Yeah, here's my long-ass review on that from a different thread:
Spoiler!
The Chiefs have, with rollover, an 'adjusted cap' of $222 million. Let's just go to $220 million because there are probably some incentives that will trigger by the end of the year.
They have $198 million in commitments for next season ($190 plus about $8 million in dead money).
If they cut Watkins, that gets them another $14 million. A post June 1 cut of Hitchens frees up another $8 million. Cutting LDT frees up $5 million, Sorensen $3.75 million, Erving $4.6 million, Damien Williams $2.3 million and Colquitt $2 million.
So let's just cut all of 'em. That would free up another $39 million in space. The dead money charge for 2021 wouldn't be a lot of fun but you're 'forward funding' it by clearing rollover for next season. You're probably taking about $7 million off of that due to draft picks; we'll round down to $6 though.
All told the Chiefs could get to about $55 million in cap space for next season without any real long-term damage done. Now they'd do that without a swing tackle, no Jones, no starting LG, no MLB, no starting RB and only a couple of CBs under contract and little/no DL depth, but it's possible. If you presume they add 7 draft picks to the roster, that would also only have them at 40 players.
So with that $55 million let's assume they've added a CB in the 1st round. They'll need to find a couple of starting LBs, a potential starting CB, a couple of solid veteran CBs, a starting RB, a starting G, at least one starting LB (potentially 2 as Ragland and Lee are gone as well; Wilson's the only holdover starter at that point).
Let's say you need to add 6 guys who are either starters or at least guys like Okafor who are 'starter capable'. Would you say it's fair to average those sorts of guys at roughly $6 million/per? Let's be optimistic and say $5 million per. That soaks up about $30 million of that and you probably haven't added a single 'difference maker' in that lot; that's a whole lot of Okafor level talent you'd be adding.
So now you're up to 46 players with those additions AND draft picks. You're down to roughly $25 million in cap space. At that point you're really doing anything you can with Mahomes and his camp to ensure that his extension doesn't start until the 2021 season. He might do it - but he might not. It's just money he's leaving on the table. If he insists on ripping up the 4th year of his deal on an extension, you're adding at least $20 million to the cap and that's if you're fortunate enough to get his year 1 hit down to $25 million (in lieu of his existing $20 million).
Now you're just filling in the roster with minimum level guys. So unless you're going to bring back some of the above options in your '$5 million/season' pool, most if not all of them are gone.
We're essentially seeing the same thing.
There's not a lot of wiggle on this roster for next season at all. At best you're looking a a 40 man roster w/ $50 million in cap space and holes EVERYWHERE. And no Chris Jones.
The 'work' Veach has done the last 2 offseasons has landed this team directly in a shitty cap situation and has yielded next to no positive returns. When Mathieu at about 40% more than you'd have needed to pay him a year prior is the BEST outcome of your recent ventures into big-money deals, you really need to reconsider your approach.
Because Mathieu isn't even going to live up to his deal, let alone the other guys we've brought in.
12-25-2019, 08:26 PM
This aged well
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