things up with SI's fantasy analyst Michael Fabiano on some of his fantasy wishes for the offseason and, of course, the mailbag.
The following transcript is an excerpt from The Albert Breer Show. Listen to the full episode on podcast players everywhere or on SI.com.
Albert Breer: Takeaway number four, I don't think it's automatic that the Chiefs are right back here next year. And the reason why is the offensive line issue that they have is a problem. Their salary cap situation is going to be interesting going forward; Patrick Mahomes' numbers really jump this year.
There are some other guys on that roster where you look at the cap numbers and they're going up. I think you look at the Chiefs' situation and you have to question how they're going to fix the offensive line. And this was a group that to some degree, struggled in the Super Bowl last year with the healthy group. This year obviously was a major problem. Eric Fisher is 30 years old, coming off an Achilles [injury]. Mitch Schwartz is going to be 32 years old going into a contract year. Laurent Duvernay-Tardif turns 30 this week. He'd be coming off the opt-out year, and Austin Reiter the center is 30 and a free agent.
So there are four guys, four of the five starters—the natural starters for the team that are in their 30s. There's just some work to be done there, and it's going to be interesting to see what the Chiefs do. It wouldn't surprise me if because of all this, the offensive line becomes a major, major emphasis of theirs when we get to the draft. I don't know what you can do with their cap situation free agency–wise to fix this. So it wouldn't surprise me that the Chiefs have a big emphasis on the offensive line in the draft. It is a good offensive line group in this year's draft. And so it's going to be fascinating to see what they wind up doing in that area because I think that area really needs to get younger, and they need to find a way to build some depth in that group.
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