Holding Out Hope for Brad Cottam's Continued Relevance

I wanted to piggyback on Joel's previous post concerning tight end Brad Cottam and his newfound relevance, as Joel put it, for the Chiefs. With increased production and even playing time in the last few games, the Chiefs have seen some dividends on their early round investment and perhaps fans can hold out hope that Cottam can become a playmaker at the position.

Up until this point, we've yet to see any instance of the tight end being much of anything important within Todd Haley's offense - a stark change from the face of the franchise being the tight end over the last several years. We've gone from having the best at the position to "do you even need that position on the field?" So it's nice to see some attention in that direction.

The reason being our wide receivers continue to drop the football, at rates that we've written about to no end on this site. In fact, we have as many posts concerning the dropped passes as actual drops on season it seems. Our offensive line is porous and could sift flour as well as a megaphone. And, for the first half of the season at least, there was no running game in place, save for 2.7 who always came through with, well, 2.7 yards.

So it was frustrating through the first half of the year to ignore the position that could keep the offense moving and keep defenses honest. Matt Cassel had no "sure thing" outlet to go to like previous Chiefs quarterbacks and of all the years to not have a quality tight end, this seemed the worst of all times. When incorporated properly, it's the tight end that allows so many key things to happen, and it opens up the game for so many others as well.

So here's hoping that not only does Brad Cottam become relevant, but that the tight end position itself would become relevant to our offense.