Making room for Chris Jones.
 

Just showing my math in this thread. Feel free to ignore.

The biggest challenge in getting Jones inked is 2021, an unpredictable year and one in which the Chiefs are in the lower third in the league in cap space prior to making Jones the 2nd or 3rd richest DT in the league.

So assuming the salary cap stays relatively steady for 2021, rather than collapses $70m, the Chiefs currently have $35m in cap space in 2021 after the Mahomes megadeal.

I did a little math and I think that we can ink Chris Jones and all of our draft picks and increase that to about $45-50m in 2021. We'll end up with holes that we'll have to plug at WR and DE, especially, but the core will remain in place.

1. Sign Chris Jones right now, to a deal that slices down his current cap number about $8m, but will carry a $20m cap hit in 2021. -20m

2. Assume the rookies this year and next year will swallow up about $12m in combined contracts. (None of our rookies this year have signed yet and thus are not factored into next year's cap, so combine their ~$6m with next year's ~$6m.) -12m

3. Let walk the following players: no change

RB Damien Williams
FB Anthony Sherman
WR Sammy Watkins
WR Demarcus Robinson
TE Ricky Seals-Jones
C Austin Reiter
DT Mike Pennel
DE Tanoh Kpassgnon
LB Damien Wilson
CB Bashaud Breeland
S Daniel Sorensen

4. Cut the following players: +12m

DE Alex Okafor ($8m in cap space created)
OG Laurent Duvarney-Tardif ($4m in cap space created)

5. Do not cut or trade these often-mentioned cut/trade candidates: no change

OT Eric Fisher (would save you $11m but is just too important to the team's success, unless Niang absolutely takes off)
ILB Anthony Hitchens (isn't a great player but our LB depth is horrific and it would only save us $2m)

6. Extend the following players, all in the last year of their contract in 2021: +25m

S Tyrann Matthieu (2021 cap hit is $20m)
OT Mitchell Schwartz (2021 cap hit is $10m)
TE Travis Kelce (2021 cap hit is $9m)

7. Roll over the remaining cap space from the 2020 season. +5-8m

That leaves us with the following holes:

WR (only Hill & Hardman remain, maybe Pringle)
TE (only Kelce remains)
DE (only Clark and Danna remain, maybe Speaks)
LB (no starting SOLB, need depth everywhere)
CB (lots of young promise here, but only Ward & Fenton are proven)

We will have $45-50m in cap space and 8 draft picks to fill those holes.

Seems kind of risky on items 3 and 4 to let one fourth of our roster go, and one third or our starters, just to keep one player.

No point having a ton of cap space and letting a load of cheap guys go, may as well keep the 1 year contract roundabout going for Sherman, Robinson, Pennel, Seals-Jones and then add Sorenson and maybe Wilson/Reiter to the 1 year deal club, depending on how they play, who you can target in the draft etc.

Probably better to have all those guys and 35m cap space than not have them and have 45m cap space.

I think that’s fair.

This.

Plus you have to factor in the draft picks next year as well.

Already did in the OP.

I’m talking about factoring in rookies that are drafted to fill holes.