I don't think we can pay Jones AND Brown.
 

I will freely admit that my understanding of the cap implications may be flawed.

But I can't see how we can pay them both and field 53 NFL level players, considering we have 33 under contract.

I also don't think we can bring Juju back under almost any circumstances.

Somebody show me I'm wrong.

And if it's between keeping Jones or keeping Brown, I'm keeping Jones and either drafting a LT or sending a #2 to Green Bay for Nijman.

Signing them would actually open cap space

I mean we easily could even without even getting creative. We just traded away a 25 mil/yr receiver. Jones is already factored into the cap at a huge number. And Brown by all accounts seems to want a 5-6 year deal, which would be easy to work with. If Veach is set on keeping Juju around 15-18 then I would assume MVS is cut saving another 7 mil

If we have to choose, you choose Jones. He's a leader on this team and is both a good influence on George and draws dbl and triple teams for him as well. You could probably tag and trade OBJ to some team like Chicago for a 2nd too.

That all said, I think we should be able to keep both and Juju. Mahomes contract allows for money moving and we just saved a shit ton on Reek. Why did we trade him if not to be able to use that money to re-sign other keys dudes?

Easiest decision ever, let Brown catch a slow boat to Shanghai and use the savings to pay Jones

Bakhtiari's career is probably over. Why would the Packers be willing to trade Nijman for a 2 when they probably need him more than we do?

You should be able to structure their deals so you have room each season moving forward. Thuney’s contract should give us an out in 2024 as well, so I’m sure they’ll be looking for his replacement.

because Bahktiari is $30m dollars next year, $23m to cut, and they just signed Jenkins to a big deal? It's almost $50m at OT right now.

It's get something for Nijman or let him walk a year later for nothing.

and I don't think Bahktiari's career is over. I think he probably tried to come back too early from the ACL, and favoring that leg has led to the ongoing knee situation.

No, Brown's not on next year's cap at all.

Thing is, there's no "savings".

Brown's not on the cap at all next year. So he's not part of the "50m" available money after cutting Clark.

We're more than fine to do those two deals. We're at about 28 million in projected space before doing anything, gain 19.6 from cutting Clark, and can free up 34.9 more by restructuring Mahomes. That's about 75 million in space.

And you’ll probably end up lowering Jones hit with a new deal…unless they choose to do it another way.

I'd really rather not kick the can down the road just to overpay for Orlando Brown.

Man, if we don't, and Buffalo and Cinci are paying more for their guys than we're paying for Mahomes, we will have a big advantage for like a decade.

Sure, but if you do THAT, you're probably squeezing out a Sneed extension and a Gay extension. I'm not saying we shouldn't do that.

I guess I'm interested in what the consequences or possible consequences are in extending Jones. Like, what it means with the rest of the team.

And I don't want to pay anything more than an average LT salary to Brown, because that's what he is, an average LT. But that's just me.

I'm actually ok with all of this other than overpaying Brown, because I tend to believe that you should prioritize the defensive line and pass rush in particular over the secondary with the rules being what they are.

You can definitely do it. But it will piss everybody off in March bc “we aren’t doing anything OMFG Veach get off you’re ****ing ass every body is getting better?!?!?!” emotional fans.

Keep your guys. Draft talent. Use FA to get value like McKinnon, Bell, Juju and Eric Reid.

This season should be a lesson in why the draft matters so much. We don’t need to drop money on expensive ass external players over our own.

You don't have to kick the can down the road to extend Jones and Brown but you're going to impact upcoming contracts more than likely.

I think we can.

Jones has shown willingness to be flexible so long as we pay him what he's due.

Brown's pretty much going to make the decision for us. He's either going to bring his contract demands down or we tag and draft.

The real reason we can is that the cap is set to expand by 50% over the next five years. IMO. Not saying we should pay either or both, but simply saying that we can.

Additionally, while we only have 33 under contract, we have 6 ERFA/RFAs, and numerous draft pick - like 10-11 after comp picks.

With a few key extensions that easily gets us to the top 51 contracts.

generally speaking, I agree with your philosophy.

Other than I'd prefer to not overpay for Brown.

I hadn't heard it was going up by anywhere near THAT much, but would find it pretty comforting if that is so.

I think the Chiefs have shown that they do not want to kick that can down the road with Mahomes and restructuring him to free up cap space is probably a worst case scenario.

Well there reports that the salary cap might exceed $220 mil this off season. That'd be at least a $11.8 mil increase over the 2022 salary cap. That's a 5.7% increase and correct me if I'm wrong, but that wouldn't include the new deal with YouTube.

Also starting in 2023 the NFL has a decade of deals worth $113 billion, so $11.3 billion/yr. Currently they make $5.9 bil/yr from TV contracts. I also don't think that $113 billion includes the increase from the NFL Sunday Ticket increase.

2024 salary cap is going to be ridiculous and a 50% increase over 5 yrs could definitely be doable.

The 33 players under contract isn't as bad as it sounds either.

Lammons, Townsend and Wharton are all RFAs, Fortson and Tega Wanogho are EFRAs

That's 38 players, and then even with some trade ups in the draft they Chiefs are still probably drafting 7 guys, and you are at 45/53 with minimal cap expended.

That doesn't even count the cheap 1 year deals the Chiefs always do, e.g Burton, a veteran DE, maybe Saunders, bringing Bush, Bell back etc.

Great point.

We are in great shape.

The good thing about Brown is that he's still young. I would prefer him playing on the tag again unless his expectations have reset after this season. I'd love to slide him over to RT but I think he would be more butt hurt over that than taking less money. All in all, the Chiefs have some control over that situation which is good.

And Chris Jones, you just pay that man. Hard to imagine the Chiefs D without him.

You can lower it by a little, sure - but probably not by a ton.

Jones is gonna get a BIG deal. And when you're dealing in numbers that large, it's pretty tough to lower that 1st year hit a ton without really paying for it down the road.

I'm not sure it's the best idea. The Chiefs cap is going to have more big numbers added to it over the coming years vs. falling off it. We don't have a lot of fat left on our cap once Clark is excised.

After Clark, you really only have Thuney and Reid as big numbers to take off the cap. And Thuney isn't underperforming his hit. Arguably Reid isn't either.

Now both guys play fairly easy positions to find reasonably priced average replacements in the draft. So you figure that's a probable result, but it's still not like our cap situation is going to be easier in the coming years than it will be next season.

You did the Hill thing to clean it up and get it in order. It's obviously not time to just burn it all after an offseason, but I don't like us getting into the mindset of just trickling along with the draft and such. At some point, it's ok to spend a little money.

WOW! I had no idea! Thank you for clarifying this! :thumb: