Chiefs Dead Money - Page 3

By my math, there is nearly a billion dollars in dead money on NFL caps this year.

Over $828 million.

Nearly a billion dollars spent by 32 NFL teams on players that no longer play for the team.

Analyzing these dead caps is fascinating to me this year -- in part because the Chiefs have absolutely lapped the entire league in how little dead money they've spent.

Starting with the good guys, the Chiefs are actually 2nd in the least dead money at $5.9m -- the Rams are first at $4.2m. However, $3.4m of that is on Chris Jones, who, last I checked, is still a Chief.

That leaves MVS at $2m, and less than $200,000 each on Darian Kinnard, Keondre Coburn, and Joshua Kaindoh.

All told, that puts the Chiefs non-Jones dead money at $2,436,500. That is almost half the Rams number, and is just a demonstration that Veach and the Chiefs sign an absurdly small number of contracts that they come to regret.

And if you're wondering, combined with his active cap hit, Chris Jones total 2024 cap hit is $11m. So.

Anyway, speaking of contracts that teams regret, the #1 team in dead money in 2024 are the Vikings at a whopping $57m:

Kirk Cousins at $28.5m
Danielle Hunter at $14.9m
Marcus Davinport at $6.8m
Dalvin Cook at $3.1m

No shocker here, but the Bills are 2nd at $55m:

Stephon Diggs at $31.1m
Leonard Floyd at $4.4m
Ryan Bates at $4m
Micah Hyde at $3.4m
Mitch Morse at $3m
Jordan Poyer at $2m
7 more players at a total of $6.75m -- just a mess of contracts here

And if you're wondering, the Bills #2 cap hit in 2024... is Von Miller at $15m. That's not exactly dead money, but it's close.

Jets are 3rd at $52m -- and there's no massive charges, just a ton of mid-level players that they've cut over the past couple years. They have a $2m cap hit for Mecole Hardman from last year, which is fun. (The Chiefs currently owe Hardman zero dollars.)

I'll talk about one more team, and that's the Chargers at #4 with $51.4m:

JC Jackson at $20.8m
Mike Williams at $12.5m
Keenan Allen at $11.6m
Eric Kendricks at $2.7m
Sebastian Joseph Day at $2.5

Last thing I'll mention is that I'm not sure how OverTheCap is generating these numbers.

The Broncos are listed as having only $14.6m in official dead cap charges:

Randy Gregory at $7.1m
Justin Simmons at $3.8m
several players at around $1m -- including Frank Clark

...however, they're showing Russell Wilson with a cap number for the Broncos at $53m all by himself, but he doesn't count as dead cap? So I'm not sure what that's about.

So the Broncos are actually at about $67.6m, which would by far be the most in the league. Except that OverTheCap didn't include Tre'Davious White for the Bills, who has a cap hit of $16.4m, which would actually give the Bills the highest dead cap at $71.3m.

Just further evidence to show that for all the praise we give Veach in terms of talent acquisition, he's put in literally peerless work on having brilliant cap management. The Chiefs, more than any other team in the league, have their money on the field.

Anyway, have a great Wednesday, everybody. :-)
[Reply]

Originally Posted by ROYC75:
It is exactly what they are doing, And it's the Smartest move for them.

Yup.

Not everyone can keep a window open for a decade. Mahomes is a unicorn that allows that.

For everyone else it's about finding a window, attacking it, identifying a core for the future and then re-grouping and rebuilding around that core for a 2nd bite at the apple.

Then you find a new core, rinse and repeat.

For a 'normal' NFL team you're looking at maybe an 8 year cycle where you have a year of build up, 3 years where you gauge/attack your window, 2 years of rebuild/reload and then 2-3 years within a new window.

Then the guys you started with have aged out and you start the process anew. Now for Buffalo, their core guys weren't all that young to begin with so it's a different sequence for them, but they're definitely in their step-back period before trying to re-set a core and forge a new window.

The Chiefs are in their '2nd Window' already because somehow they won a damn SB in the 2022 'reload' year. Now they're making a 2nd attack with their Mahomes/Kelce/Jones core for a couple more years before they will also look to re-assess and reload.

2026 is likely to be a little bit of a step-back season where they identify their new core; likely around Mahomes, Rice and McDuffie. But I'd say they're in far better shape than most teams because of how well they've supplemented this roster with dudes like Karlaftis, Bolton and Creed as others have aged out.

The Chiefs have just done this better than everyone else.
[Reply]

Originally Posted by Bowser:
The Texans, the Bills, the Titans.......

Mahomes just straight up wrecks franchises in the playoffs.

It's true.

I will say I feel the Texans and Titans playoff runs were kinda flukey? Like they were going to lose anyways and wouldn't be back for future postseason success. The Texans organizationally and the Titans strategically just wouldn't be able to replicate their success, that was their only chance.

The Bills however, were perfectly poised to challenge the Chiefs year after year. Until 13 seconds. Then they completely lost their minds in a desperate all-in move in 2022 and have to pay the piper with nothing to show for it.
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