Here are the Kansas City Chiefs’ options with Chris Jones (you might not like them)
The Super Bowl champions are back together, all ready to attempt to become the first team in two decades to repeat, and — well, wait, there’s that 310-pound absence in the middle of the field.
As the Chiefs returned to St. Joseph for their first full day of practice, the conversation was not about who is here, but rather who is not.
Defensive tackle Chris Jones, in a form of protest for a new long-term contract, is a no-show at training camp, and there does not appear to be a resolution sprinting down that hill soon. I’ll clarify that these things can change quickly, but what became evident Sunday is that they already have — in the other direction. Head coach Andy Reid once classified talks with Jones as productive, and he now refers to those talks in the past tense.
That’s telling.
More telling? His reaction to Jones taking part in his own senior skip day.
“I was a bit surprised,” Reid said.
Surprised. Let’s come back to that word.
The Chiefs were the best team in football throughout last season because, in addition to having Patrick Mahomes, they were perhaps the best team in football during the offseason. They had spent those summer months as the script writers of their 2022 story.
Tyreek Hill wants more money? Fine. Trade him, then spend free agency and the draft to rebuild the wide receiver room.
Orlando Brown sits out the initial week of training camp? OK, hold tight with the franchise tag, then let him walk and address the position the following summer.
Chris Jones is sitting out camp? Uh oh.
There is a what-now feeling to all of this, and if you cycle through the realistic options, you’ll quickly realize the Chiefs are backed into a corner they have strategically tried to avoid.
There is another camp — the one that includes Jones and his representatives — writing a key part of the script for the Chiefs’ 2023 story.
The Chiefs have preempted these moves in the past, setting up future operations from a place of comfort. Well, welcome to the uncomfortable.
If Jones is entrenched in his demands, and not just posturing to excuse a few days in the heat, the Chiefs are left with three options.
- Give in and overpay
- Force Jones to play out the final year of his contract, and then let him walk in free agency.
- A preseason trade
Anything else would require cooperation from the player, and so far, Jones is set on a big payday — which is no criticism, by the way, particularly considering this could be his final payday.
In the end, you’re potentially picking which of the three options is the least difficult to stomach, because none are attractive. Even if Jones isn’t the most important player to the Chiefs’ success, he’s on a short list of guys who are.
I covered that in a column earlier this month — Jones was the most double-teamed lineman in football last season, yet he recorded the best pass rush win-rate in football last season. That would be like the team with the league’s most difficult schedule being the one that finished undefeated.
But let’s navigate those aforementioned options. It’s certainly true that the Chiefs have been here before, but since Mahomes’ arrival, they haven’t been here at this time of the year. Not with a player of this caliber. Both facts are instrumental to this equation.
- It’s a reluctance to overpay that has — and will — preserve the Chiefs as contenders for the duration of the Mahomes era, rather than the all-in nature of, say, the Buffalo Bills a year ago.
- The most common mistake professional teams make (and this isn’t exclusive to football) is letting assets leave for nothing. This is precisely what the Chiefs successfully avoided in trading Hill. He wanted more money elsewhere, and the Chiefs will still have something to show for his talents for years to come, even if they aren’t, well, his talents.
- And speaking of that trade, it came in March, meaning the Chiefs provided themselves all of free agency and the draft to replace the player. And while the move has always been billed as one prioritizing the long-term over the short-term — which it was — the Chiefs did get a short-term return. They got three draft picks in 2022, in addition to the two in 2023.
With Jones now, the draft has come and gone. So has free agency. The Chiefs opened camp Sunday with Daniel Wise and Derrick Nnadi stepping in with the starters. This is nothing against Wise, a former Kansas Jayhawk, but he’s a 27-year-old with 11 career tackles. And Nnadi is coming off a career-worst season, in which he rated as the 195th-best interior lineman in the NFL, per Pro Football Focus. Those are the choices.
The Chiefs are Patrick Mahomes and Co., or at least Patrick Mahomes, Andy Reid, Travis Kelce and Co. But the Chiefs did get their teeth kicked in during a Super Bowl with all three of those guys because their offensive line was in shambles. They’ve always looked at their defensive line as being similarly important as their offensive line.
Sure, the defensive line might not be in that bad of shape absent its star, but it’s markedly different without Jones, and the Chiefs probably aren’t eager to learn how different.
But here they sit in July, with few options on the table.
This story was originally published July 24, 2023 at 6:30 AM with the headline "Here are the Kansas City Chiefs’ options with Chris Jones (you might not like them)."