Author: Sam Robinson

As the situations involving Odell Beckham Jr., Russell Wilson and others illustrated, team power brokers insisting no trade will take place can be a precursor to a trade indeed coming to fruition. As Chris Jones‘ Chiefs holdout heads toward two weeks, GM Brett Veach addressed the situation.

Jones is entering the final season of a four-year, $80MM Chiefs contract, but as the defensive tackle market shifted this offseason, the four-time Pro Bowler is now ninth in terms of AAV at his position. As Jones holds out, Veach expressed a desire for the All-Pro defensive tackle to finish his career in Kansas City.

“I think for all parties, I think the best resolution would be for him to end his career as a Chief — and get that financial security — and for us to do what we had set out to do, and that’s to work through last offseason with this offseason in mind and get some young guys, which we did that, and then focus on this year and getting Chris done,” Veach said, via the Kansas City Star’s Jesse Newell. “Hopefully we get this resolved, but we have no intentions of making a trade.”

Since Veach has been in the GM chair, the Chiefs have not shied away from big-ticket trades. In 2019, they swapped Dee Ford in a tag-and-trade deal with the 49ers. A month later, they were on the other end of a tag-and-trade transaction — the Frank Clark deal with the Seahawks. In 2021, the Chiefs put together a trade package headlined by a first-round pick for Orlando Brown Jr. Last year’s Tyreek Hill trade — for a five-asset Dolphins package — is the most pertinent to the Jones matter.

The Chiefs begun negotiations with Hill on a third contract early in the 2022 offseason. Although Veach has since cited the team’s desire to balance out their roster around Patrick Mahomes‘ current contract, the organization had another Hill extension on the radar. But Davante Adams‘ $28MM-per-year Raiders deal changed the All-Pro deep threat’s asking price. Hill said he did not need to be the NFL’s highest-paid wideout to stay in Kansas City, but the Chiefs shopped him in a quick process that ended with the likely Hall of Famer in Miami. One of the team’s reasons for trading Hill: Jones’ third contract.

“You have to keep in mind that when we did make that move with Tyreek, one of the determining factors was because there was an expected Chris Jones deal,” Veach said. “And so, to do [a] Tyreek [extension], there was a concern of, ‘Would we be able to do Chris?’ “And so that was a moment of time, and it was before the draft, that we hit the reset button. And we’re like, ‘You know, it’s really hard to trade a player the magnitude of Tyreek Hill.’ But we’re following that up with someone just as significant and on the defensive side.”

Hill soon signed a position-record contract with the Dolphins, a $30MM-per-year extension that includes an inflated final-season salary that ballooned the AAV to that place. Jones also wants a contract in the $30MM-AAV neighborhood, seeking money closer to the Aaron Donald range ($31.7MM per year) than the recently established Quinnen Williams–Jeffery Simmons–Dexter Lawrence–Daron Payne tier ($22-$24MM per year). The Chiefs want him closer to that group than Donald.

“It wouldn’t be as good as one with [him], and I think we certainly acknowledge that,” Veach said of a Chiefs 2023 roster that does not include Jones. “I mean, he’s the guy that makes everything tick. I think that’s apparent to us, and that’s why — going into the offseason and even to where we are now — that’s why our mindset is to continue to work hard to get something done with him, because that’s how we feel about him.

“… He’s a great player, and he wants a big contract. He deserves a big contract, and I don’t think there’s any surprises in that regard. But there’s just some hurdles we have to work through in regards to how we can keep this thing going for the short and long term. But we’ve never wavered on, ‘This is a guy that we want to exhaust all of our efforts to get done.’

Veach, who has been with the Chiefs throughout Andy Reid‘s tenure, has built the team’s roster around John Dorsey-era draftees Jones, Mahomes and Travis Kelce. Core performers like Hill, Clark, Brown, Justin Houston and Tyrann Mathieu have shuttled through western Missouri during the franchise’s peak period. This is not the first time Veach has spoken at length about the talks, but after the previous round of comments indicated plenty of time remained to hammer out a deal before training camp, Jones has become the rare 2020s player to stage a holdout.

Jones, 29, has accumulated more than $600K in fines during this holdout, one that accompanies Nick Bosa and Zack Martin‘s efforts. Like Bosa with the 49ers, Jones is firmly in the Chiefs’ plans. How high will the team be willing to go to end this impasse?

One of three star linemen amid holdouts, Chris Jones has now incurred more than $600K in fines from the Chiefs. In an effort to curb holdouts, the 2020 CBA prevents the team from waiving these penalties. But Jones has stood his ground, remaining away from the defending Super Bowl champions’ training camp.

This offseason effectively cemented the second tier of the defensive tackle market. Daron Payne, Jeffery Simmons, Dexter Lawrence and Quinnen Williams signed deals worth between $22.5-$24MM per year. That remains well south of the outlier pact the Rams authorized for Aaron Donald, who is tied to a defender-record $31.7MM-per-year contract. With Jones using a first-team All-Pro season — as the best defender on a Super Bowl-winning team — to make a strong case as the second-best D-tackle in the game, he has understandably sought Donald-neighborhood money.

That has complicated the situation with the Chiefs, who have their other stars — Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce — on team-friendly accords. The Chiefs want Jones’ contract to come in around the price point established by the Simmons and Williams deals, Albert Breer of SI.com notes. Jones has been connected to a $30MM-AAV ask, establishing a sizable gap in these negotiations. While previous reports suggested a deal was close and could be done by the start of camp, the Chiefs have worked without their best defensive player for nearly two weeks now.

The four-time Pro Bowler, who also skipped minicamp, has some leverage against the Chiefs. Since Kansas City franchise-tagged Jones in 2020, it would be costlier to unholster the tag again in 2024. At $33MM-plus, that tag number would be borderline untenable for the team. The Mahomes and Kelce deals came to pass in 2020, with it appearing the two offensive superstars accepted Chiefs-friendly accords to help the team reach more player-friendly terms with Jones. With Javon Hargrave and the above-referenced D-tackle quartet moving the market this year, Jones’ $20MM AAV has dropped to ninth since the July 2020 agreement.

Most players who have engaged in high-profile contract talks have either reported to camp and participated or staged hold-ins. It would make more financial sense for Jones, Zack Martin and Nick Bosa to show up and not practice, adding intrigue to the All-Pros’ decisions to stay away. Each player is being fined $50K per day while not in camp. Jones is going into his age-29 season, which may make these negotiations his last chance at top-market money. The holdout suggests the eighth-year DT is proceeding like that is the case.

The Chiefs won a Super Bowl after letting Tyrann Mathieu walk and trading Tyreek Hill, bowing out on extension talks with the latter when he wanted Davante Adams-level dough in March 2022. But they needed All-Pro efforts from Kelce and Jones to win another title. Jones looks to be betting his absence on a young Kansas City defense — one now depending on 2022 and ’23 first-round defensive ends, George Karlaftis and Felix Anudike-Uzomah, in the wake of the Frank Clark cut — will be enough to convince the team to increase its offer to bring him back into the fold. Conversely, the Chiefs have the leverage of Jones’ fines running past $2MM before the season as a tool on their side.