I can live with that.

But there's still a scenario you're not accounting for in your 'win/win' calculus that is the most likely outcome.

That he doesn't get the surgery, we don't cut him and he's STILL not healthy because he has a !@#$ing deformity in his heel.

If he got the damn surgery we'd be stuck with him on the cap but there'd be a chance we'd get some reasonable facsimile of 'healthy Berry' on the roster at some point next season. Now he's opened up the possibility of us still not cutting him because...reasons...and we still don't get him back healthy at any point next season.

No chance.

Cutting berry post June 1st gives us his 9 million then not when free agency starts

Eh, you are looking at this through some REALLY rose colored glasses there.

What are the odds it gets better without surgery? No nothing about the injury, but if that's very low, Berry is going to retire and as part of the settlement we aren't going to cut him until he gets his roster bonus. Really the key thing here is how often does this injury get better without surgery. If we don't know the answer to that, we have no idea what's going on.

If he gets the surgery and comes back as a physically diminished but still extremely smart, aggressive player, then he's still an asset. An overpaid asset but an asset nonetheless. He'd essentially be what Houston was last season - a guy who's getting paid more than what he's worth but can still help the team win games.

I could live with that. My preference would've been to release him outright (an option that is now seemingly available to us), but as a plan B, a reasonably healthy if somewhat diminished EB for the second half of the season and playoffs is tolerable.

But it sure looks to me like the Chiefs are electing to go with what's behind door #3 - pay Berry and pray for a miracle. That's not the best roster/cap management, IMO...

He had no pre-season training/games before he played against the Chargers. When you couple that with the injury ****le he was dealing with he was never gonna be the same Berry and I doubt any player would be their normal self in those circumstances. Give him the offseason to get ready and no injury setbacks and I believe he will be back to his best.

I can only go with the facts. Eric played three games towards the end of the season so clearly his injury wasn't that severe. Now he's apparently been told he doesn't need surgery and Reid said he expects Berry back fully healthy next season. Why not be optimistic about this? Why do we have to spew doom and gloom and be sceptical all the time?

Over/Under he plays 10 games next season with the Chiefs.

Ideally, he's healthy and ready to go all year with no surgery.

I can't see how that's gonna be possible though.

Gotta cut him

It's not a roster bonus, it's guaranteed salary.

If they don't want to pay him that, they can just cut him outright. Retire, don't retire - whatever, we can cut him and be clean.

I guess what they could do is come to a handshake agreement with him whereby he stays on the roster past 3/15 and that salary is guaranteed. Then they pay that salary in exchange for him 'returning' part of his signing bonus. When a player retires, the team can get a cap credit for any signing bonus money they are able to recover. So if by keeping him on the roster past 3/15 they guarantee him $7 million in salary but he agrees to return $5 million in bonus, they'd come out ahead a couple million.

But even that's a little beyond my knowledge base because I'm not entirely sure how the guaranteed salary works if he voluntarily retires. Nor am I exactly sure how the 'returned' bonus is applied to the cap (is it applied in the present league year? Pro-rated against the amount of accelerated bonus based on how that bonus is placed on the cap?). It's unnecessarily complicated, IMO.

Does anyone else get a 'Berry has gotten turned on to eastern medicine' vibe from the guy? I feel like he's out there doing some sort of alternative medicine shit and may truly think he's gonna get healthy now without surgery. If so, just move on. The team cannot dick around with this for another year.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Chiefs safety Eric Berry went to Dr. Bob Anderson for a second opinion on his injured heel, and he felt surgery wasn’t necessary, per a source. Berry expects to participate in all off season activities.</p>&mdash; Terez A. Paylor (@TerezPaylor) <a href="https://twitter.com/TerezPaylor/status/1100870432855650306?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 27, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Under.

You'd have to get that down to 7.5 for me to reasonably consider taking the over and even then, I'd probably take the under. At 7 I'd play the over and expect a push.

I just do not see how he it was impossible for him to play through a structure in his foot that was causing him agonizing pain last season. If he wast truly unable to handle the discomfort, then what's likely to change? It's not inflammation, it's a bone formation. It's not just going to stop hurting if he doesn't take some remedial action.

Drinking green tea, meditating and sticking needles in his scalp ain't gonna get it done...