Cap uncertainty led to Chris Jones deal taking more time

[KC Wolf]

Getty Images

Defensive tackle Chris Jones signed a four-year contract extension with the Chiefs shortly before the deadline for franchise-tagged players to sign multi-year deals with their teams and General Manager Brett Veach said on Monday that things might not have come down to the wire in a more typical offseason.

The full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the way the NFL does business won’t be known for some time, but the expectation is that revenue losses are going to lead to cap adjustments in the coming years. That could be a big hit next year or smaller hits over a number of years and that led to a question for Veach about how much that impacted negotiations.

Veach said that they wanted as much information as they could possibly have about what will happen with the cap before moving forward with an extension.

“That’s really why this deal took some time. Going thru all the scenarios, have to have plans in place for every possibility,” Veach said. “Plans need to be in place if it grows, it dips, stays level, we have a plan, we got to a level that we have enough game planning in place to protect us.”

Veach said the cap uncertainty led to “massaging” on Patrick Mahomes‘ extension as well, but the end result was two star players signed for years to come so the extra work proved to be worthwhile on both fronts.