Why the Chiefs have targeted these free agents, and what’s left to accomplish
Only a few days after the season, Chiefs head coach Andy Reid kicked his assistants out of the building.
He worried any conclusions drawn from the season would otherwise be tainted solely by that Super Bowl LIX ending. They needed to turn the page, so to speak, and then return with a fresh outlook.
That process — turning from 2024 to 2025 — is more than symbolic this week. It’s official. The new league year is here, officially opening Wednesday afternoon after a two-day legal tampering period.
If you thought a new season might look different, well, it already does. But only to a certain extent. The Chiefs brought back right guard Trey Smith (franchise tag) and linebacker Nick Bolton (extension), but they traded Joe Thuney, let other players walk and already brought in some new talent.
I’ll get to the specifics of each move, because there’s a lot of analyze, but there’s a theme in totality worth noting: The Chiefs are attempting to best position themselves for next month’s draft.
That philosophy comes after a lesson just one year earlier.
They entered the 2024 draft without a starting left tackle, hoping something would materialize over three days in April. Kingsley Suamataia flopped, and the Chiefs were left with a mess at the blindside protection of Patrick Mahomes for a full season.
Not again.
At much of any position, apparently.
That’s one lesson.
The other is supplied annually. Free agency isn’t the best way to build an NFL roster over the long-term. It is, by contrast, the most expensive way. Which only underscores the importance of drafting well and avoiding the need to fill holes through free agency.
While the Chiefs have sidestepped the league’s most expensive deals this week, they’ve still been more active than the past couple of seasons in free agency, pushing some money on the Patrick Mahomes and Chris Jones to future seasons in order to accommodate the newcomers.
Some perspective on what they’ve accomplished:
A new left tackle: Jaylon Moore
As the Chiefs left for the NFL Scouting Combine late last month, Chiefs general manager Brett Veach joked with Andy Reid that he had a solution for how they’d find a long-term answer at left tackle:
“Just sucking for a year,” he said. “And picking in the top-10.”
It’s farcical.
Kind of.
That is how most teams have done it.
The league has grown smarter about the value of left tackle, the root cause of a very clear effect: The best options just don’t make it to free agency anymore.
Thus, the Chiefs gave Jaylon Moore, a player who has started all of 12 career games, a two-year, $30 million contract, with $21.24 million guaranteed.
It’s a gamble, and not a cheap one.
But in the relevant game of if-not-him-then-who, I’m not sure how many options the Chiefs really had. They were forced to do something.
Consider this: The Titans gave Dan Moore $82 million over four years, including $50 million in guaranteed money. There’s something you ought to know about Moore. He allowed the most sacks in the NFL a year ago, per Next Gen Stats.
That’s his price. $82 million. For the most sacks allowed.
It’s just plain hard to find left tackles. Jaylon Moore, the newest Chief, has never played even six games in a season, and the Chiefs are hoping he can start 17. The assignment? Protecting the blindside for the most coveted asset in sports.
He’s an improvement on what the Chiefs had in 2024, but that’s not exactly a high bar. Because of the contract’s short-term length, it shouldn’t dissuade the Chiefs from using a draft pick on a tackle, should one fall to them.
That’s not likely at No. 31.
Which is why they’re in this spot, taking a gamble so that they can be protected from an even greater gamble in the draft next month.
The top returner: Nick Bolton
The biggest splash the Chiefs have made?
It happened before free agency.
The Chiefs gave Nick Bolton a 3-year, $45 million contract to prevent him from hitting the open market.
I’ll preface this by saying Nick Bolton is a great player and a terrific fit in the locker room. But on the grading curve of a salary-cap league, it’s hard for me to get there with the positional value.
Bolton is set to be a top-7 paid off-ball linebacker next season. It’s obvious why the Chiefs like him. He calls the defense, and it’s a complicated defense, which amplifies the importance of your play-caller understanding it at a deep level. And since his rookie year, Bolton has the highest stuff percentage (4.7%) of any linebacker in the NFL, per Next Gen Stats.
