Why the Chiefs will pay a lot for Chris Jones
 

Good article.

Talks about how dominant he was and is

They’re gonna end up paying him

LOL. No SB win is predicated on one player other than the QB. Veach should not cave to Jones IMO. It will set the Chiefs roster back for years ...

Why the Chiefs will pay a lot for Chris Jones
 

The Chiefs already rewarded him very well for his play. This is just dumb. Also, it’s pretty obvious at this point they aren’t going to pay him well enough to retain him past this year which I think is the right move.

It'll all come together next week! (fingers crossed)

Part of me wants KC to trade him, just so Mahomes can further cement his greatness after winning the Super Bowl without KC's best defender.

LMAO

We don't have Bill Belichick running our drafts. We're arguably the best drafting team in the NFL, so our roster will always be fine as long as we have Mahomes and Veach.

Which leads into an educated guess at how the Jones contract situation will unfold in Kansas City over the next few weeks. He wants an extension in the neighborhood of $30 million in average annual value, per two sources with direct knowledge of the negotiations. Chiefs personnel executives, as evidenced by their roster reconfiguration last offseason and the Super Bowl that resulted from Brett Veach’s deft drafting and signings and cap management, are not dumb.

They know that Jones is a football unicorn, second only to Aaron Donald ($31.7 million AAV) in terms of elite NFL disruption specialists. It’s not difficult to argue, even, that Jones (15.5 sacks) had a better season than Donald last year (five sacks).

The Chiefs want to pay him, plan to pay him and should be expected to pay him—in all likelihood, before their season starts Sept. 7 against the Lions at Arrowhead.

Mahomes and Kelce. No one else on this team should make demands.

CJ is not going to sleep with you.

This is kinda what I don’t understand lately.

The front office is so good…I just don’t see it being an issue if they pay him.

LOL. Drafting well also means you have to eventually pay that talent. Bill was the master at knowing when to move on from a player.

BEARS are on the Clock

It would maybe make it a bit tougher to keep a Sneed or gay, but I don’t think it’s gonna make it where you can’t keep guys you want

Bill was the master at having the greatest qb of all time

Once that ended we see what he’s the master of

I agree. Veach/Andy are also benefiting from having Mahomes.

If contracts were handed out for past performance rather than future projections, this article would make a lot of sense. The issue isn't a question of his performance last year (or even this year) - it's a question of the 3-4 years after that.

And Jones has been paid handsomely and is scheduled for it again this season.

If he indeed is the unicorn the article says he is, the next 3 years shouldn't be an issue.

I guess we will see if Veach and co agree or disagree though.

I propose we create a sub forum just for Chris Jones threads

Andy went to 4 NFC champ games and a SB without a HOF all time qb.

There's someone benefitting from someone, I'm not sure it's one way or the other.

This + how the hell are we going to extend Bolton Gay Sneed Smith Creed when the time comes? This team is stacked with super stars and if they cave to Jones then more players will likely hold out. Brenda Veach needs to cover her ass on contracts . Didn't Dorsey get fired for irresponsible contracts?

I would agree. I would go so far as to say that if Andy gets 2 more SB wins, he surpasses Bill as the GOAT. Bill's record without Brady is a joke. 7 losing seasons out of 10.

They'll keep 2 of those 4 whether they sign JOnes or not.

Paying for past production vs future value is the key.

The only DT in the top five of AAV salary who is older than 26 years old is Aaron Donald and his contract extension already looks like a disaster.

Veach seems to believe so but he's most likely set a line that he can't go beyond in order to pay others. There's paying a really good salary and then there's paying insane money.

Veach doesn't want to pay insane money nor should he

For the OP.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">It’s safe to say the Chiefs wouldn’t have won the Super Bowl last season without Chris Jones. <br><br>Now they need to reward him for his play, writes <a href="https://twitter.com/GregBishopSI?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@GregBishopSI</a> <a href="https://t.co/fA90z6I72i">https://t.co/fA90z6I72i</a></p>&mdash; Sports Illustrated (@SInow) <a href="https://twitter.com/SInow/status/1695088710524493880?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 25, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Link to Article: https://www.si.com/nfl/2023/08/25/wh...le-chris-jones

Yeah, the longer he goes without Brady, the harder it is to justify him as the GOAT coach. 7 losing seasons in 10 isn't a fluke.

