Chiefs Entering Troubled Time with Brown Jr.
Chiefs have a short window at this point to get Brown signed long term
A little over three months ago when the season ended I was confident that the Chiefs had their left tackle and he would be signed to a long-term deal before training camp. At this point, those odds are much closer to 50 percent than I ever thought they’d get to.
Franchise Tag
On March 7th the Chiefs tagged Orlando Brown, Jr with a non-exclusive franchise tag. Shortly after he was tagged it was revealed that Brown didn’t have an agent and that he was working on trying to find one. His uncle made some comments about Brown wanting to be the highest-paid tackle in the NFL around the same time as well but it didn’t appear talks had started.
Under the franchise tag, Brown will make $16.62 million in 2022 but that is a lot lower than he is likely to receive in 2022 under a new contract. If we look at last year’s highest-paid tackle in Trent Williams you can figure that Brown is going to make somewhere over $20 million a year going forward under a new contract. The question is will it get done in time?
Deadline Looming
The Chiefs and Orlando Brown Jr. have a little over a month and a half to get an extension done. The franchise tag deadline for 2022 is July 15th at 4 PM ET. If a deal is not reached by then, than Brown would have to play under the tag in 2022. There are incentives for both sides to want to get this deal done but Brown is holding it up at this point.
There are two big pieces of this puzzle currently. First, Brown doesn’t have an agent. It’s likely that in order for a deal to get done he needs to find an agent before the talks will commence. It is in Brown’s best interest to have an agent represent him with the team for multiple reasons. First and foremost though is to keep the player and the team from having directly contentious talks about his contract.
The second big piece of the puzzle for the Chiefs and Brown is when will he report? At this point, since he isn’t under contract he isn’t subject to any fines if he misses OTA’s and minicamp. With Brown being in KC in 2021 him missing OTA’s and minicamp isn’t the biggest concern. But if he isn’t signed to a deal before training camp he doesn’t have to report to camp.
I still think that Brown signs a long-term deal and that he will be protecting Patrick Mahomes for the next 5 years. The longer he goes without having an agent the murkier the situation is going to get for both the player and the organization. Let’s hope he is in the process of deciding who his agent will be before minicamp in a couple of weeks.