Oh yeah if you lose Ford and Houston you definitely need to draft too. Graham would work, but I wouldn't be surprised if he will still get $10-15m, so you're not going to save any money over Houston once you take account of the dead cap.

It comes down to keep the veteran leadership for the transition or maybe get a guy for roughly the same price who might fit the scheme a little better. If I understand correctly Houston can be easily cut in 2020 so I would probably take the risk on keeping him a year and cut after next season if he can't find a place at either end or SAM.

EDIT: That's purely on if he won't take a restructure or extension which lowers his cap hit. Getting his 2019 cap hit down by 5-6m and keeping him is probably the best possible outcome for me.

I'll bet Graham doesn't get more than $10m. He's on the wrong side of 30 and is good, solid, but not GREAT. You can't pay Houston the $21m, I would assume he knows that too, so I expect he'd restructure, and I would think at this point in his career, not having cover responsibilities would be something he'd be happy about. So I think Houston would be plan A, Graham plan B with plan A pretty likely. You have no choice but to cut him if he won't restructure, dead money or no.

Barr or KJ Wright would be nice in the SAM role. Neither have the big sack totals that drive LB prices up, but both are solid, versatile veterans, plus players.

I'm mostly agreeing with you, but still even if Graham only gets $10m the decision is still $17.5m of cap for Graham or $21m for Houston, you're only saving $3.5m in 2019. And I wouldn't be surprised if Graham does get more than 10m, not necessarily because he deserves it but because the FA market could be very thin for pass rushers.

Hopefully Houston takes a $5-6m restructure and all this is moot.

I expect he will.

And I don't like the dead money either, but if he doesn't for some reason, you still need to move on and get out from under it. Even just $3.5m is enough to sign a middle of the road player in a position of need somewhere on the team. At any rate, we need to get out from all the dead money before it's time to pay Patrick.

That being said, I full expect Houston will restructure, giving us some cap relief. How much? who knows.

Also, I kind of like this-Houston could play SAM or RDE, or LDE. Speaks could play either end. Jones could hop outside to DE, either one-or inside at DT. There's some flexibility there that could be useful and confusing for opposing offenses.

I don't think this will happen in reality but if a really talented DT or DE falls in the draft, I'd love for the Chiefs to take him in the first round. If it's a DT, kick Jones out to WDE and if it's a DE expect him to start at WDE, expect Houston to be RDE but maybe give him a little bit of SAM time as well depending on how you deal with SAM, draft or FA.

WDE? do you mean 'wide' as in wide 9, or weak-side?

Because I mean RDE as in weak-side for Houston. Just not sure what you mean.

I sure like Jones with only a G to beat to the QB. :) and if Houston's next to him, they've each got a single man to beat.

Sorry, meant weak side for Jones and strong side for Houston. I wouldn't want to move Jones out to DE necessarily but if an amazing inside talent fell to the back of the 1st round I'd give Jones some snaps against a tackle and see how he does, then expect the drafted DT and Jones to be inside for obvious passing downs.

Jones on the weak side because he's inconsistent against the run.

I'm not sure Houston is going to be a good enough soldier to take $5-6M, but he does want that ring and this is probably the best place for him to get it.

I think he meant $5-6 million off.

At any rate, there are ways to manipulate the numbers and convert a chunk to signing bonus or what have you and get the number down to something reasonable.

I like Houston a lot and he’s still a really good player

But he’s got some injury history and makes a lot of money

Restructuring or cutting is the way to go

totally.

I doubt he's expecting to make $21.1 million this season. I would imagine he's anticipating a restructure ask or to be cut. I'd think he'd want to restructure and try to win a SB here with Mahomes and a different DC.

I'd think playing RDE where he'll be singled up on a T and not ever be in coverage would sound like a good idea to him, too. Simpler, straightforward, little easier on the knees maybe? I dunno. We'll see.

You’d have to extend him to restructure he’s not taking a straight pay cut.

Depends what he thinks he can get on the open market. He also may not want to go thru a regime change on d here

Haha yes I mean't free up $5-6m of cap space, not restructure him down to a $5-6m of cap hit this year.

I wouldn’t do anything with Houston. Bite the bullet in 2019 then walk away. Don’t compound a bad decision by extending him. We have cap space to work with. It’s not like we are bringing in a bunch of FAs. I can see one or two top free agent signings max.

The issue is if you extend Jones and Hill it's either Ford or 1 decent FA max.