How the Chiefs Can Clear Cap Space

Assuming Chris Jones is not signed to an extension by next Tuesday

As we sit here waiting for the regular season to start the final cut-down day is a week away. While it seemed like an issue that should be worked out after all of the other defensive tackles signed extensions, here we are. As of this writing the Chiefs are currently about $750,000 under the salary cap for 2023. Currently, they have only the top 51 players counting against their cap space but once final cuts happen they will have to be completely under the salary cap.

After cuts

Looking at Over the Cap the Chiefs will probably be at a wash with their cuts on final cut-down day. They may gain about $1,000,000 with younger cheaper players on the roster but that will still not be enough to count for the additional two players and Omenihu going to the suspended list. With just minimum cap players you are looking at needing probably another one to two million to get your roster to the 53-player minimum. That also doesn’t count for any moves to add more players to the roster if you send players to IR the day after cuts.

Kansas City also needs to add about $3.614 million to be able to have their practice squad signed for the entire season. They also generally want to go into the season with close to $5 million in cap space. So where does that leave the Chiefs?

Creating Space

Roughly, Kansas City needs to find a way to create around $10 million dollars of cap space to have all the players on the roster plus the practice squad. If you remove the original ~ $750,000 they still need to free up close to close to $9.5 million in order to be able to function for the season.

How do they create close to $10 million in cap space? The easiest place to get the cap space would be to convert most of Joe Thuney’s base salary into a roster bonus that they can spread over the next couple of seasons. Thuney’s salary for 2023 is $15,000,000 and it’s fully guaranteed so they have the ability to create the entire amount they need for 2023. This of course will cause Thuney to have a cap number of over $27 million in 2024 and 2025.

There are several other players that they could combine to make cap space available if they wanted to. Travis Kelce, Justin Reid, Marques Valdez-Scantling and they could adjust Mahomes’ salary as well if they absolutely needed to. Adjusting Patrick’s contract should be a last-ditch effort though as they will likely need to move more of his bonus money forward in the coming years anyway.

What do you think?