How to play this off-season with free agency?

[Walt White]

I don't know the cap space that well so people smarter will have to tell me what we can do. I'm just excited to see how good this team can get. All the building blocks are in place. It's a matter of how we can supplement the pieces. And I know retain the big pieces is most important.

So assuming we can keep Chris Jones and give Pat an extension, will we have any room at all in the cap to make impact additions? Keeping Sammy looks unlikely. Not sure how many of our corners we can keep?

Even if we play it perfect, will there be any cap left to add some vet free agents? It seems like a pretty strong offensive line class in free agency if we could add one or two. Or if we could add an LB (although Hitchens make a lot). Or a vet corner? Trade possibilities?

I'm just trying to get a realistic grid of what potential moves we can make. I know hitting on picks in the draft will be the biggest way to improve. But if we can get some discounted vets or something, that could go a long way into having freedom in drafting more luxury picks.

[Kidd Lex]

Jones will be tagged. Jones will be traded. He’s a beast, but we drafted his replacement in Saunders the same as we drafted Hardman for Watkins and Fenton for Fuller. Jones production in the pass rush will be hard to replace, but we will be better against the run and save millions to invest elsewhere like the interior Oline. It’s the right play, the Chiefs have won without CJ in the lineup, and if we fix the interior Oline we protect our $40 million dollar man.

[Chargem]

Originally Posted by Chris Meck

Mahomes' big money hit on the cap is still two years away unless I misunderstand the situation.

You extend him, he's got the 2020 season on his rookie number, then 2021 is the franchise tag number, then the big hit starts 2022.

Anyone verify?

Anyway, we could be four SB's deep by then.

Franchise tag for a QB will still be north of $30m right?

[Kidd Lex]

Anyone watching the Chiefs knows the only time Patrick was mortal was when the interior line forced him to immediately abandon the pocket. We fix that, dynasty is all but guaranteed.

[Kidd Lex]

Originally Posted by Chargem

Franchise tag for a QB will still be north of $30m right?

By then certainly. Top 5 Contracts at the position averaged. Chiefs and Mahomes agent will never let it get there.

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by Chris Meck

What would Watkins cap number look like if you extended his deal...say three years and converted a bunch of that to bonus? I don't know enough about how that works.

None of Sammy's contract is guaranteed at this point so we can do just about anything we want. We could basically just give him a new deal and void the last year of his deal. It's definitely something we should consider getting done as I don't think we're in a position where we can give him $21M.

[Kidd Lex]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

None of Sammy's contract is guaranteed at this point so we can do just about anything we want. We could basically just give him a new deal and void the last year of his deal. It's definitely something we should consider getting done as I don't think we're in a position where we can give him $21M.

Watkins is done outside of him agreeing to a league average contract, which I have zero belief he will. His contract was always written to have him released after this season. Unfortunately when we signed him we had to overpay as other teams were bidding up his price, and at the time Alex was our QB so we weren’t getting any discounts on free agents. I believe that changes going forward.

[Walt White]

Originally Posted by The PMII Hypothesis

Anyone watching the Chiefs knows the only time Patrick was mortal was when the interior line forced him to immediately abandon the pocket. We fix that, dynasty is all but guaranteed.

Is there any good vets on the market that we could have the room to sign? Even if we draft one, that would put less pressure on relying on a rookie.

Is it ideal to get both a guard and a center? I do dream of what having the best O Line would be like with Pat and whatever other weapons we could add.

[Walt White]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

None of Sammy's contract is guaranteed at this point so we can do just about anything we want. We could basically just give him a new deal and void the last year of his deal. It's definitely something we should consider getting done as I don't think we're in a position where we can give him $21M.

I didn't realize he was only 26. Yeah, I think he is about to get paid actually. After showing out in the playoffs, I think we could actually get a trade for him. Maybe not a great pick, but better than nothing. Plus saving the full money.

I would love to keep him. I'm just realizing that he wouldn't take a pay cut in this market.

[tyecopeland]

I'm actually real bullish on this team looking at the spotrac data. Besides corner and a dt what we have returning is good enough to win. We shouldn't be spending much on free agents this year. Bring back Jones and breeland or fuller and rely on the draft for the majority of the rest. We have a full roster signed for next year already so while we have a lot of cap spent we are in pretty good shape really.

[DRM08]

Originally Posted by Chris Meck

Mahomes' big money hit on the cap is still two years away unless I misunderstand the situation.

You extend him, he's got the 2020 season on his rookie number, then 2021 is the franchise tag number, then the big hit starts 2022.

Anyone verify?

Anyway, we could be four SB's deep by then.

You mean 5th year option for 2021. That is about $25M. Franchise tag will be over $30M.

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by Chargem

There isn't any room to front load either contract right now. Front and back loading is also purely related to the cap, and nothing to do with when the guy gets the cash a lot of the time.

It depends on what you mean by frontloading. You can basically frontload mahomes contract in practice, back load it in theory.

Mahomes will get a huge signing bonus. You can basically give him gigantic base salaries later in the contract which will restructure into signing bonuses. It's a good way to get mahomes huge chunks of cash at different points in the contract without taking much of a base salary hit. A luxury you have for a qb you want to be here for 10 years, unlike a rb who you just don't know longevity.

If you structure the contract that way, you can give him big base salaries in year 2 and 3 and we could absolutely afford it. I like that approach because it allows mahomes to collect a ton of cash so that by year 3 or 4, he might be a lot more willing to take paycuts for the good of the team.

[tyecopeland]

Nobody should get front loaded. It's an outdated policy unless the new cba changes things again.

Unless you just mean cash payments. In which case, I think that's all signing bonus that gets paid immediately.

[Walt White]

Say we have to cut or trade Sammy. Does that about guarantee we keep Chris Jones, or do we still trade him too?

I would figure that leaves us with a lot of cap if we have to lose both. And I know we got some corners and D Line we got to re-sign. Which I still would not overpay anybody because we can't afford it for the future. But how much could we be left with in that kind of scenario?

I mean, if we can take any cap to add depth at multiple positions of need instead of overpaying 1 or 2 players, that seems like the better thing to do. Plus the depth from the extra picks we could receive. Unless I'm missing something and we still wouldn't have much cap.

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by tyecopeland

Nobody should get front loaded. It's an outdated policy unless the new cba changes things again.

Unless you just mean cash payments. In which case, I think that's all signing bonus that gets paid immediately.

If we're talking about mahomes, I like the idea. Yes, cash payments. Give him a huge signing bonus with a lot of base salary up front. Then design the contract to have huge base salary triggers later in the contract. On paper it looks like backloading, but in reality we're basically forcing him to restructure.

You could technically do the same by guaranteeing bonus money later in the contract. But I really do think mahomes halfway through his contract will want to Tom Brady this and take paycuts later in the contract if it helps boost the roster.

[Halfcan]

Originally Posted by The PMII Hypothesis

Jones will be tagged. Jones will be traded. He’s a beast, but we drafted his replacement in Saunders the same as we drafted Hardman for Watkins and Fenton for Fuller. Jones production in the pass rush will be hard to replace, but we will be better against the run and save millions to invest elsewhere like the interior Oline. It’s the right play, the Chiefs have won without CJ in the lineup, and if we fix the interior Oline we protect our $40 million dollar man.

Saunders is not Jones- not even close.