Let's talk about the Nate Taylor monologue
 

Nate Taylor, on the most recently episode of Time's Ours Only Weird Games, said that the Sneed dynamic is a punishment for both the Chiefs and Sneed, despite the fact that both parties did everything right.

They drafted him, they developed him, they rostered him and played him.

He did everything they asked, he had zero off the field concerns, and played for them at an All Pro level.

And now, because the marriage between the parties was so successful, he likely has the leave the team and play elsewhere.

I was thinking this over. And I agree, this is a less than ideal situation for both teams -- sure Sneed gets paid, and the Chiefs likely get compensation. But the best outcome would have been for Sneed to stay in KC and get paid here. That's just structurally unlikely, however, because of the restriction of the salary cap.

I also think that maybe this is the least worst way we can approach the issue.

Maybe the league could carve out salary cap exceptions for players that a team drafts. Or maybe even that a team drafts on the third day, to reward both sides for their development and hard work.

What are your thoughts on this issue? How might you opt to resolve it?

I listened to it. Personally, I don’t agree.

They’re going to part ways largely because they are electing to pay other guys that they’ve drafted and developed. Chris Jones. Trent McDuffie. Creed Humphrey. Nick Bolton.

You can’t pay everyone in this league, and I say good for both parties that they are foregoing a one-year tag to get Sneed his pay right now.

This is a business and because of the cap teams can only keep so much talent on high salaries. In order for it to work, both side have to give some. Sneed deserves and will get far more than what his fourth round salary was. But if he wants to reset the market (of which he has every right to do) that will mean he is gonna have to get it elsewhere most likely. The Chiefs can only retain so many players they developed. It’s why Hill is gone despite all KC did for him and his career.

I think there needs to be a separate cap for just the QB position. It’s the Mahomes impact of the cap that leads us to the problem and it’s a problem that’s not just related to the leagues best qb. Teams are committing huge sums on money every year to even just OK qbs. So maybe it’s time to do something different for the position. Encourage teams to draft and develop QBs. Give them space to develop qbs on the roster.

I agree. The league created this problem with all its rule changes over the years to make the NFL QB-centric which inflated salaries at the QB position even for mediocre players. The cap calculation should probably be adjusted to account for that fact too. The current state is not a great deal for people who play any other position, apart from pass rushers and the higher end of LTs and WRs.

Or, maybe quarterbacks need to stop resetting the market. Who cares if you're making $30M per year instead of $50M per year if it's more money than you could ever possibly spend? I get wanting to get paid what you're worth. But when is enough enough? And don't start about the owner can afford it. The teams not only have a salary cap, but a salary floor. And most teams are up against the cap every year. So it's the rest of the team that is paying that exorbitant salary in reality. They're either going to pay a quarterback $50+ million per year, or they're going to pay their talent in other places. It's crazy to me that quarterbacks are getting paid so much now at the expense of the rest of the team

Agree. And I think a QB cap could actually accomplish that.

I don't agree that QB should be exempt from the salary cap -- that just gives an unbreachable advantage to Great QB teams. And I know I'm arguing against my own self-interest here, because my team has the best QB.

Forcing Mahomes to do battle with a cap-strapped roster against, say, Geno Smith and a roster flush with investment is the only way to get a fair game most Sundays.

But the second you allow all teams to flush their roster with investment, then it's simply going to come down to who has the best QB.

And while the Chiefs would win all the Super Bowls under that arrangement, it wouldn't make the league very exciting to watch for 98% of the fans.

Elite QBs are worth what they’re paid.

It’s the dumbass franchises over-paying the average guys that’s ****ing up the market.

I guess you could try to combat this with a vet maximum salary like you have the vet minimum. It goes up every time the cap increases. I'm not really a fan of capping wages in jobs but it's just a thought. Course I wonder if Jones had taken his deal last year, sneed might have gotten his deal done last season before he got top of the market value.

A QB cap isn't a great idea either, unless you want to turn the NFL into the NBA.

The best players in the NBA can only earn so much, far as I understand it, with "max" and "supermax" contracts. So they can freely wander from team to team with no sense of having to stay here or stay there because they'll get paid the same everywhere, and the franchise is helpless to retain them.

The entire franchise is dependent on keeping the superstar emotionally happy (or in the Lakers case, hope there's endorsement deals that lock a superstar into your city), which is a silly way to run a railroad.