Unfortunately think a lot of it is due to his own hubris. On full display when he hires Matt Patricia to run his offense AFTER he's shown his ass to the entire NFL and unsurprisingly it fails miserably. Reid isn't immune from that either, hiring Castillo to be his DC when his only experience had been on the offensive side.

We already did that in 2020.

Yeah, and he got better.

I would imagine that's the issue here.

LMAO What. No he didn't. It took him 5 seasons to match the production of that 2018 season. 2 elite years sandwiching borderline elite years. Coincidentally it's right around the point where he's nearing the end of his current contract. Funny how that works out. And while you could justify paying him back then since he still had MANY prime years left, that's not the case anymore.

Our defense needs Chris Jones

And we have Chris Jones. For 2023 and 2024 if we so choose.

I dunno how Bill could have won a SB without Brady's massive 1 td/ 1 int postseason in 2001

I don't think it's a coincidence that once they got more pass rushers around him he put up better numbers. Contract years are undefeated though.

Everyone is acting like he's had shit years and 2 great years.

Dude's been a top 2 or 3 player at his position for a while and then has the best year of his career.

Quality journalism these days, I tell ya.

If I were the Chiefs, I almost just wouldn't budge. I hope they haven't budged for a couple weeks.

Not that we can't use Jones, but we can't incentivize players missing camp. And if he misses Week 1, we absolutely cannot incentivize players missing real games.

For a contract year which he knew he needed to do what he's doing now. You're looking too deep at one season instead of the body of work.

2019-9 sacks, 8 TFL, 29 QB hits
2020-7.5 sacks, 3 TFL, 28 QB hits
2021-9 sacks, 17 TFL, 8 QB hits
2022-15.5 sacks, 17 TFL, 29 QB hits

The data suggests that if he's not in a contract year he won't be what he was last year. Are the 3 years prior to last worth $30 million APY?

Literally said in my post 2 elite years sandwiching 4 very good years. Unfortunately for Chris Jones, given his age and demands, it makes far more sense for the Chiefs to just finish out his contract and apply the tag in 2024. His petulant attitude and what seems to have been a bit of bad faith negotiating won't help his cause, either.

The league was different then. Most forget that Brady went to the pro bowl that year in addition to winning SB MVP. He also led GWDs vs both the Raiders and Rams that postseason. In 2002 he led the league in TDs with 28. That is how different things were then.

You definitely can’t budge now. Especially because the only thing that makes sense is that before the draft they were thinking he was much closer to them than the $30 million he apparently wants now.

Well, to be fair, that is pretty much the case with any great NFL coach. Rarely does a team win a title without top quality QB play. Of course, Brady made a huge difference. But Brady also always had the benefit of top tier defenses in winning those titles. BB wasn't just some schmuck. It was a mutually beneficial relationship.

Bitch, please… we have all of our CBS on rookie contracts as well as over half of our receivers. Bill isn’t in the same stratosphere as Veach!

And older…

I get why you want to just give in and hand Jones a blank check. As a GM have to look at it as all players/agents are looking at you. You give Jones a few extra million what do you think all other agents are going to yell about? Snowball effect

Jones should be getting $24.5 million and not a penny more. Historically at the DT position the top players coming up for a new contract topped the market by $500k. Even Aarron Donald before his current contract that the Rams gave him.

Jones should get $24.5 million to become the highest paid DT minus AD. Veach even giving him $26 or $27 would and should be considered over paying. At $30+ million is just beyond anything rational.

The compromise would be the $24.5 Average with some incentive kickers on personal performance NOT team. Like 10 sacks he gets another million, 15 sacks he get another million.

