Kansas City Chiefs Salary Cap: Hitting The Magical $30 Million Number

Nov 20, 2014; Oakland, CA, USA; Kansas City Chiefs general manager John Dorsey during the game against the Oakland Raiders at O.co Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Parting ways with Bowe, Avery, Jenkins, DeVito, Daniel, and Hali would save the Chiefs about $32,687,390 in cap space per Over The Cap‘s numbers. Add in the near $3 million in rollover cap space the Chiefs have from the 2014 season and Kansas City would be sitting with about $35 million cap space to re-sign Justin Houston and Rodney Hudson, sign a full 11-man draft class, and be able sign an impact free agent or two.

Something to consider with the Chiefs is they have a lot of open space in the future. With these cuts plus the pending free agency of guys like Sean Smith, DJ, and Joe Mays, the Chiefs have about $80 million in 2016 cap space to work with. That number doesn’t include the 2015 and 2016 draft classes, so that should be considered, but the Chiefs have some wiggle room to fit Houston and another big cap hit if they want to go after one of the bigger name receivers. In other words, there is room for creativity with the cap that didn’t exist last offseason.

One last point – This scenario isn’t the only one available to the Chiefs to get down to $30+ million in cap space. There are somethings the Chiefs could do with Alex Smith’s contract to open up space, Eric Berry may be placed on the Non-Football Injury list which would clear all of his $8,357,700 cap hit, and the Chiefs could elect to extend Sean Smith so as to keep him for a longer term and to reduce his 2015 cap number. These things could be done in place of letting Bowe or Hali walk.

But these six cuts probably make the most sense for the Chiefs not only in terms of cap space but for also improving the quality of the roster. These are not easy moves, but it gets the Chiefs going in the right direction when it comes to building a roster that will be a consistent Super Bowl contender.