Well, the team with the highest paid QB last year just keeps winning the Super Bowl, so it's hard to argue that you can't win this way if you manage the team well.

Let's talk about the Nate Taylor monologue
 

A QB cap doesn’t make sense. What’s the cap on it? Whatever the current highest paid is? If it’s higher than that, say $75 million, why would the top QBs not just demand that?

Regarding Sneed, he is still allowed to play here, therefore, no one is being punished. That’s just silly.

This has always been the reality of a cap league. Sometimes players have to go somewhere else to get what they think they're worth.

But what 'punishes' Sneed probably helps elsewhere in the league. As they alluded to, there are maybe 30-50 guys in the league who are worried about the tag and what it portends. But because the tag is a thing, it keeps some of the salaries down a bit and in so doing leaves more of the pie available elsewhere.

As who who this 'punishes' - well....I'm not sure it punishes anyone. The Chiefs drafted and got the benefits of a great player on a rookie contract. Now he wants to get paid and will - somewhere. What's Taylor's alternative? No free agency? Annual deals and a yearly free for all for everybody? No cap? No floor?

Who's 'punished' by a market being a market?

This is one of those things that must've sounded good in Taylor's head as he was trying to be high and mighty but really didn't make any sense because what we are seeing is a fairly natural progression.

Mahomes is actually underpaid for what he’s worth.

How much money have the chiefs made since he’s been the qb?

This makes absolutely no sense. Defeats the whole purpose of the cap.

Multiple millions for multiple years

I wish I could get punished like that

It's a bitch being the admiral of the USS Threepeat. I want Sneed back as well, as you say, he has been exemplary on and off the field, but BV seems to have a better grasp on value than any other GM, and if he is confident he can more easily fill the CB position for $19mm less, it's a no-brainer, especially if they believe Sneed's knee will remain balky. It appears to be the formula of a dynasty, and it's hard to question.

Every 'face of the league' in every sport ever has likely been underpaid for what they were worth.

It would be interesting to see whos made the Chiefs more. Mahomes or Kelce/Swift

It's almost like quarterback is the most important single position in all of sports and having an elite one should come with at least one trade-off.

If the Bills were crying like this, we would make fun of them. It's why there is a salary cap.

This is all that needs to be said on the matter. The Chiefs could easily pay Sneed if they prioritized it. Sneed gets tagged but those are the rules of the game that the NFLPA signed up for.

If you want to take a look at a situation where guys are arguably punished, you'd be better served revisiting the RB franchise tag situation from last offseason. But here? Huh?

Maybe this will help Beyonce get Album of the Year. Give me a ****ing break

That's becoming a trend with that entire show.

Sneed is about to make more money than he's ever seen before and somehow that equates to him being punished. Just silly.

:spock:

If Veach had offered Sneed 13-14 mil a year for 4 years last year Sneed signs it in a heart beat. It’s Veach’s one major flaw.

Now Sneed did take a gigantic leap, and he’s going to be glad he was never offered

Yeah I'm on board with certain positions starting to have their own cap. You could blame QB signings like Deshaun Watson from the Browns, but there's always that one terrible organization that pushes it up for others to follow suit, like Deshaun Watson pushing Lamar Jackson and Justin Herbert to saying I'm better than that guy, when really they all have the same amount of Super Bowl wins.

Old angry boomer

How do we know he didn't?

There are rumors that the Chiefs intended to work on an extension with Sneed but the Jones thing prevented it.

Sneed was on such a low 2023 salary that it was going to be difficult to reach an extension that didn't yield 3-4 times the cap hit for them in 2023. After having already partially tapped the Mahomes contract (and having passed the time to get more from it) as well as having restructured Thuney, there just weren't enough levers left to be pulled.

Which is again to say - **** you, Katz brothers.

It really is terrible. Taylor is bad.

There isn't a Chiefs show worth a shit to be honest.

The price of success. Bye bye.

We'll be having the same discussion about Chamari Conner in three years.

When you have an expensive QB you are not resetting the market for two players. Any team that does is being foolish and yes Jones 30 mil per would rest the market for DT's not named Donald.

I've caught hell for saying Taylor isn't very good as a Chiefs insider. He's not a football guy, he's a writer whos in the right place.

Yeah that's just how a salary cap works and if we were fans of any other team it would be our only hope. Even losing Sneed, it's going to be really difficult for any teams to catch us this off-season. They need all the help they can get.

