It's not a narrative, it's a trend.

In 2014, he couldn't get significant snaps because he was getting abused. No lower body strength or leverage because of a knee injury that held him out of the combine. He finally got action in back-to-back games in December of his rookie season.

In 2015, he started slow and then got hurt, missed a couple of games and came back strong with a 3 sack game late in the season.

In 2016, he missed the season opener and then opened up with 10 sacks in the next 8 weeks. And then he notched zero sacks the rest of the season.

In 2017, he had 3 different injuries. Played in 3 games, missed two, played 3 more, and then 10 weeks on IR.

In 2018, he missed key late game snaps against Denver due to an injury that held him out of the 2nd half against San Francisco.

His college tape looks nearly identical. Streaky, always hurt.
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Yup Ford has a history of back issues. No complaining like ya'll did with Berry when he gets paid and misses games.
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He's had as many knee injuries as back injuries as well.
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If he gets hurt and misses some time, as long as its not extended, you can deal with it.

If he misses 5 or 6 games, yeah, that's not good.

Difference with him and Berry is that you aren't tied to him long term.
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If they tag him and keep him, he's your marquis free agent. If he falls short of 2018 in any way, that's going to hold the team back quite a bit.

You're basically building your defense around Dee Ford for 2019.
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I feel like you glossed over this yesterday, but if they tag him and cut Houston, they're essentially where they are right now with the cap.

They can restructure or extend whoever to get space to get whoever they want.
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Are you going to sign Hill or Jones? Either of those guys are going to cost.

You also have $3M almost of cap space lost to accelerators or bonuses on 4 or 5 players.

Rookie cap.

When it comes down to it, the Chiefs don't have very much cap space at all, even if they cut Houston.
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I'd sign Hill, lower his cap hit for this season, cut or restructure Houston and cut some of the fat off the roster.

That alone gets you however much space you would need to sign a guy or two. I dont' think they need to be big spenders in free agency anyway so I'd take one decent singing and be done with it.

I'd much rather look at trading picks for current players than free agency TBH>
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I’ve put some thought into this. If they keep Houston, he has to take some form of restructure. He did agree to convert $6 million of his salary to a bonus to save us that much money on his cap hit a few years ago.

If he does that and they can flip Ford for a high draft pick, I wouldn’t bitch.

Yeah I’d choose Ford over Houston, but let’s be honest here: both of these guys aren’t going to be here in 2020 anyway.
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Ford is not getting traded.

Houston will take a paycut or be cut.

It's simples.
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This.

And they’ll be cutting anyone who isn’t producing up to their cap hit. Sorensen, Ragland, Murray all come to mind.
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They're going to cut anybody who isn't producing to their cap hit and give it all to a guy that hasn't proven he can stay healthy. That's brilliant.
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If they have no intention at all of trading him then give him a long-term deal with a lower 2019 cap hit and some injury protection and be done with it.
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You can get him for another year playing motivated for a contract. Why not do that?
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well...I mean it's either one guy that fits that description or the other.

I'm for moving on and signing Flowers instead but nobody's into it.
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