Where do Chiefs & Chris Jones go from here?
After reports came out on Saturday the question is still when will he report?
Multiple reports came out on Saturday stating what the Chiefs have offered and what Chris Jones is looking for to get the deal done and to get him back on the field. How does that compare to what Aaron Donald got and where does that leave negotiations? Let’s take a look
It sounds like the Chiefs have offered Jones a 3 year $74 million dollar deal which really becomes an extra $27.25 million for the next two years in new money. Jones is scheduled to make $19.5 million this season and the way most teams value contracts is looking at the new money over the new life of the contract.
And here is where it gets messy. If you go back and look at Aaron Donald’s new contract, which is why the Chiefs are having a hard time getting this deal done, it’s a very different situation. The Rams had Donald under contract for 3 more years at $55 million dollars after their Super Bowl win against the Bengals. Donald threatened to retire if he didn’t get a new contract. The Rams caved and replaced his contract with 3 years and $95 million instead of the 3 years and $55 million.
That is how you get to a little under $32 million a year for Donald compared to what KC is offering which is still just under $3 million more a year in new money than Quinnen Williams at $24.5 million. The other big difference is if you go back and look at the original deal Donald signed, it was a six-year deal and they modified it with the new money, and it changes the look of the final numbers considerably. This would take his $22.5 million dollar deal for 6 years and instead create a six-year deal worth $29.2 million per year instead.
It was also reported that Jones is looking for a deal closer to $84 million for 3 years which sounds like $28 million per year. If we go back to how the NFL values contracts then Jones’ new deal would be essentially 2 years at $32.25 million a year and would beat Donald’s deal by over half a million a year.
When you step back and look at statistics, Jones has two seasons in his career with more than 10 sacks, both in “contract years”. Donald has 5 seasons over 10 sacks in his last 7 seasons or roughly the same amount of time in the NFL as Jones. Chris is averaging 9.28 sacks per season and Donald is at 11.44 while missing 6 games last year and being over 20 sacks in a season in 2018. In fact, in only two more seasons in the NFL Donald has almost 60% more sacks than Chris Jones and 103 career sacks total in his career.
We can hope that they figure it out and get a deal done soon. But based on reports, if they are accurate the Chiefs’ offer is very strong. What Jones seems to be asking for is more than any non-QB in the NFL makes in a season.
I can see both sides’ POV, but Jones is a “perishable commodity”. He’s gonna lose big money in the short run. Worse, the Chiefs can franchise tag him for 2024 & 2025. Then, he’s 31 trying to get a new deal w/ a new team. Every player faces the age 31 wall where multi-year contracts disappear. That puts him playing each of the next 3 years as a contract year. That’s not the worst situation for Veach & Co. JMHO.