For the record: what the Chiefs look like as a 2021 roster
 

Just listing out the players currently under contract for 2021 for perspective.

This does not include current practice squad players.

QB: Mahomes, Henne,
RB: Edwards-Helaire, Williams, Williams (RFA), Thompson
FB:

WR: Hill, Hardman,
TE: Kelce, Yelder (RFA)

LT: Fisher, Niang
LG: Wylie (RFA), Rankin
C: Allegretti
RG: Duvarney-Tardif, Durant
RT: Schwartz, Niang

DE: Clark,
DT: Jones, Wharton
DT: Nnadi, Saunders
DE: Danna,

OLB: Gay, O'Daniel
ILB: Hitchens, Nieman (RFA)
OLB:

CB: Ward (RFA), Sneed, Fenton, Keyes
S: Mathieu, Thornhill, Watts

K: Butker
P: Townsend
LS: Winchester

Could be worse, what's the cap commitment for these players?

I imagine we are looking at filling most holes with draft picks and low dollar free agents.

Hopefully we get some Pat Mahomes discounts at the WR position (Sammy)

That Hitchens contract is awful. He'll be in year 4 of the contract next year and still has an $8.4 million cap hit if he's cut.

Per OverTheCap:

Total Cap Liabilities: $193,764,129 <--- this does not include any RFA contracts

The cap this year is $198m. Who knows what it will be next year.

It's absolutely crazy.

My ideas in the neighborhood of:

Extend Mathieu

Convert 7 million of base salary to signing bonus and add on another 8 million to the signing bonus in new money.
Fully guarantee the remaining 7.55 million in salary for 2021.
Salaries of 10 million in 2022, with 5 million of that fully guaranteed, and 11 million in 2023.
This gives him 29 million in new money. Currently he averages 14 per.
He'll get 27.55 million fully guaranteed on what will amount to a new contract worth 43.8 million over 3 years. compared to the 26 million guaranteed on his 42 million contract over 3 years he originally signed and make him the 3rd highest paid S in the NFL.

Extend Fisher

Convert 8 million of base salary to signing bonus and add on another 13 million in new bonus money.
Fully guarantee the remaining 3.375 million in salary for 2021
Salaries of 11, 13, 13, and 15.5 million in 2022-2025 with 2022 fully guaranteed.
This creates 65.5 million in new money over 4 years and guarantees 35.375 million and makes him the 3rd highest paid LT in the NFL.


ERFA Tender Demone Harris, Alex Brown, Nick Keizer (Approx 675k ea)

RFA 1st round tender Charvarious Ward (Approx 4.7 million) and Original round tender Byron Pringle (approx 2.2 million)

This would put the Chiefs at about $181.7 million in cap hits

I would estimate it will take $10 million in Scrub Squad to get to top-51 player count (13 x $775k).

We can likely estimate net draft cost at $4 million. So, I'm estimating being at cap charges of $199-200 million.

So I'm looking at minimum heading into things as:

QB: Mahomes, Henne, Ta'amu (Scrub)
RB: Edwards-Helaire, Williams, Thompson
FB:

WR: Hill, Hardman, Pringle (RFA), Lipscomb (Scrub), Forston (Scrub), Ffrench (Scrub), Dieter (Scrub)
TE: Kelce, Keizer (ERFA)

LT: Fisher, Niang
LG: Rankin
OC: Allegretti, Williams (Scrub)
RG: Duvarney-Tardif, Durant
RT: Schwartz, Niang

DE: Clark, Harris (ERFA)
DT: Jones, Wharton
DT: Nnadi, Saunders, Hoyett (Scrub)
DE: Danna, Ward (Scrub)

OLB: Gay
ILB: Hitchens, Cobb (Scrub)
OLB: O'Daniel, Harris (Scrub)

CB: Ward (RFA), Sneed, Fenton, Keyes, Brown (ERFA), Hill (Scrub), Lammons (Scrub)
S: Mathieu, Thornhill, Watts, Clemons (Scrub)

K: Butker
P: Townsend
LS: Winchester

And I'm not doubting they give Osemele a deal if they can afford it.

Based on what I'm seeing, it looks like the needs are about
1. OLB
2. OC
3. DE
4. WR
5. LG (unless Osemele brought back)
6. ILB
7. TE
8. S
9. CB

I think you gotta bump up DE to the top of that list unless Danna is a legitimate starter. Even then, the Chiefs love a deep DE rotation.

I think in the draft that would end up being the position they take early. Probably 1 DE, 2 OLB, 3 OL imo.

They're going to take an offensive playmaker every draft, too.

If Danna and Wharton continue to play as well as they did against Houston that will lighten the burden on drafting a DE.

It's a really deep WR draft, or at least looks to be, so it would be a good year to invest another pick there (And try to solve the X position for the future).

It seems pretty likely to me that at least one of Mahomes or Jones will convert some salary to signing bonus next year to create some flexibility against the cap. Probably Jones...

Can we just go ahead and cut LDT in favor of keeping Osemele?

It even allows Wylie to stay at RG where he belongs.

Not going to solve anything cap-wise, it'll actually have the opposite effect. His restructure guaranteed his salary plus he has a void year. Everything is guaranteed at this point, at least the way I'm reading it. It's cheaper in 2021 to keep him and let 2 million of signing bonus slide off into the 2022 void year.

This assumes he comes back. It’s possible he stays retired.

Very possible, but I don't think it will have any different cap effect.

When they restructured his deal in April, I believe they fully guaranteed his salary (not just guaranteed for injury). This puts the Chiefs on the hook for that and his prorated bonus even if he retires. Now, the Chiefs have the right to seek arbitration and get that money back (Berry Sanders rule) and, I believe, off the cap, but they have to make the decision to pursue it. I believe they would and should in this particular case because he wouldn't be retiring due to persistent injury or age, at which point teams normally don't seek a return.

We'll have to see how it all shakes out. I still haven't read the new CBA to see if any of this changed, but I'm doubting it.