OR just give him $30+ million for the hell of it and get ready for more hold outs from every player wanting a new contract because Veach shows he will cave.

Jones is asking for about 20% more than the highest paid DT not named AD atm.

ATM the highest paid QB is Justin Herbert at an average of $52.5 MILLION. Now lets say Mahomes, who has been a team friendly player decides he wants a new contract and be paid 20% more than the highest guy. While just like Jones we would all agree Mahomes is the best and deserves to be the highest paid.

$52.5M+20%=would be $63 Million.

That would 100% cripple the team to make a HUGE 20% jump in position value. Rams are crippled from doing this with AD and Veach should not pay Jones 20% more than the "real" highest paid DT.

$24.5 Million or bust VEACH!!!!!

Excellent post!

This is probably the best option. If he shows up now then let him play this year and then tag and trade. If he doesn't show up until week 8 this year, then tag his ass again next year for $24.5 million which is a huge deal for us.

The guy has zero leverage

Scary to compare him to Haynesworth

Paying $30 million to a 34 year old DT will be wasted money. We cant waste money.

If we were desperate, maybe. Sacrifice now, go for a SB. But that's not us. We will still be competing for a SB as long as we have Mahomes/Reid/Kelce.

That was grostwritten by CJ’s agent.

They're not tagging him next year at 33.5 million dollars, so unless he just sits out and brings that number down, it's kind of not worth talking about.

I would venture to say they think of him more of a guy that's not your normal DE and ages differently, but we shall see.

That shows a consistently great DT that occasionally has monster seasons. And at least we can look forward to his monster season in 2025-26 right?

I think if they were gonna pay him it would have already happened...

Yup.

If you pay for past performance, you get future ****ed.

Like Juju and Zeke?

By this same logic, we should pay Kadarious Toney a giant contract because his punt return won us the superbowl.

They lost me at "now they need to reward him". Put Greg Bishop on a long list of people who will never be a GM

I don't see how they could cave now. It would make them look weak, and it might encourage other players to attempt the same thing.

At least if Jones ends his holdout, he can save face by saying something like "I made my point, I'm under contract, I want to play, I want to win back to back Super Bowls, we'll take care of this next year," etc.

What would the Chiefs say? "We panicked."

Some of you are forgetting in 2020 Jones said he would just not play when asked about this similar kind of situation and commented that LeVeon Bell had told him about this kind of situation. I am just not sold on the thought that he will do things differently than his friend LeVeon Bell.

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.

This just seemed so simple.

"Wait until Williams and Lawrence sign; offer Jones a bit more..."

Done and done. Simple, easy, sensible as can be.

Then Jones and/or his agents had to just lose their damn minds. It's absolutely ridiculous.

Anyone arguing “why didn’t Veach just…” seems to miss that there is another side to the negotiation. There’s a great chance that Jones hasn’t been reasonable and probably hasn’t been consistent in his demands either.

I think his people lied.

Just flat out lied about Jones and his likely demands. They didn't want to see him traded and never intended to take a 'step up' deal over the rest of the contracts signed this season.

This may be the sort of thing that burns bridges with the organization. I don't know much about Jones' agency, but if they have other dudes looking for contracts in Kansas City - they'd better keep moving.

I firmly believe they have torched a TON of capital with this franchise. There's just no way they were up front in their demands this off-season and Veach stood pat.

And to be fair - they don't HAVE to be. There's nothing unethical about it - their duty is to their client and they may reasonably have believed this was the best way to get him what he wanted - to stay in KC and get Donald money in the end.

But i believe they've mis-read the room. I don't think the Chiefs are moving.

I can't imagine CJ will be around much longer

at this rate anyone thinking he is going to show up and ball out I think is sadly mistaken

show up and half ass is more like it, especially if he doesn't show up until week 8

wonder if he had some kind of head injury or something because he has lost his ****ing mind.

A lot do that shit is going around. Just mind numbingly stupid unless you are a consistently elite player.

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/v...er-report/amp/