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Originally Posted by DJ's left nut
How did he not 'saddle our cap'?
Clark, Mathieu and Hitchens are hauling around MASSIVE deals. Deals made possible by a cheap QB contract and a generational WR who had to take an ass-kicking in contract negotiations because he was stuck in a legal mess. Not to mention about $8 million in under-market surplus on his Left and Right tackles who were already here when he got here.
He hasn't put us in cap hell, no, but he paid the 2 marquis additions he brought in contracts that were at/near record levels. What's the 'finesse' in that? Where's the 'genius'? Especially when one of them also cost a hell of a lot of draft capital.
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The finesse is sticking with a strategy. Mathieu, Watkins, etc. were paid huge money because that's how you get a player to accept a shorter-term deal you can easily get out of. It may seem common sense to do lots of these deals with an elite QB on a rookie contract but Veach did it with remarkable consistency. Including a bold decision to wipe out Houston & Berry's cap charge. The Chiefs aren't saddled because Veach built in enormous flexibility because outside of the big 3, we barely have any long-term dead money to worry about. For a Super Bowl roster.
He did enough for a Super Bowl (the defense was no small accomplishment) and he's given us a great window for another 3-4 more years. And he built tremendous flexibility in 4 years when Mahomes' contract kicks in because we won't be saddled with any dead money. Sure, it makes for some hard decisions then. But we have a few years to build up young talent and we'll have tons of cap wiggle room by then, not to mention that Mahomes also has wiggle room to restructure his contract to get more talent around him.