But this will put the Chiefs near the top of the market at yet another non-premium position, which makes it hard for me to get there. There is no team in the NFL paying its combination of linebacker, right guard and center more than the Chiefs. None of those three, mind you, are premium positions. It’s not a list you’d like to lead.
It’s rare that when you’re asking yourself whether you can live without a player, you have actual evidence.
The Chiefs do. In 2023, Bolton played eight games. He missed eight. (I’m discounting Week 18, because neither the Chiefs nor the Chargers played their starters.)
In the eight games Bolton played, the Chiefs ranked fourth in the NFL in pass defense, as measured by expected points added (EPA) per dropback. In run defense, they ranked 26nd in EPA per attempt.
So, to recap: In games he played, they were fourth against the pass, 26th against the run.
In the eight games he missed: fourth against the pass, 22nd against the run.
They were nearly identical with or without him.
That’s not commentary on Bolton. He has real value. He’s a commentary on the position. It has less value than others on the field.
And now the Chiefs have less money to spend on those other spots.
A new cornerback: Kristian Fulton
I’m going to share some statistics first.
• The most first downs allowed in the NFL
• The third most EPA allowed in the NFL
• The fifth-worst success rate in the NFL
OK, now the category: That’s how the Chiefs defended slot receivers last year.
Kristian Fulton, who signed a two-year agreement with Kansas City, will play on the outside, where he’s played 84% of his snaps over his career. But it will allow defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo to move Trent McDuffie back to the slot in nickel and dime packages. McDuffie is capable of playing anywhere, but he might be the very best slot cornerback in football. And it’s where the Chiefs were the very worst a year ago.
It also allows Chamarri Conner to help out at safety, his natural position, after Justin Reid left for New Orleans.
Let’s try that again: Hollywood Brown
At first glance, it might seem as though the Chiefs are running it back at wide receiver after signing Hollywood Brown to a one-year deal heavy on the incentives.
Not really.
The Chiefs never had their top three wide receivers — Rashee Rice, Brown and Xavier Worthy — share the field together last year. Not for a single snap.
Brown didn’t play until Week 16, long after a knee injury ended Rice’s season. Which I understand is the crux of whether the Chiefs should have re-signed Brown.
His health.
It’s prevented him from being a reliable receiver in the league the past few seasons. But let me offer this as a basis of comparison. Brown’s one-year deal with pay him up to $11 million, but he’s only guaranteed about $6.8 million of that. The rest of the cash requires he meet some incentives based on his availability.
The Jaguars opted to pay Dyami Brown $10 million over one season, and that can increase to $12 million with incentives.
Dyami Brown had 59 catches for 784 yards and four touchdowns in his career. That’s four seasons.
He had 308 yards and one touchdowns last year. That’s worth $10-12 million.
So I have a hard time getting worked up over Hollywood Brown’s incentive-heavy contract that at least pays a player who has a higher ceiling. The Chiefs have constantly cycled through wide receivers over the past few seasons. Won’t it be nice not to ask their top receivers how they’re adjusting to the way Patrick Mahomes likes routes run?
The wide receiver position, though, is not without flux.
Rice will be returning from an ACL injury, but is facing a league punishment once he’s healthy. And the NFL will certainly conduct its own investigation into Worthy’s arrest, even though the Williams County (Texas) district attorney’s office has initially declined charges against him.
It’s a reason to turn back to Brown on a relatively cheap deal. But the constant movement within the position should also motivate the Chiefs to keep the position on their radar at the draft, even if not atop the list.
OK, so what’s left?
Defensive line.
Oh, and defensive line.
The Chiefs need a lot of help up front alongside Chris Jones on a unit that saw a pretty significant dip in production last season.
That’s probably where the best news of the last week falls: It’s the deepest position group in the 2025 draft class.
There are other nice-to-have positions, including running back, which also is deep in this draft.
Which returns to the top. That’s the clearest explanation for what the Chiefs have accomplished in free agency. They’ve prioritized the spots they are unlikely to fill in the draft.