From the FanPosts. Fascinating story idea! -Joel

Let me start by saying something that I think everyone needs to hear: there is no such thing as a cursed sports team, or a curse of any kind for that matter. It's just not how the world works. Lin Elliott has nothing to do with the 2018 Chiefs. Peyton Manning has nothing to do with the 2018 Chiefs. And as everyone is anticipating, Alex Smith will have nothing to do with the 2018 Chiefs.

Sports curses are something fans make up to explain horrific coincidences across the endless march of time, and we will not be entertaining such nonsense today. Today we will be discussing the NFL's highest scoring offense next season, the Kansas City Chiefs.

I would like to paint a picture for your mind's eye, if I may. Imagine an offense that has Aaron Rodgers at quarterback, LaDainian Tomlinson at tailback, Rob Gronkowski at tight end, and Antonio Brown at wide receiver. Sounds like the best offense you can dream up, doesn't it? Well it's time to get woke, because that offense will be lighting up the Arrowhead scoreboard next season. Don't believe me? That's understandable, but chew on these stat lines first:

Name Position Age G Cmp Att Cmp% Yds TD INT Rush Yds TD Player A QB 19-20 25 424 665 63.76% 5469 43 13 160 336 8 Player B QB 19-20 25 752 1164 64.60% 9705 77 25 262 741 22

Name Position Age G Rush Yds Yds/Rush TD Rec Tgt Catch% Yds TD Fum Player A RB 22 16 339 1236 3.65 10 59 74 79.73% 367 0 8 Player B RB 22 16 272 1327 4.88 8 53 63 84.13% 455 3 1

Name Position Age G Rec Tgt Catch% Yds Yrd/Rec TD Punt Ret Yds Yds/Ret TD Player A WR 23 16 69 124 55.65% 1108 16.06 2 30 325 10.83 1 Player B WR 23 15 75 105 71.43% 1183 15.77 7 25 204 8.16 1

Name Position Age G Rec Tgt Catch% Yds TD Player A TE 28 14 69 105 65.71% 1084 8 Player B TE 28 15 83 122 68.03% 1038 8

We have two player groups up there. Group A and Group B. Before you guess which players belong to which group, browse through those statistics and make a judgment for yourself about how different these two groups are. If you've got your head on straight, you will judge that Group B gets your vote for the better of the two groups, but that they are remarkably similar in production. It should then lift your Chief-loving spirits to learn that Group A is the Chiefs 2018 play-making core of Mahomes, Hunt, Hill, and Kelce, and Group B is the fantasy wet dream team of Rodgers, Tomlinson, Brown, and Gronk.

For the QBs, I took the numbers from both players' college Sophomore and Junior campaigns (since neither played their Senior year and Rodgers didn't play his Freshman year). For Hunt and Tomlinson I took their rookie, age 22 seasons. For Hill and Brown I looked at their age 23 season. For Kelce and Gronk those are their 2017 stats, since both are 28 years old this season.

It says a lot about the upcoming Chiefs skill players that you can stand them up head to head with the careers of some of the all-time great performers on offense and they look pretty similar. Sure, the biggest gap is between Mahomes and Rodgers, where Rodgers aired it out with a little more success over his fantastic two seasons at Cal, but Mahomes still had a pretty amazing two year stretch there with 51 total TD and 8 INT and almost 6000 yards of total offense. Kareem obviously came just short of LaDainian Tomlinson's dynamite rookie season, about 100 yards less and 1 fewer TD, but otherwise those two seasons looked almost identical. Tyreek Hill's catch percentage and touchdown total was worse than Brown's age 23 season, but both players had around 1100 yards and were dynamite punt returners. And we all know the comparisons between Kelce and Gronk, and while Kelce had fewer catches than Gronk this year, the other numbers are basically completely identical.

Now, some of our more statistically-minded readers are probably looking at these numbers going wait wait wait wait, you moron, you pulled the wrong stats! Mahomes torched at TTech, Kareem didn't fumble 8 times, and Reek had more than 2 receiving touchdowns this season, this whole analysis is a farce! And to you readers I say, correct, you caught me. I used a little trick there. Group A is not the Chiefs. Group A is the aforementioned fantasy dream team, and Group B is your 2018 Kansas City Chiefs.

Yeah, now the lightbulbs are starting to flicker. The Chiefs are about to trot out Godgers, LT, AB, and Gronk next season. Sounds like a pretty good situation, yeah? Let's talk about what this means exactly, and we'll start with probably the blurriest comparison of the bunch, Pat and Rodgers.

