Chris Jones - Making Him the Highest Paid Defender in the League

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Why couldn't we do it? Khalil Mack, the highest paid defensive player in the league right now had cap hits of $13.8 mil in yr 1 of his new deal and $11.9 mil in yr 2. Macks avg yearly salary is $23.5 mil per year.

Veach doesn't seem to like giving guys contracts past the age of 30, so I could see him doing a 5 yr $120 mil deal. That keeps Jones in KC until age 30 and we get all his prime years and don't run the risk of having to pay him a ton of money after he's 30. Him being a 2nd rounder is going to help him in negotiating.

If we structure the contract so that his cap hit is $13 mil in year 1 and $15 mil in year 2, we have him cheap when we are tight with the cap this year and then next year there should be a decent jump in the cap and we're not out $8 mil because of Eric Berrys dead money. The cap should raise significantly for the remaining 3 years of his contract and it wont burden us with trying to get other good players.

There are several factors that should allow him to become the highest paid defender in the league.

1. He is an absolute beast. I am higher on his run D than most, but no one can argue that he is not, at worst, the 2nd best pass rushing interior lineman in the league. Personally, I put him right next to Aaron Donald when it comes to pass rushing. Now someone smarter than me correct me please, but has there ever been a better pass rusher at that position than those 2? His impact in the Super Bowl will be a big bargaining chip for him during negotiations as well

2. He is only 25 years old. Veach is smart. He doesn't like giving out big money to old guys and he's not going to extend guys into the twilight of their careers and pay them tons of money. Luckily for Chris Jones he is only 25 and a 5 year deal puts him at 30 years old. Veach wants to keep guys that still have their best years ahead of him and the prime age for a DT is 28 according to PFF, so that means in theory we haven't even seen the best Chris Jones and Brett Veach isn't going to just let that walk away.

3. The new CBA. When the top paid defenders signed their deals there were only 16 regular season game and now neverything is pointing to a 17 game regular season, so contracts are going to reflect that. Prior to the news about the newest CBA coming a year early my best guess was that CJ was going to get $21.5 mil a year from the Chiefs, since Frank Clark is basically getting $21 mil a year. $21.5 mil a year breaks down to $1.34 mil per regular season game, so that extra game should pay an additional $1.34 mil a year and that alone puts CJs yearly avg to just under $23 million a year. That hasn't even taken into account the increase in the percentage of profit the players are getting.

Chris Jones is one of my favorite players on the team and is probably my favorite player on the defense. I hope we keep him even if we have to pay him more money per year than any other defender in the history of the league. My love for Chris Jones may cloud my judgement and make me irrational and I may be completely wrong in my train of thought, but I dont think signing Jones long term is detrimental to the future success of this team whatsoever. I actually believe it would be insanely stupid and detrimental to let a generational talent like Chris Jones walk because we got some draft picks for him. Chris Jones's skills are only matched by one other player at his position and those 2 may be the best pass rushers we have ever seen at d tackle and I don't think anyone else is even close. You can't replace his production and trading him is an awful idea.