Aaron Donald helped set the market for defensive linemen across the NFL when he got a new three-year extension worth $95 million following the 2021 season. His annual salary of $31.7 million is by far the highest of any defensive player, with T.J. Watt being the next-closest at $28 million per year.
Chris Jones is following in the footsteps of Donald from a few years ago when the Rams defensive tackle held out in back-to-back seasons, even causing him to miss the first two games of the 2018 campaign before the Rams caved and gave him the extension he was seeking. Jones has threatened to miss the first eight games of this season if he and the Chiefs can’t agree on a long-term deal.
Part of the problem for the Chiefs is Donald’s contract. According to Sports Illustrated’s Greg Bishop, Jones is seeking a deal worth about $30 million per year, which would make him just the second defensive player to reach that plateau.
He wants an extension in the neighborhood of $30 million in average annual value, per two sources with direct knowledge of the negotiations. Chiefs personnel executives, as evidenced by their roster reconfiguration last offseason and the Super Bowl that resulted from Brett Veach’s deft drafting and signings and cap management, are not dumb. They know that Jones is a football unicorn, second only to Aaron Donald ($31.7 million AAV) in terms of elite NFL disruption specialists.
Donald said recently that he doesn’t want any of the credit for the large extensions signed by defensive tackles this offseason, including Dexter Lawrence, Jeffery Simmons and Quinnen Williams, all of whom earned at least $21 million per year on their new deals. But with Jones’ situation, there’s no question Donald’s bar-setting contract has had an impact.
The Chiefs don’t want to lose their best defensive player for any amount of time this year but Jones sure seems entrenched in this negotiation, much like Donald was several years ago.
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