Last year, the Chiefs were unwilling to go near the Aaron Donald salary range for Chris Jones, attempting to pay him in line with the younger crop of defensive tackles extended in 2023. With Jones on the cusp of free agency, the team relented. And some big numbers are coming out as a result.
Saturday night’s Chiefs-Jones agreement produced a new interior D-line AAV record and a new guarantee standard — the latter by a massive margin. Jones agreed to a five-year, $158.75MM deal, Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio reports. That comes out to $31.75MM per year, a significant number due to Donald’s $31.67MM accord leading the way at the position previously.
It does not appear that previous $95MM number represents a full guarantee, but it does double as a practical guarantee. The Chiefs will revisit the rolling guarantee structure they used for Patrick Mahomes with Jones. The team would have to cut Jones in 2025 to avoid the $95.3MM guarantee, Florio adds. Guaranteed at signing: a $30MM signing bonus, Jones’ 2024 and 2025 salaries ($1.25MM, $13.75MM) and a $15MM 2025 roster bonus. The rest of Jones’ guarantees are in place to vest in 2025.
Jones’ 2026 salary ($19MM) is guaranteed for injury at signing but becomes fully guaranteed on Day 3 of the 2025 league year. The future Hall of Fame D-tackle will be due a $16MM roster bonus in 2025. This is classified as a 2026 roster bonus, but KPRC2’s Aaron Wilson indicates it is guaranteed for injury already and will be guaranteed fully if Jones is on the Chiefs’ roster on Day 3 of the 2025 league year. The Chiefs have turned to this year-out guarantee on multiple fronts with Jones, who should be set to pick up the second bonus as well.
The contract shifts to a more traditional structure after Year 3. If Jones is still on the Chiefs’ roster as of Day 3 of the 2027 league year, $3MM of his 2027 base salary ($28.25MM) will become guaranteed. Jones’ 2028 base salary ($35MM) is nonguaranteed. This deal almost definitely will not be an active contract by 2028.
Jones has a clear path to securing $95.3MM in guarantees by 2025. For reference, Donald received $46.5MM of his 2022 raise guaranteed at signing. Though, the Rams icon only agreed to a three-year deal. Jones signing a five-year contract helped on this front.
It is safe to assume the Chiefs would not have needed to go near this guarantee place had they agreed to pay Jones last year — before the historic cap spike occurred. But the threat of Jones’ departure looks to have changed the Chiefs’ thinking, and the longtime DT standout’s quality contract year — one that led the way in another Super Bowl win, as Kansas City’s offense regressed — set himself up for this monumental payday.
He went out and proved he deserved what he was asking for. Kudos to him.
The Chiefs have the same cap that the other teams have, right? It will be interesting to see how they can help their offense improve with so many resources committed to so few players.
They get extra cap space because of bundling. Seriously though, they are now a good $5M over the cap, which they will have to fix by Wednesday. They are $8M over to be able to sign draft picks. The good news is that they have 59 players under contract, so look for some cuts coming. The bad news, is it will be very difficult to negotiate a deal with Sneed given their current situation.