It was always about tearing the team down last year, finding a franchise QB and other talent in the draft while eating the dead cap money this year, and building around their franchise QB while continuing to add defensive talent next year. Last year's playoff appearance was more a testament to good coaching, a weak AFC, and luck than it was about talent on this team. The lack of talent on the offensive side of the ball was there last year and then compounded by the losses of Wood and Incognito, a lack of cap space to acquire quality offensive free agent talent, and the need to use high draft capital on their QB of the future.
You can agree with their plan or not; however, it was always pretty clear they would try to stay as competitive as they could with the talent they had, offensively, while putting themselves in a position to truly address the rebuild next year (while already having added some centerpiece players in White, Edmunds, and, hopefully, Allen). Anyone who didn't see this year coming either wasn't paying attention or didn't want to see it.