Don't see how it's a punishment to the Chiefs. You get a guy in the fourth round that plays at a high level for 4 years, helps win a couple super bowls while playing for peanuts. Then you get first right to give him the bag he deserves or flip him for a higher pick then he was originally drafted.

Good point. However, we should also recognize that it is the price of a successful league structure. Major League Baseball is dying because they have concentrated all the power into a couple of cities that can outspend the rest of the league combined. The NFL has a successful salary cap structure that allows all of the teams to compete.

As fans of a Kansas City team, we are most definitely beneficiaries of a salary cap in the league. We may face the problem of losing players because we can't fit them into our salary cap, but the benefits far outweigh the problems here.

To be fair he followed Terez so those were some huge shoes to fill. Having said that he just doesn't seem to understand the business side or the Xs and Os part. That's a bad combination. In essence he's just a guy who hears rumors before we do. He obviously had zero insight into the Orlando Brown situation.

This is the price of doing business... McDuffie is going to be the highest paid DB in the league in a year or two... you can't reset the market twice.

McDuffie > Sneed.


Get a top 50 pick and something else. Draft another corner - or bring in a vet like Xavien Howard and trust in Spags to do his thing.

Yep, good post.

^this^
The NFL won't allow teams like the Raiders, Steelers, NIners and Cowboys in the 70's and 80's keep their teams together. That what makes this run by the Chiefs that much more impressive. The cap doesn't only effect onfield play, but a team needs good solid back office to manage the cap and draft year in and year out. The Chiefs have decimated most teams in their execution of the rules/cap.

KC Lab is good.

I've enjoyed football way more when I stopped listening to all media regarding football. Its all speculation/sensationalist bullshit

Summing up...... Everything was done right but the outcome still sucks.

I wouldn't want to get rid of the salary cap. Baseball could be saved with one, but they are idiots. If we had a "baseball" type structure in football, Mahomes would have left after his rookie deal.

Fixed.

Also Verderame's show is good so far. Really insightful and his guests are top notch

I don't think any of the KC stuff is worth my time, or any more insightful than what I get here.

I listen to a couple pods on football and the content is just way better than anything we have here.

Players like Sneed don't want to take early deals. And why would they? Their first 2 years are marked by them being a good CB. Why would you not bet on yourself?

Worst case happens and he tears his ACL or ruptured his Achilles. Bashaud Breeland went through a worst case scenario and still made $9 million in 7 years.

A decent corner in this league is getting at least $5 million APY. He'd still make that if it didn't work out. Why not shoot for the stars if you're almost assuredly getting $5 million a year as a baseline?

The Chiefs are going to be good and win games late into January. There's no reason to not bet on yourself with the amount of eyeballs that will be on you.

The days of signing guys early is probably over.

But does it really suck?

Before Sneed was drafted, both the Chiefs and Sneed would’ve been ecstatic at this outcome.

Sneed gives the Chiefs 4 great years. Sneed gets to go get a big second contract somewhere. The two get 2 Lombardis together.

It’s maybe a little emotional because Sneed is a person and all. We tend to feel like we almost know these guys after awhile, but ultimately the totality of the situation was great for everyone involved.

He has a show?

Taylor didn't mention how you'd replace the system, and I spitballed a couple ideas in the OP.

The system we have now is, probably, the least worst option. Terez Paylor used to call it the "happy tax" -- when you're a great team in a league founded on parity, you're going to have your coaches poached and you're going to have to let a number of players walk.

It's what the Patriots did for decades.

He hears some often wrong rumors and starts taking them as fact. I'd actually like Nick Jacobs in a role like this more but I don't think hes personable enough.

Can't pay everybody.

That's the downside of being a great team and winning multiple championships. Everyone wants a piece of that pie.

Sneed is likely to play elsewhere because the Chiefs probably aren't going to pay what he's worth, unless he's willing to take a discount. Fans think he should so that the band can be kept together in order to 3 peat and continue winning.

A fans perspective is almost always gonna differ than how a player sees it.

The NFL means Not For Long, and Sneed has no choice but to get his bag.

Sneed wasn't a 1st rd pick with a 1st rd rookie contract making millions. He was a 4th rd pick who played far above his salary. This is probably his only chance to really make some cash while he's in the league. Can't blame the guy it is what it is.

Pat Riley called it "The Disease of More"

Riley made a decent point in that it can cut both ways. Yes, players want more playing time, more money, more attention, but they also want more winning.

