Also hitting those draft picks and trades/FA signings seems to make it easier in those tight years.

It's mainly pushing back guaranteed money. The downside comes when the contract ends, the money that's been spread out over the void years accelerates onto the present year.

For example, Thuney is on the last year of his deal, but hypothetically we could convert most of his base salary into a signing bonus, and spread it out over 5 years (2025 + 4 void years). Then when his contract ends in 2026, the money we spread out over those void years would accelerate and become dead money on the 2026 cap. But effectively we would have moved roughly half his cap hit for 2025 onto 2026. Or we could extend him in 2026 and continue kicking the can down the road.

That's the simple version, I don't entirely understand the option bonus voodoo the Eagles are doing. I gather the principle is the same, but I can't decipher what exactly their Spotrac pages mean.

I’d say two things can be true at the same time. On the one hand the chiefs have been very conservative on using their credit card. So when people say we can’t afford this or that… yes we can. We have plenty of flexibility. We just want to build a long window versus crashing and burning in year 5.

Deshaun Watson is a very very good example of how that comes to bite you. They created Frankenstein contract. In hindsight it was a bad deal. A huge overpay. But the reason the contract is truly awful is because they kept restructuring it. In order to free up more money today they kept pushing guaranteed money to the back. It’s almost comical that the guy is now a $72m cap hit. And $170m to cut. Yikes.

That being said I do feel like we should use our purse a little more. Mahomes is entering the end of his peak and who knows how much longer Reid has. I wonder if the sobering reality of an aging kelce is going to change how we approach this new era.

The Chiefs also have to factor in a possible new stadium. Mahomes time will be short when completed, and new stadium tickets very high

You don't think they are high already?:doh!:

It may make an argument for Kansas and more offerings

Chiefs are only paying 100k in dead money to Kamal Hadden. Eagles are paying $29 million in dead money and almost $27 million of that is going to Kelce and Cox.

Eagles have actually averaged over $60 million dead money since 2021. They had $63 million this year. This is a terrible business plan if you have a young Mahomes.

They didn’t spend hardly anything on FA’s bc of that dead money. They just found 2 of the biggest grand slams in Zack Baun and Mekhi Becton. Drafting Mitchell and DeJean helped as well.

Of course you can’t compare that to us. They drafted in the top 10 multiple times recently and got Jalen Carter and DeVonta Smith.

It’s an overly aggressive plan that requires you to be right far more than being wrong. Last year they were wrong and we saw what happened.

From what I understand they still had to pay him when he retired. Which is the tradeoff with void years. Bucc's had something like 35 million in dead cap space because of these prorated void years.

The league really bailed Howie out last year letting him nab Mitchell AND DeJean. Mixed with Fangio’s hiring, you could see the success coming from a mile away.

And I get it, each team’s gotta do their own thing, it’s not like I’d go back and trade Worthy for DeJean. But damn man he got both those guys far below their projected overall draft rankings.

I wouldn’t count on GMs to not do it again either. Veach has to capitalize on those same opportunities and when you have a player who is far better than where you are being presented an opportunity to draft them, you gotta take them.

Can you imagine if the league lets a CB of that quality drop to us this year and we can pair them with McDuffie for at least five years? Those are layups you gotta sink no matter how you’re managing your cap. If you don’t — and if the Eagles hadn’t — they’re not world champs.

You can say it shouldn't be allowed, but it benefits the teams, because they get cap flexibility, and it benefits the players because they get bigger contracts and more money. Who do you think is going to put a stop to this?

The Eagles won one season. I am unsure of the cohesiveness of the team as a whole. Players and coaches

But most teams attempt to "peak" - they put some good pieces in place and then in an attempt to actually get a superbowl window of 1-3 years they mortgage future cap to win now by creatively structuring a few more superstars into the roster, just spending on the credit card intending to pay it off a few years down the line.

The Chiefs should not be doing that, they don't "only" want a 1-3 year window.

Are we weak? That list makes us look weak.

The idea of a new stadium with Skyy Moores and Nozzy Johnsons, make me weak

I'm not sure, but I don't think that's true - if a contract has multiple void years I think the cap hits stay on those years unless the player is cut before the end of the contract.