As the Kansas City Chiefs look to ensure that star players like DT Chris Jones and WR Sammy Watkins remain with the team in 2020, they anxiously await an agreement on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement.
General Manager Brett Veach has meetings scheduled with representation for both Watkins and Jones. Watkins is under contract for the 2020 season, but his high salary cap hit is untenable. Jones is scheduled to become a free agent and he’s a player they’re working toward retaining.
“Sammy (Watkins) is a guy like Chris (Jones) that we’re going to have a dialogue with this week,” Veach said. “There are certainly different options and different scenarios that could play out with him. He’s a guy that we do want back. These are good problems to have because you win the Super Bowl, you obviously have a lot of good players and they make a lot of money. Sammy is a guy that, as you mentioned, he’s been critical to our playoff success. Just having a dialogue, again, we’ll meet with the Katz Brothers (Jones’ agents) and we’ll meet with Tory Dandy (Watkins’ agent). We have a good relationship with these guys and we’ll sit down and we’ll talk about the landscape, where we are and what makes sense.”
Veach is confident that his personnel staff will be able to meet the challenge of retaining these players head-on. At the same time, the impasse currently holding things up is uncertainty surrounding a new CBA.
“Going back to my personnel staff, I also have a great cap staff,” Veach said. “Brandt Tilis and Chris Shea do a tremendous job. It’s challenging but it doesn’t mean it’s impossible. I think just working through the breakdowns and just the dispersals, a lot of this we just have to wait until the new CBA and see how that looks. It’s always a challenge. I think when you have guys as talented as Chris (Jones) and these other players, you’re going to turn over every scenario.”
Dispersal’s and how the Chiefs’ front office structures contracts will differ, based on how the NFL’s salary cap rises each year in the new CBA. You can’t look at the salary cap in a vacuum, with just the 2020 season in mind. In the proposed CBA, there wouldn’t be much of a jump in the first year compared to current projections, but down the line, there could be more dramatic increases.
Right now, Tilis and Shea are using the information gained in the meetings with agents and working through all the hypothetical scenarios. Once a new CBA is agreed upon, they’ll be able to further narrow down a proper contract for Jones and an extension with a year one restructure for Watkins.
According to a report from Yahoo Sports’ Terez Paylor, there will not be a player vote on the new CBA today, but they’re expected to vote sooner than later. NFL owners have already voted to approve the new CBA agreement.