Ultimately his point was that there's never an actual mountaintop. Mitch can say "The Chiefs have reached football's highest summit!" all he wants, but there's not a summit. There's just a peak on the way to the next peak. And on and on the carousel turns.

Let's not. I don't give a **** what he says

This is why I've always thought we should pay Sneed (and who knows maybe we will and all this stuff is just posturing). He came in and did everything right from day 1. He's a quiet leader, and he absolutely sets the tone on that secondary, if not the whole defense. What kind of message does it send to other players that we'll let you walk even if you do everything right and blossom into a star?

We weren't a particularly hard-hitting or good-tackling secondary before Sneed. If one guy is shying away from contact, it makes all the other guys that much less inclined to run through a brick wall. But Sneed does the opposite. He makes all of them want to run through brick walls.

Whereas letting Jones go to go somewhere else also sends a message that if you want a giant bag on your 3rd contract, it will probably have to be elsewhere.

The biggest caveat here is if the team knows something about Sneed's knee. Seems like he was always on the injury report. It might be bone on bone at this point. But you'd think other teams' medical staffs could also suss that out, and make their offers accordingly.

What they are saying makes a lot more sense when you realize why they are saying it.

How long is a show going to last if the host says "good for sneed, good for chiefs, good for the league"? Instead they need a more emotional response from their audience, something for people to argue about and post on message boards.

The perception of NFL parity is much greater than the reality. Almost half of the league makes the playoffs each season giving fans false hope, but the super bowl will often have repeating teams.
Then the talent of the bottom half of the league compared to the top is a lot further than most people admit. Fans WANT to believe their team is about to turn the corner.

That's the way I see it. Plus, he's already won two Championships. He has nothing left to prove. Getting the maximum contract should be his top priority for himself and family.

hard cap is tough to work with.

wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to do it like NBA with an apron and luxury tax with ability to go over the cap to sign your own player (i.e. Bird Rights).

not sure its viable with 53 guys vs like 15 on a basketball roster, but end of the day if we could go over the cap to keep Sneed, I think everyone wins and we'd probably already have Jones locked up too.

A soft cap would be a competitive disadvantage as Clark Hunt is not going to outspend these other NFL owners.

Nate's theatrics, screeching, veering off topic and interruptions are maddening! The juice isn't worth the squeeze for that guy.

If it wasn't for Seth, I would have abandoned the show a while ago. He has some really great, insightful takes.

Same. I mentioned it in another thread. If you put Seth with Nick Jacobs or Craig stout where they could really just talk ball that would be great.

The NBA cap has become a complicated shitshow of variable 'max deals' tied to revenue percentages, bad contracts being signed with the express purpose of offsetting other bad contracts to make deals work and players actually being OVERPAID by their present team because of the oddities of the Bird Rights.

The NBA system is not great. Now if you were to take it and make it go from covering a team with 15-20 players to 53+ it would be an even BIGGER mess. Especially when you consider the broad disparity between similarly situated players who play different positions (not the case in the NBA; a great PG is going to get paid roughly the same as a great C).

Nah - the NBA system just couldn't work in the NFL, IMO. And frankly there's no good reason for the NFL to implement it.

The NFL broke the NFLPA's backs decades ago. Why would they ever go backwards from there?

the NFL got a 17th game and the players didn’t even get another bye week.

It's Pat's fault for restructuring. We messed up a 10 year deal.

Nah, this works a lot like in business. At least, my business.

As a manager I recruited people out of college, gave them their first job, showed them the ropes and our process, they created things that built their resume and increased their value in the market. And then when they came to me saying they got an offer from XXX company for a certain amount, I often would say "good luck" and hire another. Or, the few rare ones who were worth it, I would get them the salary and or title to keep them there. Or even more likely, I was giving them raises and titles as they grew. My favorite thing to do was to give someone a raise without them asking.
But I let plenty of people walk.

I have posted about this a lot in the past.

NFL teams should have at least 2 roster exemptions for what I call Hometown Heroes, players who the team drafted, and that have been to X number of Pro Bowls or have X number of All-Pros.

Fans, and teams, shouldn't have to lose players like Kelce, Jones, or Sneed, because the team drafted well, and those players shouldn't have to leave their only team in order to get market value because they performed well on the field and the team was successful.

How would you define "market value" in this proposal if they're not able to actually hit the open market?

