1/31 Meck Mock
 

Tag and trade Ford-receive GB's #30 pick, Roger is 35. They're going all in to get back in the hunt immediately.

Houston, Berry, Sorensen- (Dirty Dan any time, doesn't matter.) June 1 cuts free up: $27.7

2019 cap room: Spotrac estimates $36 million. I've seen $44 and as low as $28 so I'm taking the median.

I re-sign: Sherman, Butker, Allen, Devey, West, Lucas. roughly $11 million total.

FA:
I sign Landon Collins, SS to a 5 year deal at $9.4 per. He'll be 30 when the deal is up.

I sign KJ Wright to a 3 year deal at $7 million per. He's 30, coming off an injury season so that's about right. A leader on field, plays SAM. Seahawks will move on.

I sign Chris Long to a 2 year deal at $3 million per. Veteran stop gap, high leadership quality, still had 7 sacks in 2018.

Draft: Chiefs have #29, #30, #61, #64, #92 in first 3 rounds, no 4th, plus 5, 6, 7.

#29 Jaylon Ferguson, DE/Edge, Lousiana Tech
#30 Deandre Baker, CB, Georgia
#61, Rock Ya-Sin, CB, Temple. Spags likes CB's early and often.
#64 CJ Conrad, TE, Kentucky. Reid gets a new toy with a #2 TE that can actually catch the ball. Hey, he blocks, too! What do you know.
#92 Erik McCoy, OC, Texas A&M. competes with Reiter day 1 to start.
#156, Joe Gaziano, DT, Northwestern. solid pass rusher, high motor guy.
#187 D'Cota Dixon, S, Wisconsin. Ball hawking FS.
#192 Porter Gustin, OLB, USC. Future SAM prospect.

with the June 1 savings, I extend Jones and Hill.

Collins, Jones, and the young guys are the future of the defense. Long and Wright add strong leadership, mentoring the young guys, have been leaders on strong defenses and still have a little left in the tank.
CB-Baker, Fuller, Ya-Sin, Ward (now a killer corps)
at S, Collins, Lucas, Watts, and Dixon is real solid and versatile.
LB corps with Hitchens, O'Daniel and Wright looks good.
D-line, Long rotates with Ferguson at RDE, Jones, Nnadi, Gaziano looks good inside, Speaks/Kpass at LDE is solid.

Added a C and a nice TE for Reid to play with.

And it would all fit under the cap. Most importantly, I didn't do anything to screw the team cap-wise in the future. Reasonable deals and as long as we draft well, we're in the hunt every year.

*I used Spotrac's market estimations for all FA deals.

While this would be an awesome offseason, I think your salary projections, especially for guys like Collins and Wright, are too low. I’d be surprised personally if they get rid of both Houston and Ford, but I suppose it’s possible.

I used Spotrac's market estimations. shrug.

Hmm. That surprises me.

Maybe it’ll work out that way because the safety market is deep but I’d think Collins can get at least $11M on the market and probably more.

I think they're figuring that the position overall is de-valued.

Wright would be higher, but he's 30 and missed 11 games last year. Not having the huge sack totals, too, although he's a nice all-around player.

I also didn't butt right up to the cap, figuring there'd be need for flexibility and signing rookies and reclamation projects.

My only question on this would be is it necessary to cut Houston to make all that happen?

Cutting Houston is $15.5 million to play with.

I suppose not if you wait to restructure either Jones or Hill.

If you think Houston is still a SAM at this point in his career I suppose you could not sign Wright, but I don't think he is.

If you think he's a DE then you don't sign Long, but honestly, Long was almost as productive a player at 1/5 the cost just last season. As well as being available every week.

Fair. Not opposed to cutting him, just curious.

Yeah, I mean, the more look I look around, the more I see guys in the 30+ range that are just as productive, healthy more often, and a LOT less money.

I mean he signed that deal coming off the 22 sack season, and he hasn't done anything like that since. He's a good player, but he's been way overpaid for his production and availability.

I don't think there is any restructure that gets his price down to, say, $8 million a year, which is about what his production says he should be paid. Roughly, estimating using the Spotracs market estimations for similar players production-wise in his now 30+ age group.

the other thing I like here is that Wright and Long have been champions. That's leadership that's worth more than their cap numbers.

You only get two June 1st cuts.

Oh. Well, then cut Sorensen tomorrow, and take $1 million off your savings.

*edited OP to reflect that.

Houston doesn't get let go. He is either a Chief or he is traded. You have to be crazy to think in this league Houston has no value on the trade block, age and contract aside he is still a phenomenal player that is, for whatever reason, undervalued by the brains on this board. If the Chiefs had any kind of secondary this season he and Ford would have had 25% more sacks at minimum.

Let's say Ford is gone, which I don't think is as likely as everybody else, Houston and Speaks wold be great DEs. Houston could also still be a great LB in the 4-3. The fact that both of those statements are likely true tells you that he will remain here because of his versatility and locker room presence.

edit: and while Wright will be a vet he won't provide a lot of leadership right away since nobody on the team will know him and he barely played last season. Which leaves who, Jones as the only vet leadership? I haven't seen anything saying he is looked at by the defense as a leader or not. Whereas Houston is absolutely looked at as a leader in the locker room. With a new coach coming in keeping veteran leadership in place will help with the transition (except in the case of somewhere like Pitt where it is a shit show that needs cleaned out).

