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Titans reportedly exploring trade that could have boom or bust impact | A to Z Sports
Sneed is a good player who has played well on a big stage (he forced a key fumble in this year’s AFC Championship game that helped the Kansas City Chiefs get to the Super Bowl), but his knee issues would make trading for him a massive gamble.
Giving up valuable draft capital to acquire a player who might not stay healthy while playing in a key role is a risk that probably isn’t worth taking. The Titans can find better value at the cornerback position through either free agency or the 2024 NFL Draft.
Tuesday night update on L’Jarius Sneed and the Titans
The Chiefs put Jones into a category previously occupied only by Travis Kelce: 30-something-year-olds receiving multi-year raises. Their evaluations apparently put him in another category they previously reserved for Kelce: 30-somethings who can still ball. Generational players, let’s call them.
Hence the wager. The risk, even.
The Chiefs believe there is a limit to whom they can play without, a limit to what Mahomes can cover up.
This is the first time this regime has stretched that limit to the other side of the football, and that’s just as telling. When the Chiefs traded Tyreek Hill, they had the Mahomes and Kelce fallback. Jones is the Mahomes of the defense, the axis on which everyone else spins. More on why in a minute.
The wager piece of it is whether he can continue to be, because the Chiefs have been careful to pay for future projections rather than reward past contribution. Their cap is such that paying a 30-year-old that kind of money almost has to work out. They do not have the funds to cover up mistakes. A supreme talent stays on the roster. The margin for error slims along with it. The Chiefs are telling us they’d prefer it to slim because of Jones.
3 moves Chiefs must make during 2024 NFL offseason | DraftKings
Invest in a left tackle
Wanya Morris was thrown into the offensive line in the playoffs and played well enough, but I still think that the Chiefs need the best offensive line they can get. Kansas City has Patrick Mahomes under center, who took way too many hits last year. Jawaan Taylor is a good player, but he needs to spend the offseason working on not false-starting every play. Donovan Smith hit free agency, and Kansas City needs to replace him so Morris can continue developing.
Chris Jones Contract Analysis: What’s Real in Massive KC Chiefs Deal? | Arrowhead Report
Chris Jones’s new contract with the Chiefs appears to be essentially a three-year deal with $95 million guaranteed, worth $31.67 million per year on average.
This deal looks familiar, pulled directly from one of Jones’s defensive tackle peers. In June 2022, the Los Angeles Rams agreed to a massive deal with Aaron Donald: three years, $95 million essentially guaranteed. (Donald’s deal gave him $65 million guaranteed over the first two years with an option to return in 2024 for an additional guaranteed $30 million, per Ian Rapoport.) That deal covered Donald’s age-31, 32, and 33 seasons. For Jones, his next three years will have him playing at age 30, 31, and 32.
5 former first-rounders the Cowboys should consider signing in free agency | Blogging The Boys
RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire
While the Cowboys have a similar RB already on the roster in Deuce Vaughn, Edwards-Heaire is a slightly more compact and bigger version, measuring in at around two inches taller and 30+ sounds heavier. He is also the more proven player at this point in their careers as both a runner and receiver out of the backfield.
Considering the lack of a proven commodity at the RB position right now in Dallas, taking a flyer on Edwards-Helaire isn’t a terrible idea. This is one of those low-risk, high-reward type of signings the Cowboys haven’t been shy about making in the past. And, signing and bringing him to camp for a “looksee” wouldn’t be financially damaging if it didn’t work out.
Around the NFL
Steelers to trade Diontae Johnson to Panthers, sources say | ESPN
PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Steelers are sending wide receiver Diontae Johnson to the Carolina Panthers for cornerback Donte Jackson and a pick swap, league sources told ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Tuesday.
The Steelers are sending the Panthers a seventh-round draft pick in addition to the receiver and receiving a sixth-round pick with the cornerback.
Johnson was the Steelers’ most experienced wide receiver and longest-tenured offensive player. A third-round pick in the 2019 draft, he is in the final year of his contract and comes with a $10 million cap hit to the Panthers, leaving $5.8 million of dead cap in Pittsburgh.
Calvin Ridley will be plying his trade in one of two places next year: Jacksonville or New England. According to multiple reports, the race to sign the wide receiver has narrowed to only the Jaguars and Patriots. Per ESPN, the Patriots are pushing for him, but believe Ridley prefers to remain in Jacksonville. New England are still keeping its offer on the table for Ridley, according to CBS Sports HQ senior NFL insider Josina Anderson.
Ridley, who will turn 30 years old late in 2024 and is likely looking for his last big pay day, played last season with the Jaguars after they acquired him from the Atlanta Falcons in 2022 in exchange for conditional fourth- and sixth-round picks while Ridley served a suspension for violating the NFL’s gambling policy. He finished the season with 76 catches for 1,016 yards and 8 touchdowns, operating for most of the year as Trevor Lawrence’s No. 1 receiver.
In case you missed it on Arrowhead Pride
Chiefs open $21.6 million cap space from Patrick Mahomes’ contract
On Tuesday, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that the Chiefs had “restructured” Mahomes’ contract to create $21.6 million in cap space.
But that’s not really the right word for what Veach did.
“Restructured” typically means taking the base salary due to a player over an NFL season and paying all of it to them before the season begins. Then, it can be considered a signing bonus whose impact on the salary cap may be spread over the life of the contract — but never more than five years.
“Restructured” can also mean creating a contract extension to do essentially the same thing.
But those things require getting the player (and their agent) involved in a negotiation; you’re changing the terms to which the player and the team agreed. While these are almost always the simplest negotiations imaginable — “Say, do you mind if we write you a check for your whole year’s salary today?” — there’s still a process that must be followed.
But since most of Mahomes’ compensation comes from roster bonuses that are paid to him on specific dates, Veach doesn’t have to bother himself with any of that. He and Mahomes have already agreed that at any time before a specific date every year, the Chiefs can simply change how that money (or a portion of it) is counted under the salary cap.
So on Tuesday, all Veach had to do was send a note to the league office, explaining that Mahomes’ $34.9 million roster bonus for 2024 has been reduced to just $7.9 million — and that in 2024, Mahomes is being paid a signing bonus of $27 million. This means that just one-fifth of that amount ($5.4 million) counts against the team’s salary cap — not only in 2024, but also in each of the next four years.