Chiefs: The Franchise Tag, Trading
Players and Cap Implications
by Paul Pulley | March 7, 2019
Playing Tag with Dee Ford
Now that the Chiefs have placed the Franchise Tag on Dee Ford, with the 2019 linebacker tag number being $15,443,000, this puts the Chiefs salary cap in a precarious position and limits what the team might be willing to do in free agency, unless some moves are made to free up cap space.
A rumor surfaced at almost the same time that the announcement of Ford’s tagging was made, that stated the Chiefs were open to trading Ford. Just a few minutes ago (late morning Wednesday), a rumor surfaced that the Chiefs would dump Ford for a 2nd round pick. Interesting. I would prefer a first, but realistically, I would definitely trade Ford for a 2nd and a 4th. Any team that was able to acquire Ford in a trade would be able to work out a longer term deal with Ford and his agent to lower the 2019 cap hit from the franchise tag number.
There are several teams that could use pass rush help. First and foremost, the team with far and away the worst pass rush in the league last year, is the Oakland Raiders. Now, if Oakland wanted to divvy up two first round picks and a third rounder, I would make the trade, otherwise Gruden could just kiss my grits.
Teams that might make sense for a trade, teams that could use pass rush help are the Green Bay Packers, Buffalo Bills, Indianapolis Colts or the Atlanta Falcons. Atlanta currently doesn’t have much cap space to work with, but the other three are in good shape. The Colts and Bills currently have the 1st and 3rd most cap space, respectively, of all the teams. I was actually looking at all of this before the news came out about the Chiefs maybe settling for a 2nd round pick, because all four of the teams I just mentioned have two 4th round draft picks this year. The Colts actually have two 2nd rounders also, which coupled with having the most cap space, put them at the top of my list for a trade partner, asking for a 2nd and a 4th.
Can Trades Be Made
The best chance of getting a player traded is undoubtedly Dee Ford. Even though Ford had the franchise tag placed on him, and he will soon be 28 years old, any team acquiring Ford in a trade would have until July 15th to structure a long term deal.
Justin Houston is a different story. Houston just turned 30 years old, and while still a very productive, all around outside linebacker, he has base salaries the next two years of $15.25M and $17M. That’s a lot to absorb for a player that will most likely be released and hit the free agent market in about eight more days (it’s still Wednesday). The obvious scenario would be for other teams to let Houston become a free agent and then attempt to sign him to a less financially cumbersome contract.
Eric Berry, it would be fantastic if the Chiefs could find a trade partner for Berry, but with his unwillingness to play and his uninspired play when on the field, combined with his extensive injury history and his outrageously massive contract, I don’t think even Dan Snyder would touch this one. If the Chiefs feel that Berry can produce in 2019 after spending a lengthy amount of time doing nothing to fix his heel problems, then I guess we’ll see. If not, I am expecting a post June 1 release, if a replacement can be acquired in free agency.
Looking At The Salary Cap
The salary cap, as fluid as it can appear to be, is still a hard cap monitored by the NFL. I honestly don’t think anyone other than the NFL and the individual teams know exactly what the cap situation is. After tagging Ford, Spotrac has the Chiefs cap at just under $9M, while OTC has it at just over $10M. So if we take a happy medium, and say the Chiefs have $9.5M of cap space currently, and they are able to trade Ford, Ford’s $15.443M would disappear and would bring the cap back to about $25M.
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In addition, if Houston is either traded or released, that would free up $14M of cap space, giving Veach and company about $39M to work with. If the Chiefs choose to expand their cap clearing, there are five other players that could be released without much reduction in productivity. These are:
- Daniel Sorensen, saving just under $2.7M
- Eric Murray, saving just over $2M
- Reggie Ragland, saving about $1.25M
- Demarcus Robinson, saving just over $2M
- Chad Henne, saving $1.55M
These five combined would clear an additional, approximately $9.5M, bringing the cap space to about $48.5M.
Finally, moving on from Eric Berry, either now with a post June 1 designation, or simply waiting until after June 1 to see if his holistic healing measures show signs of being successful, would add another $9.55M of cap space. All of these measures combined, would give the Chiefs a total of roughly $58M of cap space, without creating holes in the roster where holes are not already present.
$58 million dollars of cap space, in addition to possibly adding one or two more draft picks, would not only go a long way in securing a couple of our young and upcoming star players for the long term, but would also allow us to find players that are better fits for the new improved defensive scheme.
Paul Pulley — ArrowheadOne
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