Houston would be an excellent RDE, I agree. I don't undervalue him at all, I just don't think anyone is worth $21 million on our cap that isn't named Mahomes. Nobody's going to pay Houston $21 million, so unless he seriously restructures, I don't see anyone taking him on trade. Easier to just wait until he's cut and then sign him on whatever you negotiate. I'd keep Houston in a heartbeat if you can get him to a reasonable cap number. I'm not certain you can, which is why I chose to cut him and sign Chris Long, who was nearly as productive at 1/5 the cost.

Long has a ring, has played on several good teams and been a leader for a long time. He and Wright along with Collins would be pretty stable leadership. That's why I chose them. Long is obviously a 1 to 2 year stop gap, so that's why I drafted Ferguson to spell/replace him.

Sorensen played the game of his life against the Pats and Andy loves mormons. I think Dirty Dan returns this year.

not at $4.6 million.

I don't like Sorenson's cap number either but releasing him is only going to net us $2.7 in cap space. He is also at a position where we have limited depth and an issue with Berry. So again, are we really going to cut the guy because we have to have the 2.7M in cap relief he provides? I don't see it.

$3.6 million June 1st.

shrug.

The Colts and 9ers both need pass rushers, and would absolutely take Houston. If he walks you get essentially a 4th round draft pick for him. Either of those teams would probably be willing to give up at minimum a 3rd just to secure the rights to sign him long term. Ballard in Indy knows Houston is a solid player and veteran without an ego.

You guys can keep trying to cut berry. I don't see it.

I think there's two sorts of mock drafts, one is "what I think the Chiefs will do" and the other is "what I would do if I had free reign at the Chiefs".

This one fits into the second category, but it really is a good one, well done. I sort of wish you would have laid out the full roster just to make it easier to visualize. I think you have Williams Williams West at running back which I am fine with, but isn't the WR cupboard pretty bare?

Most teams would take him. Who wants to take him at $21 million? NOBODY. I'd love to keep him at $12 million. Doubtful we can get his number down that far.

He's 30. He's often injured. He's productive when he plays, but not $21 million worth of production. He's overpriced at this point in his career. You're not trading that contract. Plus, every team would know if we were actively shopping him that he's not in our plans; therefore they just wait until we cut him and then go negotiate a deal with him.

It's absolutely that. It's what I would do.

I'll bet we end up stuck with Berry and either Houston OR Ford, but not both.

WR room is a little bare and dependent on our bottom of the roster guys continuing to improve some.
Hill-Watkins-Robinson-and Dieter/Kemp/Pringle. I don't think Conley's better than Robinson, and we haven't seen much of the other 3. But, I think we're 3 deep anyway, and that's pretty decent in the modern cap era of the NFL.

But did Sorenson have a good game? He had a good tackle on 4th and 1, for sure. He had an interception. But it was a deflection that came right at him, it wasn't great coverage or skill or positioning he just caught a ball which came straight at him.

And for some reason lost in the mix is that he had several missed tackles and gave up 75 yards in coverage that game. Was it really that good?

'zactly.

He's JAG. You can get that for league minimum.

I can't even bring myself to retype it anymore.

You have to be seeing only what you want to see to base any kind of projections on that possibility.

I'm on board with tagging and trading Ford. I know pass rushers take a while to develop but I really think we get burned if we pay him. I could be wrong. I like this mock and offseason

Do you really think the Chiefs are going to cut him?

I don't. I think they're going to keep him around. They love him. Andy loves him.

Look, I'll buy the arguments against if you can show me one semi-official statement that his injury will preclude a June 1 cut.

All I've seen is speculation on this board. Whether it's a 'football injury' or a 'non-football injury' or whether there's any kind of clause at all that says you can't cut him without dire cap consequences. I HAVE seen respected media members speculate that he could be a cap casualty on June 1.

so while I am interested in everyone's opinions and speculations, there's been no definitive word about whether or not this can or cannot be done by anyone who's job it is to know such things.

I've even asked for some definitive word; some link to someone in the know who could say for sure.

Nobody's come forward with anything. My queries go ignored.

So until then, yeah, I think if you CAN, you cut a guy that's your 3rd highest cap number who hasn't played meaninful football in two ****ing years. Not because I'm pissed at him, or think he's a piece of shit, or a bad person; or because I'm frustrated. I'd cut him because he's expensive, and you can't count on him and won't be able to this year either.

So YOU can say we can't cut him because INJURY, but you don't KNOW THAT. You SUSPECT that, you're PRETTY SURE of that, but you have absolutely no PROOF that it's the case.

If you've got some, I'm all ears. Until then, let us have fun playing armchair, GM, yeah? Where's your mock? :D

Awesome job! Love what you've done with the secondary!

The one tweak I would make is that I would tag Ford, trade Houston for a 5th if I can, forgo the Wright and Long signings, and go DL with the #64 pick.

Everyone seems ready to let Ford go but he seemed like the only bright spot on an otherwise dim defensive season.

We'll know by 3/16.

Because they can't cut him at all with a June 1 designation during this league year. So they have to wait until that 3 day interim period between the start of the league year and the day his contract has an additional $9 million guaranteed.

I will note that most of those media members have simply flown right past the likely surgery problem. The fact that none of them have bothered to even mention it in passing suggests to me that they're simply not considering any of it. Just as many of them didn't when they were advocating cutting Dee Ford last season without acknowledging that he was not going to be able to pass his physical for his back issue in time to do so (and if you'll check the archives, I was saying the exact same thing regarding Ford then as I am now - those 'respected media members' weren't; they just don't deep dive as well as we do).

It's such a unique situation that it's territory rife for column inches if it were an angle any industrious reporter had considered at all.