Clock Ticking On Bowe As Chiefs Continue OTAs

Dwayne Bowe is not expected to be present as the Kansas City Chiefs continue their OTA practices this week, though his situation could be resolved soon.

The Chiefs will hold four more OTA practices this week on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Friday’s practice will be the end of the voluntary portion of practices.

On Tuesday of next week the Chiefs will begin their mandatory three-day mini-camp. Once the camp ends, they will break until training camp begins in late July.

As for Bowe, next week’s camp is not mandatory for him because he is not currently under contract. The Chiefs hold his rights via the franchise tag rules but since he hasn’t signed the deal, he can’t be fined for not attending.

Bowe and the Chiefs have until July 15th to work out a long-term deal. If no deal is signed by that date, Bowe will either have to play the entire season under the franchise tag or not play at all. The only way he could become an outright free agent is if the Chiefs take the tag off the table, something they’ll never do.

Bowe has gone on the record as saying that he will definitely be in training camp and that he would like to show up even earlier. That likely all comes down to the contract negotiations between the Chiefs and Bowe’s camp. Bowe has no incentive to sign the tag before the July 15th deadline. He is trying to keep the pressure on the Chiefs to make a long-term deal worth signing. That would give Bowe security and the Chiefs would avoid spending over $9 million on him for just one season of play.

Bowe will be playing for the Chiefs this season so it would benefit everyone if the team could get him signed before next week’s mandatory mini-camp. This would enable Bowe to get his hands dirty in the team’s new offense so that he can hit the ground running once training camp begins.

For Bowe’s part, it doesn’t look like he’ll sign the tag until he absolutely has to.

The interesting aspect of all this is that Bowe’s strategy of sitting out the voluntary workouts could end up backfiring on him. If Jonathan Baldwin continues to impress in practice, the Chiefs could feel less pressure to ink Bowe, who has long been their only consistent receiving threat, to something long-term.

What do you think, Addicts? Will Bowe make it to next week’s mini-camp or will he remain on the sidelines until training camp?