Bell has also said that he regrets that decision. There is absolutely zero chance that Chris ends his career in a better financial situation by sitting next year. Whether that's as important to him as feeling "respected," I don't know. It certainly doesn't seem like he's making purely rational decisions at the moment.

I honestly don't get your logic on being so sure about Veach not tagging Jones even at $33.5M BUT also thinking that Veach should pay him $30+ million.

What do you think next years cap hit will be if Veach gives him $30M average?


I think we all would agree that if Veach does in fact reach a new deal with Jones that this years cap hit will go down from the $28.291 million it is ATM.

Veach seems to like cheap 1st years on new contracts but lets say the new deal only brings it down to say $20M instead of $28M to give Veach and the front office some breathing room.

$30M avg over lets say a 3 year deal is $90M with what about $60M in guarentees. If you take a $20M hit this year that means next year when you think it would be crazy for Veach to tag Jones for $33.5M but ok to give him a contract worth $30M average..his cap hit should be around that exact $33.5M number if not more.

I'm sure this is also one of the factors Veach is looking at and realizes why give him that $30M contract when worst case he could tag him for about the same cap hit in 2024 and look for a trade partner or just let him play on it.

That is the problem right now.

His history says that he isn't.

Matt Verderame recently suggested that part of the problem might be CJ's agents are trying to boost their image among other players.

Is Belichick known as a bad drafter?

I'd hate to see what a good drafter would have accomplished the last few decades.

The Chiefs would have so much to lose, if he falls off as a player it'll be wow the Chiefs wasted some of Mahomes years getting duped by Jones.

The Patriots haven't drafted well in a really long time, Brady kept saving their asses.

I mean not really. Bill always finds undrafted corners who play well, most notably Malcolm Butler who literally bailed out Tom.

They can find OL too. Thuney, Solder etc.

They just could not for their life draft WR's.

If you go post their draft history from the last like 10 years, it's really really ugly.

I'm fine with paying Jones, and I'm also fine with tagging/trading after this year. That position may weaken, but the surrounding cast is going to keep getting stronger and stronger.

The main issue I have with paying him is that he seems to be the type that only gives max effort during contract years.

I just really wanna know when Quinnen Williams turned into an afterthought in these discussions.

Quinnen Williams is WAY closer to Chris Jones than Chris Jones is to the Aaron Donald that 'earned' that contract.

Aaron Donald was neck and neck with Reggie White in terms of pure dominance from the DT position. I mean he was an absolute monster at his apex. His stretch from 2017 to 2020 has to be close to the most dominant stretch of DL play ever. He was THAT good.

Jones is very very good. Again, HoF at his peak. But not Mount Rushmore of Defensive Linemen at his peak. And someday, if not already, Quinnen Williams will be that 'very very good' level of player in his own right, IMO.

And yet we just keep seeing writers say "well he's the closest the league has to Donald..."

He's great. But he's not that close to being Aaron Donald. And Quinnen Williams ain't that far from being Chris Jones. Jones isn't THAT much better than Hargrave was last year. He might not have been at ALL better than Dexter Lawrence was.

And while Jones was swinging out to the edge for some of his productivity (about 20% of his snaps there), Williams wasn't ever doing it. And Dexter Lawrence did ALL of his work from the damn A gap, which is absolutely bonkers. 63 pressures while being used only in the A/B gaps (and about 4-1 in the A gap) just doesn't happen.

Lawrence and Williams signed reasonable deals and have very VERY strong cases to make that they're more valuable assets over the next 4 seasons than Jones will be. And yet every damn article out there wants to act like Jones is Peak Donald 2.0.

Everyone keeps saying that, but it's literally not true. Last year was not a contract year. This year is. We don't yet know how he'll play in a contract year, as he's always gotten extensions before he gets there.

You're right....they technically haven't been contract years, but the years prior to an expected extension. If Jones is to be believed, he won't even play for half his contract year.

Fortunately it seems Veatch agrees with you.