Chiefs $175 Million Salary Cap for 2021: Ouch! – Paul Pulley

Chiefs $175 Million Salary Cap for 2021: Ouch! – Paul Pulley – With a loss of revenue a certainty for the 2020 NFL season, the League has set a salary cap floor of $175 million dollars for the 2021 season. This is a decrease of over $23M from this year. There is the possibility that this number could increase, but Kansas CIty Chiefs general manager Brett Veach and company should be planning on working with this number, and if it increases, well… fantastic.

The Bleacher Report sent out a copy of the memo the NFLPA agreed to and since the first two points deal with the salary cap, that’s all I’m listing here:

According to the cap tracker at spotrac.com, there are currently 14 teams with a total cap over the $175M for 2021. The Philadelphia Eagles are in the worst shape, almost $100M over next years projected cap. The Chiefs are 4th worst, at about $34M over, with 52 players signed, and of those 52, there’s a very real possibility that as many as a dozen lower end/practice squad type players will be cut from the team this year and may not even be a Chief at the start of the 2021 league year, unless Veach can re-sign them to future/reserve contracts at the end of the 2020 regular season. As far as the salary cap is concerned, removing 12 players from the bottom of the roster according to cap space, would add over $9M of cap space, reducing the overage to just over $25M, but also leave a need to add a lot of players to next years roster.

2020 Players in Their Final Year

This is an extensive list. These are players that either signed one year deals for 2020, or are in the final year of their contract. I have counted 21 players that are currently in the Top 51 that are included. These are:

We can now add OL Kelechi Osemele to this list, making a total of 22 of our highest paid 51 that are not on the 2021 roster. The bad news, as of right now, July 28th, 2020, there is absolutely no cap space on the 2021 salary cap for any of these guys. As stated above, the Chiefs are about $34M over the minimum $175M 2021 cap.

Finding Cap Space for 2021

Assuming our GM stops signing players for this year, there could be a small amount of cap rollover from 2020. Maybe as much as $5M. However, even if that is the case, and assuming the $175M remains static, there will be a lot of work to do to create cap space to field a team next season.

The three largest cap hits for 2021 are: Frank Clark, Patrick Mahomes and Chris Jones. Combined, those three will be consuming over 41% of the $175M 2021 cap. Mahomes contract is new and Clark has already restructured, so these might be set in stone. Chris Jones’ contract is also new, but he agreed to a 4 year contract with absolutely no signing bonus. Maybe this was by design, if Jones agreed to convert, say $12M of his 2021 base salary to a signing bonus, that would create $8M of cap space for next season, but would increase his cap hits for the following 2 years by $4M each.

Players to Release Prior to Next Season

There are four players, with a significant salary, on the 2021 roster that I believe we can survive without.

• The first is Eric Fisher. While Fisher is a good left tackle, his cap hit for 2021 is over $14.5M. His release would create $11.5M of cap space. Fisher is good, but he isn’t $14M good and he’d be earning almost $15M this year.
• The second is Alex Okafor. Okafor is a good DE, but his release prior to the 2021 season will create almost $6M of cap space, this is strictly a business decision.
• The third player I’d be releasing is Breeland Speaks. Speaks has done very little to show that he can play a significant role in this league, but he hasn’t had a chance yet in defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo’s system. If Speaks doesn’t show some massive improvement this year, his release would create over $1.3M of much needed cap space.
• The 4th is QB Chad Henne. QB extraordinaire Patrick Mahomes will be entering his 4th season as the starting QB and having a veteran behind him won’t be a necessity. Moving on from Henne will give us an additional $1.25M of cap space.

Converting part of Jones base salary to a signing bonus and releasing these four players will free up just over $28M of cap. That still leaves us about $6m over the cap with only 48 players on the roster and a new draft class to sign.

Players to Restructure and Extend

There are three players that I would want to restructure and provide an extension, if all three are willing. Unlike the four players above, I would hate to enter the 2021 season without these three.

• The first is Tyrann Mathieu. Releasing Mathieu would create $14.8M of cap space, but I would hate to lose him if he is willing to work an extension. Offering Mathieu a 3-year extension and converting $12M of his 2021 base salary to a signing bonus would still create $9M of cap space for next season.
• The second is Travis Kelce. Releasing Kelce would create just over $7M of cap space for 2021, but I don’t believe anyone, especially Mahomes, wants Kelce going anywhere. Offering Kelce a two-year extension and converting $6M of his base salary to a signing bonus would reduce his 2021 cap number by $4M.
• The third player is Mitchell Schwartz. Schwartz just restructured last year, adding one-year to his contract so, his willingness to once again restructure might be in question. If he is willing, I would do something similar to Kelce, a two-year extension and converting part of his 2021 base to a signing bonus, freeing up $3M of cap space.

These three moves would combine to reduce the cap number by $16M, thereby putting the Chiefs about $10M under the $175M cap. About the only other move that I can see that would free up considerable cap is a post June 1 release of Anthony Hitchens. A move that would free up $6.5M cap space but would leave the linebacker room almost completely decimated.

What’s a GM To Do?

Brett Veach will definitely have his work cut out for him next off-season. Hopefully the pandemic will slow down, we’ll be able to get at least some fans in the seats and revenue will increase above expectations, thereby increasing the 2021 salary cap.

I believe that no matter what, Veach is going to have to pull some rabbits out of his hat. I hope he has a big hat.

Will the League Assist?

A few days ago, I thought one way that the league could help next season, that is for 2021 only: that would be to have the salary cap, a soft cap, allowing teams to borrow an amount, up to a set point, against the future. After further thought, I don’t like this idea, it isn’t uniform for every team and in a way, rewards teams for doing a poor job of cap management.

A new idea that I have, that would be equally advantageous for every team, would be to leave the Top 51 Rule in effect for the entire 2021 season.

Paul Pulley — ArrowheadOne

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