Kansas City Chiefs Best And Worst Contracts

Over The Cap has been doing a series based on the best and worst contracts for every team. This week our Kansas City Chiefs were up and the results were somewhat surprising.

The basics of the exercise was to determine whose contract had the best value given performance. To help give you an idea of what they are looking for, last year the Chiefs best contract was Jamaal Charles and their worst was Tyson Jackson. It isn’t necessarily defining who the best and worst player on the team is so much as looking at the player and determining how his financial hit measures up to his production.

Not surprisingly – at least I wouldn’t think it would be – Jamaal Charles finished with the Chiefs best contract. Here’s an excerpt from what they had to say.

"If we add the $5 million to his old deal it still works out to just $6.6 million a year in annual salary. There remains a clear dividing line between Charles and the next group of players, most of whom earn over $7 million a year. Ray Rice ($7 million) and Matt Forte ($7.6 million) both received significantly larger guarantees and have salary cap compromising contracts. His deal pales in comparison to the $30 millionish payouts given to Arian Foster and LeSean McCoy over the first three years of their contracts. He is every bit as good and important as any of these players. Perhaps no contract illustrates the bargain that the Chiefs have in Charles than the $7.3 million a year given to Jonathan Stewart in Carolina, who has produced in the last three years about as many yards and Charles will produce in one. One of the best contracts and undervalued players in all of the NFL."

I’m not sure how many ways this can be said, but Jamaal Charles is the ultimate team player. We are incredibly fortunate for him to have the kind of attitude he does because he could demand significantly more than what he is making.

The worst contract belongs to Dwayne Bowe, but there is a twist. I’ll let you read the excerpt first.

"I almost feel guilty putting Dwayne Bowe as the worst selection because its the ultimate in hindsight judging and I had originally felt that Bowe projected as a true number one whose overall stats were compromised by quarterback play. But there was really nowhere else to go with this selection and Bowe was so bad in 2013 there is almost no way to look elsewhere.…I’m not sure how many teams would have expected the failures or been able to come up with a more risk averse deal, but with the Chiefs current roster this is the most egregious error even if it didnt seem that way when they signed it."

It kind of seems like Over The Cap chose Bowe as a default because who else were they going to pick? Kansas City really does not have very many bad contracts on their roster, especially with Brandon Flowers coming off the books in June. Tamba Hali takes a nice chuck of the salary cap but he is still a perennial Pro Bowl player, and Eric Berry’s contract is a product of the former collective bargaining agreement. If not Bowe then who? seems to be the question Over The Cap is proposing.

There seems to be this perspective with Bowe that he isn’t worth the money John Dorsey have him last offseason. But there really are few wide receivers around the league who have accomplished what he has and done so with the poor quarterback play he’s had to deal with in his career in Kansas City. Should Bowe go back to doing what he had been doing for the previous three seasons then nobody will be complaining about his contract. This is a big season for Bowe to prove he was worthy of the deal he received.