Kansas City Chiefs on the verge of losing another top transfer target as the super prolific player has made public his intentions to sign a monumental deal with…
The Kansas City Chiefs have not yet disclosed whether any of their players will suit up for Sunday’s regular-season finale against the Los Angeles Chargers as of Wednesday morning. Chris Jones, a defensive tackle, is a player that almost everyone is focusing on, and for good reason.
Jones’s new contract, which he inked with the team in September, puts him just half a sack away from reaching a pretty significant incentive benchmark. If he pulls off the feat and reaches the 10-sack threshold for the season, he will receive $1.25 million through a trigger that is likely to be earned. Incentives he has already received for 35% and 50% of snaps played (each worth $1M) could raise the four-time Pro Bowler’s total earnings to $3.25 million.
But what about all the other stuff?
Jones has numerous additional incentives in his new and “improved” contract with Kansas City, which he either won’t meet or will be extremely difficult to meet. He can probably say goodbye to a $500,000 bonus for 15 sacks, for instance. He can do the same for a $2 million incentive there, with odds outside the top 10 for Defensive Player of the Year (which also requires a Super Bowl win). The last incentive, a $1 million checkpoint if Jones makes the first team All-Pro and the Chiefs win the Super Bowl, is still up in the air.
Although estimates for Jones’s summer holdout loss vary, most come in the $3.6-3.9M range. The 2022 All-Pro pass-rusher was fined further for not reporting to the team while on hold, and he also forfeited a large amount of money. A $500,000 workout bonus, almost $100,000 for skipping the required minicamp, training camp no-show fines of almost $2 million, and a more than $1 million Week 1 game check are a few examples.
The Chiefs reached out to Jones and gave him chances to make up for what he had lost, if not more. In fact, they offered him the opportunity to receive the raise he had been advocating for during the offseason. That being said, he is likely to fall well short of his 100th-percentile result and instead seem to be headed toward a more moderate outcome. Although Jones had stated at the time that he “got it all back,” that was more of a possibility than a certainty. He might almost have a clean slate if he receives that ten-sack reward.
Before the Kansas City Chiefs’ Week 11 matchup with the Philadelphia Eagles, Jones expressed confidence in his ability to meet his incentive targets. After a few days, the star lineman declared, “I’m going to hit my numbers,” and he scored two sacks. He did, however, go four games without a sack over the course of the next six weeks, and he has since recorded one in back-to-back games. This whole situation is encapsulated by that uneven output and the slim window of needing to play in Week 18 in order to earn a major incentive.
The 29-year-old’s future with the Chiefs is still up in the air, but communication between his camp and the organization is said to be cordial. The team would find it difficult to accept a huge franchise tag price in 2024, but it would also find it difficult to accept a long-term agreement at a particular cost. Expectations for his market are still high; Brad Spielberger of Pro Football Focus is projecting a four-year, $120 million megadeal, while Spotrac’s calculated market value places him at $28.1 million annually. Jones’s wager on himself won’t have been in vain if either of those turns out to be true. But for months, he’s been balancing on an extremely thin line. Reverting to initial conditions appears to be the most probable course of action in this case.
Nov. 20, 2023, Kansas City, Missouri, USA: Harrison Butker, 7, of the Kansas City Chiefs, celebrates during the first half of GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium after making a field goal against the Philadelphia Eagles. Required Credit: USA TODAY Sports/Denny Medley
