What's the most you'd spend to keep Frank Clark?
 

He isn't worth it at his current level, but I tend to believe he is a good leader for his position group and he seems to have a good relationship with and is a mentor to Karlaftis. That leadership could prove even more valuable next season if we do draft another DE, especially a speed rusher, high in the draft. He also comes alive in the playoffs and seems to love Kansas City.

If we could get him on a 3/25 type deal with 12-14 guaranteed, would you do it? If not, how much would you be willing to spend to keep him?

I would still move on. Wish ya well Franky.

vet minimum and a bag of stickers.

Considering that 3-down DEs don't grow on trees, much less ones that perform at a near-elite level in the playoffs, that's not a bad deal at all.

I'd consider keeping him in the neighborhood of $7m, with playoff incentives.

For the record, while Frank Clark is a troubled guy and has a garbage motor in the regular season, his biggest contribution is working the youngsters.

He is invaluable for how hard he pushes them and gets their technique up to snuff.

He is also an emotional leader, whether we like it or not, whether it's PC or not. The team absolutely feeds off his energy, and when he's cooking, the defense plays so loose.

That's worth a lot. It's not worth enough, in my opinion, but it's not nothing.

You guys act like he's dogging it. But, if he's really got Chron's disease, as has been widely discussed, it's remarkable that he's able to perform as a professional athlete at all. Calling it "stomach problems" is a huge understatement.

My Dad is a retired gastroenterologist. Chron's is a BEAR to manage, and is very hard on most patients. My Dad has treated many Chron's Disease patients over the long term; it's not a fun condition to have, generally shortens life expectancy, and can often have a serious impact on quality of life.

That Frank is able to "turn it on" in the playoffs is a remarkable testament to his will.

Keep him or find a way to get him to retire and join the coaching staff. This dude's energy is unreal and he loves the Chiefs!

Move on let's say even if I was wrong about keeping him originally he will turn 30 this summer you've gotten some of his best production already

According to Overthecap.com, Frank's Chiefs contract for 2023 has him at a $20,500,000 base. If we release him, all his guaranteed money has been paid, so we will save $21M with $7,675,000 of dead money from a previous paid bonus.

I like Playoff Frank and would like to keep him but don't see any way of doing that. Time to move on.

I would not extend him. I would ask him to reduce his total potential salary outlay to be around a max of 8 m. At least 2.5 m of that needs to be per-game bonuses and performance incentives. I'm fine with fully guaranteeing the base salary as a reward for him reducing his salary.

That's it, take or get cut.

We absolutely need to look for a replacement in the draft with speed.

I've become really high on Derick Hall of Auburn, Will McDonald of Iowa State, and Thomas Incoom of Central Michigan in that type of role.

I'd also like to see KC go for Arden Key again. He has length and speed and could be a nice addition that shouldn't break the bank.

Will McDonald is the guy I've been banging the drum for. For a lighter guy he's surprisingly solid against the run. Don't think for a second he's a Spags type as he really has no obvious power move. But man as a change up on our DL that speed is what I want.

As for Clark, I'm offering $0. Thanks but no thanks

There is no extension. Take a pay cut or get cut.

Devil's advocate here.

I do like the idea of keeping Clark on a reduced deal (that he may or may not sign).

If we do, however. I think the #1 thing this defense needs is a Veach-style makeover at DL.

Veach did it in 2021 with the OL, and in 2022 he did it at WR and somehow at DB as well by drafting like a god.

In 2023, hopefully the DL is the project.

But.

If the team does extend Clark, then that's about it for the DE position minus, ostensibly a draft pick. You'd have Karlaftis/Clark/Danna plus whomever Veach snags in the draft.

That's not exactly a Veach-style makeover, is it. But I think we all understand that despite the yo-yo nature of Clark, his importance on the team is unmistakable. And while he's been a huge problem off the field with his legal problems, he has never once brought it into the locker room like Tyrann Mathieu did. He's a net-positive to have in the room, and of course he explodes in the postseason.

But would returning Clark and adding one draft pick make that much of a difference at DE? Even if the selection is a 1st round pick, like Andre Carter, that 1st round pick is almost never going to hit the ground running like Karlaftis did, who was ready-made for the NFL.

Veach has some moves he can still make to beef up the interior, especially replacing inconsistent guys like Nnadi and Saunders, but we've got our interior passrushers there wtih Jones and Wharton, who I assume we are tendering this offseason. The DTs Veach is likely to add will be 1-tech pluggers, not passrushers.

So that really only leaves 1 DE that Veach would realistically acquire to improve the four-man passrush, if he brings back Frank Clark.

Is that enough for you guys?

Keep in mind, that while the Chiefs did have the 2nd best passrush in the NFL, the blitz accounted for a third of that all year (although that was down to a quarter by the end of the season, as the switch flipped for Karlaftis). For the record, blitzing about 25% of the time seems to be the NFL average, but I am just gleaning that from non-subscription research online.

That's good enough to beat almost every team in the NFL. But the Chiefs are going to face Burrow in the playoffs every year, and while the Chiefs are likely to outpace the Bengals over the next couple of offseasons, if you want to put your foot on the Bengals throats, you juice up that passrush so that you rarely need to blitz. Once you do that, the Chiefs will have the Bengals number.

Just some musings. I just wonder that extending Frank Clark limits the ability of this team to juice up the passrush on the edge.

Arguing against myself, I think the logical counter-argument to that concern is that Clark is a force-multiplier so long as he stays out of trouble. If the Chiefs draft a passrusher in the 1st or 2nd rounds with a lot of promise, Clark's tutelage has been the golden formula to get them to develop (along with Joe Cullen). We've gotten more than we can ever bargain for out of Mike Danna, and Karlaftis is primed for a double-digit sack campaign in 2023.

$4 million in base, $3 million in incentives structured very similar to his 2022 incentive package.

Otherwise walk away.

on top of the dead cap. Right? So, $11-15 million, with only up to $7 million being paid out on top of the dead cap amount?

Right.

You'd start with a $13.5 million cap hit for 2023 due to the dead cap figures from last season's restructure being added to a $4 million base. Then you'd have some per-game incentives that end up LTBE so they go on this year's cap as well.

Figure a 50/50 split on LBTE/NLBTE incentives. So with another $1.5 million of that $3 million being considered LTBE, it goes immediately on this season's numbers and he ends up with a cap hit of around $15 million in 2023 with the possibility of additional 'tax' being added at the end of the season for the remaining $1.5 million.

We have no long-term liabilities and can really just go year to year with him from this point forward.

I can tolerate that.

That give the Chiefs whatever small amount of regular season production they get from him and still lowers the cap hit. win/win

Best I can do is tree-fitty.


I kid, I kid.

I'm fine with a minimal deal to keep him around as long as we're not planning on him starting and playing majority snaps. We need a different ANSWER there. He can be the Dunlap/Ingram/Suggs vet off the bench guy.

Rip the band aid off and draft a DE on the second day.Use the cap space to sign a good DT in FA, somebody like Gaines of the Rams and re-sign Saunders.

That seems pretty reasonable and logical to me.

I’d still draft a DE early. It makes those raw bendy types with run defense questions more viable, IMO. The Will McDonalds of the world.

If you bring back Clark, you only need a situational pass rusher or developmental edge in the draft which takes a lot of pressure off. That might be all you need anyway, if you let Frank Clark go and start Danna in the last year of his contract.