Now obviously, Rodgers didn't start an NFL game until his age 25 season, and we'll be asking Pat to move that timeline up by two years, but both guys were drafted after their junior seasons in college, both were first round picks, and both spent at least a season on the bench learning everything they could about life in the NFL. It took Rodgers three seasons before he took over in Green Bay, so we can't use his age 23 season as any type of comparison for what to expect from Pat, since Rodgers does not have an age 23 season. But as the film and the box scores from Pat's days in college will bear out, he is a much more skilled QB at this age than even the great Aaron Rodgers was at 23. That being said, they have very similar play styles, similar throwing mechanics, scrambling ability, offensive mentality, and potential ceilings. The best comparison I have been able to draw for Pat is Aaron Rodgers, and given the remarkable ability of the Chiefs play-makers, I don't think it is out of the question to expect Year 1 Rodgers numbers from Pat next season. I'll summarize what that year looked like for Rodgers below, but if anyone has an issue with that logical leap, I'd love to hear it.

Next we'll look at LT and Kareem Hunt. This is a lot less controversial of a comparison. Both elusive backs who exploded onto the scene their rookie years, both were almost identically productive, both caught enough passes to be a versatile threat in the passing game as well, and both were fantasy studs. LaDainian got snubbed (in my opinion) for Offensive Rookie of the Year when the award went to Bears RB Anthony Thomas in 2001, and it remains to be seen if Kareem will get proper love by winning the award, but there is no mistaking the similarities between these two runners. LT was drafted higher (5th overall, Kareem in the 3rd round) but in general, Hunt's career trajectory after one season looks almost identical to where one of the greatest scorers in NFL history was at that point.

Tyreek Hill and Antonio Brown is one of my favorite comparisons, because I think it's one that is not easy to see at first, and then shocking to think about once you see the light. Both guys are a bit undersized for your traditional superstar WR, but would it surprise you to learn that both guys checked in this year at exactly 5'10" and 185 lbs? And of course with the speed advantage going to Reek (AB posted a respectable 4.47 40-yard time, when Hill's was a blazing 4.24). Tyreek was selected in the 5th round, Brown the 6th. Both guys are exceptional return men, both guys are impossible to keep up with in the open field, and both guys possess home run ability any time they touch the ball (Tyreek's 8 plays of 50+ yards in two seasons is the most plays/season of that length that I can find for anyone's career). AB took a little longer to figure things out than Tyreek has, as he had only started 13 games after his first three seasons in the league. But Antonio Brown is an amazing player, who gets an amazing number of opportunities to prove how amazing he is. And Tyreek is Antonio Brown, but faster. Seems like that could be cool.

I probably don't have to spend much time comparing Kelce to Gronk. Both are monster men (both are 6'6" Kelce is 260 lbs Gronk is 265 lbs) both are essentially equally productive at the same age in the same year, both are huge personalities, both are absolute matchup nightmares the likes of which probably don't exist on the NFL field outside of these two. They are clearly 1 and 1A in the TE universe, and the only discernible difference between their skill-sets that I can see at this point is that Gronk has Brady throwing to him and Kelce had Smith... and Gronk has been more injury-prone. But I would still expect both players to be at the top of their position for the foreseeable future.

So, are you picking up what I'm putting down yet? Can you squint your eyes and see Rodgers handing off to LT and throwing to Gronk and AB? If you can, it's time to project that team's raw offensive numbers for next season. We'll use the same exact charts I used to compare above, only for the next applicable year in their careers. For Rodgers, we'll use his first full season as a starter, his age 25 season in 2008. For LT, that would be his age 23 second season. For Brown, we'll use his age 25 season due to his lack of games started early in his career. And for Kelce/Gronk, since we have no age 29 season of data for Gronk, we'll just assume that the change from Alex Smith to Pat Mahomes will offset any sort of potential decline in Kelce's production, as unfounded as that decline may be, and show Gronk's 2017 numbers again. And what we're left with is this Mona Lisa of football productivity:

Name Position Age G Cmp Att Cmp% Yds TD INT Rush Yds TD Rodgers QB 25 16 341 536 63.62% 4038 28 13 56 207 4

Name Position Age G Rush Yds Yds/Rush TD Rec Tgt Catch% Yds TD Fum Tomlinson RB 23 16 372 1683 4.52 14 79 101 78.22% 489 1 3

Name Position Age G Rec Tgt Catch% Yds Yrd/Rec TD Punt Ret Yds Yds/Ret TD Brown WR 25 16 110 167 65.87% 1499 13.63 8 32 409 12.78 1

Name Position Age G Rec Tgt Catch% Yds TD Gronk TE 29 14 69 105 65.71% 1084 8

And I'm aware that these players were not all playing in the same offense, Brown and Gronk would not see the high target volume if they were playing together, etc etc. But Aaron Rodgers was throwing to Donald Driver and handing off to Ryan Grant, so we can't make any player comparisons across time without factoring in their teammates. My thesis here remains. Their career paths are all incredibly comparable, and in each case slightly statistically *superior* to four hall of fame, game-changing offensive weapons.

And that gets me all tingly. If next year's defense can hold opponents to less than 40 points per game, baby we've got a stew goin'.