The Pittsburgh Steelers are benching wide receiver Martavis Bryant this week. It’s time for the Kansas City Chiefs to get aggressive in adding a weapon.
We are starting to see a paradigm shift in the NFL. Teams are becoming more and more willing to make big trades over the past few years. The Kansas City Chiefs have been one of those teams, and there is an opportunity to make it happen again, by going after Steelers wide receiver Martavis Bryant.
This past week, Martavis Bryant has made it known that he is not happy with how he has been utilized in the Steelers offense. This is nothing new in Pittsburgh as both Le’Veon Bell and Antonio Brown did the same thing earlier in the year. However, the Steelers have responded differently this time, opting to bench Bryant instead of getting him more work.
When a team is willing to bench a player with the talent of Martavis Bryant, that is usually a clear sign they are ready to talk trade (even if they insist otherwise). Even though the offense hasn’t been the problem for the Chiefs this year, it would still make a lot of sense for them to make a play for Bryant’s services.
The latest on #Steelers WR Martavis Bryant, who won't be fined but will be made inactive Sunday if nothing changes pic.twitter.com/bcLHFz3Yg8
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) October 25, 2017
Adding Another Weapon
One thing that Kansas City Chiefs fans should be starting to realize is that it never hurts to have another weapon available. In recent years, the Chiefs offense has often been channeled through just one or two players. This year, we have seen a variety of people making big plays for the KC offense, and the results have been solid.
Martavis Bryant is absolutely a weapon who can be utilized. Bryant is a deep ball threat, who is also solid in the intermediate passing game. As it stands, the Chiefs do not have a proven specialist in that area. Yes, there are guys who can go deep for KC, but not guys that do it consistently well.
In no way does this imply that Kansas City doesn’t have goo receivers. Tyreek Hill and Demarcus Robinson are both talented players. Hill has proven he’s a legit receiving threat, and Robinson is finally starting to live up to his big time potential. Adding Martavis Bryant would actually help them both.
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Imagine Andy Reid being able to rotate Tyreek Hill, Martavis Bryant, and Demarcus Robinson through each of the receiver positions. Now ask yourself how a defense could stick with them and still cover Travis Kelce and Kareem Hunt. Alex Smith would have a field day picking opponents apart.
Getting The Deal Done
The big question here though is how the Kansas City Chiefs can make the deal happen. The biggest hurdle there is that the Steelers won’t want to make the Chiefs even more dangerous. However, they also don’t want a malcontent making trouble in the locker room or with the media. If the price is right, Pittsburgh will deal.
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So what is that price? Well, in terms of money and cap hits, Martavis Bryant is a very affordable option, and has another year of control on his contract. That’s huge. It also increases the trade compensation the Steelers will want. That’s going to be tricky for a Chiefs team that has already used so many of their upcoming draft picks.
If Kansas City wants to make this happen, they are going to have to decide now just how few picks they can live with in the upcoming draft. Of course, they may already have a plan in place to recoup some of the picks they’ve sent away (Alex Smith’s trade value is climbing). If that’s the case, then making the deal wouldn’t be too tricky or painful.
Ultimately though, this all comes down to whether or not the Chiefs think Martavis Bryant is worth it. While I have faith in KC this year, Bryant would be a pretty good insurance piece in my book.
The Kansas City Chiefs are definitely one of the best teams in the NFL this year. However, that doesn’t mean they couldn’t use a little more fire power. One thing a good front office knows how to do is take advantage of situations that present themselves. This has the potential to be one of those situations.