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Originally Posted by DJ's left nut
He didn't really frontload. Moreover, the 'concept' of frontloading a contract to make space at a later date is an outdated concept in the rollover era in the NFL.
I wouldn't say he locked into a 'ton' of 2-3 year deals either. Watkins and Mathieu clearly fit into this category, but Watkins is EXACTLY the kind of 'easy' contract he could do because of Mahomes cheap deal. He wildly overpaid for Watkins and nobody can argue otherwise. He paid Watkins as a #1 wideout to go be a #2. That's no sort of clever cap management - it's have money, will spend.
And again, that's potentially laudable given the window he was in, but it doesn't speak to any real long-term genius when it comes to managing the cap. It's just overspending on a luxury item because he could. Okay.
And for the middle of the roster guys like Wilson - well that's just what players of that caliber get. The league's not giving out long-term deals to mid-level players.
Regarding Jones - what was 'brilliant' about it? His cap figure this season is going to be roughly the tag. He signed a contract a tick beyond the market Buckner set. What Veach did was fine - but it was market. It was nothing earth shattering. As for Mahomes - kid wanted to stay here and lets be honest, I'm going to guess many of those negotiations were done w/ Clark Hunt and whoever the team cap specialist is.
Name a GM that entered his job with a better foundation than Veach. With a better roster and organization that was set up for long-term success. Yes, relatively speaking, his gig has been easy. I don't see why it's hard for some to acknowledge that fact.
Veach has succeeded. He's done a good job. That's all without argument at this point because flags fly forever. But this is one of those instances where people are trying to place a higher degree of difficulty on what he's done than is warranted. NOBODY in the league has had a smoother path forward than him. Nobody. Has he fumbled it? Nah, though you could say that maybe a better LB signing instead of Hitchens and Fuller instead of Watkins yields us a title in 2018 as well - but the '19 SB erases those sins.
I'm just not going to pretend like Veach came in here and overhauled some woebegone franchise and performed miracles. This team was set up for greatness when he took it over. He made some very good moves to put it over the top but I don't think he's doing anything exceptionally difficult in that regard.
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He wasn't frontloading contracts for a later date. He was loading this team up with short term deals we can easily get out of. Tempting for him to sign blue chip superstars. We've seen lots of teams load up on a short super bowl window by stockpiling talent for a few years only to see the cap explode in a few years once the dead money hits. The Chiefs aren't at risk of that. Because outside of the big 3 they barely have enough guaranteed money a few years out. You may consider guys like Watkins as luxury contracts and overpaid. I call them stopgap deals.
Veach loaded our team with a super bowl roster while giving us flexibility to keep mahomes and jones. He gave us a new 4 year window without saddling us with dead money deals. That is something they couldn't do around QBs like Russell Wilson. And at the end of the 4 years, he STILL managed to build flexibility into the mahomes deal to build a team around him. Flexibility guys like Aaron Rodgers didn't have. We have to get a lot of things right but the table is set.
On the jones deal... The deal itself wasn't brilliant. But I don't think it's a coincidence that jones got a 4 year deal while mahomes took a 4 year discount. Jones is a chief because of the brilliance of the mahomes contract.