Here’s the decision Chris Jones faces to end his contract holdout with the Chiefs
The man at the center of the Chiefs’ biggest offseason storyline is a player who has not yet shown up. A player who has not commented about precisely why he has not shown up or when he might show up or the circumstances that would prompt him to show up. In fact, he’s not taken questions on the topic during a holdout that’s nearing 50 days.
Well, until about 36 hours before kickoff, that is.
To be clear, Chris Jones is not back with the Chiefs ahead of their season opener Thursday against the Lions. The holdout endures. But he did return to Kansas City for an interestingly timed charity appearance at the Ronald McDonald House of Kansas City.
Which, for about six minutes Wednesday morning, provided the setting for an unusual news conference in which he mentioned multiple times that he’s under contract for this season, explained that he’s holding out because he believes that’s less of a distraction, and then made some comparisons between opinions and buttholes.
At one point, you couldn’t help but scan the surroundings, wondering, “Is this really happening?” We have been trying to get inside his head for six months, left mostly to educated guesses, and at long last, on a day we should be wondering about the difficulty of repeating as Super Bowl champions, Jones arrives. But likely only for a cameo.
So of course the holdout is a distraction — even from the honorable charity work in which he’d fully participate over the next hour — whether that’s the intention or merely an unintended consequence. We could harp on that, or we could fine-tooth-comb every last thing he said, but the reality is that whether he nails a news conference or bombs it is not the determining factor in his paycheck.
This column is going to drill into one thing he said Wednesday — but only because it’s something he’s repeated before. Which is this: “It’s always been my goal to be a Kansas City Chief for life. I’ve said that multiple times on social media platforms, from interviews. And they know where my position is at. Hopefully we can get something worked out for the long-term.”
There’s the rub.
Jones says he wants to be a Chief for life. His contract demands have shown that he wants to be Chief for a life and, oh yeah, maybe the highest-compensated defensive tackle in the league, too.
What he’s learning is that he just might have to choose between the two.
It is not and. It is or.
For at least the moment, Jones is choosing what he believes will offer him the best chance at the cash. Forget “for life” — Jones could be a Chief on Thursday night with one phone call. With an existing contract that will pay him $19.5 million in its final year, it’s his decision to remain absent.
Here’s where I’ll stop to remind once more that he has every right to pick the money. The shelf-life of NFL stardom is less than the box of rice in your pantry. Get paid while you can get paid.
Nick Bosa’s contract extension with the San Francisco 49ers on Wednesday probably makes Jones salivate. Even if Bosa plays a different position, they are like houses in the same neighborhood. Jones was as good as just about any defensive player in football last season. He’s earned a bump.
But the question before him today is not whether he could make $30-plus million per season if his services were left to 32 bidders, but instead what a one of those 32 can and should pay. For this team, the defending Super Bowl champions in Kansas City, that prompts a different answer.
I fully believe if Jones had entered free agency in March, some team would have thrown the type of cash he’s seeking. And if the Chiefs had been that team in this hypothetical situation, well, that would have been an easy critical column to write. That’s not a commentary on Jones’ value — which I’ve argued ad nauseam — but rather a commentary on the Chiefs’ position.
The 49ers are paying their starting quarterback, Brock Purdy, about $870,000 this season, according to figures on Spotrac. Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes will make 46 times that amount, and we’ve spent the offseason calling him underpaid. Which he is, relatively speaking. So, no, the conclusion of the Bosa holdout is not the kick-starter Jones needed.
Because of the teams involved, not the players.
These are two contenders building their rosters in vastly different ways. The Chiefs have the best player in football at the best-compensated position in football. They have an additional two players among the best 15 or 20 in the game, in a league that demands you spread the wealth.
It is not their choice whether to pay to keep it all together. It is their decision how. And in most all cases, that will require restraint. The Chiefs have actually stretched as far as I would’ve expected in their offer to Jones, even if that’s not as far as he would like, or even as far as he thinks he could get elsewhere.
Which is basically the point. A team with Mahomes is not afforded the luxury of resetting positional markets with players who will be 30 years old. Even the really good ones. And even if they bucked the trend by winning a Super Bowl with a quarterback occupying more than one-sixth of the cap last year.
It’s not as though the Chiefs need to launch some experiment to settle on that conclusion. They have the history of the vast majority of their predecessors’ mistakes to guide them. Most don’t win with a collection of maximum-dollar players. The Chiefs have the history of their own success. They just won a Super Bowl on the heels of choosing not to pay a superstar.
Again, to be clear, they’re offering to pay this one a pretty good chunk of money. It’s just not resetting a market.
Which leaves the player with a choice between the two.