And how would you handle that with players who actually want to switch teams?

Obviously, free agents can go anywhere they choose.

As far as market value, I think that is hard define, and I should have worded it differently I guess.

But, I do know that Kelce should have been the highest paid TE for several years, obviously, and if he wanted to be paid what he is worth, he would probably be playing somewhere else. We are lucky that Kelce is different than most players, and isn't all about the bag.

I know that Jones deserves to be at least the 2nd highest paid DT in the league.

I know that Sneed deserves at least $20 million dollars a year.

Maybe a better way to avoid situations like this is to remove the QB salaries from the salary cap numbers. Put some sort of limitation on what teams can pay QBs, like say the max you can pay a QB in a given year is X% of the salary cap max amount.

Like, if the salary cap is $250 million, the max a QB could make is 25% of $250 million, but you still get the full $250 million to pay all other players.

That will never be known, and how would you define it? Merchandise sales benefit the league as a whole, NFL players in commercials benefit the league as a whole too. Now factor in that players might be considered depreciable assets as far as the business is concerned and what gets reported as profit on tqxes really gets skewed.

But doesn't the way the franchise tag is structured essentially give these players that kind of salary for the upcoming season? CJ would be the second highest paid DT. Sneed would make roughly 20mm.

Regardless, you "know" that Jones and Sneed deserve that. But what about a player like Christian Kirk who people probably had pegged at 10-15mm/yr? And then there's just one team like the Jags who are willing to pay 18mm AAV and suddenly that's the market for him? How would it have worked for Tyreek Hill when the Chiefs were willing to pay a ton but other teams were willing to pay a ton plus a couple million more?

I think the system is set up pretty well right now. The franchise tag is what it is and it creates longer-lasting relationships. And if that doesn't work out, then the player has options and the team has the ability to recoup some value. And that's what's going on with Sneed at the moment. (Jones is on his third contract so is an entirely different beast.)

If you create some system where you're carving out the QB or placing caps on them, you're giving an insane advantage to a team like the Chiefs who have the best QB in the world.

Imagine how good this Chiefs team would have been before Free Agency and the salary cap worth the way they draft? Yeesh

I think the system is set up well now, too.

However, I think fans should matter, too. The NFL wants to promote their players outside of the helmet, and players are encouraged to get out in their communities to make a difference.

When a city, and a fan base form a relationship with a great player, it hurts when they have to leave because the team was successful and the player was successful. In this situation the fans, and the team are being punished for excelling.

I am not saying destroy the system as it is, I am just saying that it could be modified with an exemption or two for those types of players.

Teams keeping players like Kelce, Jones, Sneed, and especially Mahomes, is a win for everyone. Literally.

The players win in that situation.

The team wins in that situation.

The fans absolutely win in that situation.

And when the team, players, and fans win, the NFL as a whole wins and gets stronger.

The way things are today, a player like DT would have had to leave KC and probably go to a less successful team, in order to get paid what he is worth.

It would have ripped the heart out of so many people if DT had to go to the Cardinals or Colts because we couldn't pay him.

Also, I am saying the players, to be eligible for the exemption, had to be drafted by the team, have a certain amount of pro bowls or all pros, etc. so the exemptions are not exploited.

I don't care that Ward left. I care if Chris Jones leaves.

Again, I will always believe that teams shouldn't have to lose true pillars of their organization because of the cap.

I hope we have this problem every year. I hope we have two players worthy of the tag and we are lucky enough to get good trade compensation for one of them and resign the other. That’s one way we can keep this dynasty going. Imagine if we get an extra first every year bc we develop talent through the draft. Yes, please give me a sneed and jones problem every year and let’s reload through the draft and continue to win superbowls. Go chiefs!

Really….. “it hurts..”. I just want to keep winning superbowls and getting more draft picks is the answer. How many times have we seen players go downhill after a big contract? Let him leave on a high note. Celebrate him and have fond memories but let’s keep winning Super Bowls.

The players don’t “have” to leave and the team doesn’t “have” to lose the players. Teams are free to place a higher value on emotional or more subjective aspects such as the community, the fans response, etc. in order to keep their players, even if that may not be the best thing for winning in the long run.

Fans should absolutely not matter in terms of who stays or goes or even who would recieve this roster exemption you're advocating. There should be no emotional aspect to keeping players if at all possible. Fans are far too emotional to be a voice in any of these decisions.