Doesn't look like such a hard task to rebuild the defense now, does it.

[O.city]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Hard to ask for a raise when you're still 2 years away from FA. If they wanted to give him a 2 year extension to keep him around for 4 years and in so doing give him a signing bonus that creates a year 1 cash bump, it could be done in a largely cap neutral fashion and take care of him for a little while longer. He'd have more money in pocket and we'd have long-term stability there. So you give him a 2 year, $22 million extension w/ a $8 million signing bonus maybe? So that would yield a 4 year, $43 million deal (when his current 2 remaining years at $13 million are added in). You could give him a base salary of $2 million in year 1 then 6, 7 and 8 years 3-4.

So in year 1 he'd get $10 million in salary and signing bonus with a cap hit of $6.8 million (2 million in pro-rated bonus, 2 million in base and 2.8 in accelerated bonus off his previous deal). Years 2-4 would be at 8, 9 and 10 respectively in cap. His cash payments in year 2 would be a slight bump from 6.5 to 7 and his cap figure would be effectively unchanged that year. His next two years would see slightly below market salaries but if we were to guarantee the salary for years 2 and 3, that would provide him incentive to take it.

It's doable and if you were interested, now would be the time given that there's still some risk of age/injury related decline. That said, he just had the best year of his career and he may be more inclined to simply bet on himself.

It's just damn hard for a player to hold out these days with the penalties associated with it. Especially when they don't play a high profile position and have 2 more years left on the deal.

True.

Just based on his social media and his wifes and his brothers, I think he really likes in in KC. Especially now with Mahomes, he seems to really like being with Andy. He's a leader on the offense for sure so I wouldn't be upset keeping him around. He's a stud.