Chiefs salary cap: Where should they spend next?

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

With the signing of Justin Houston to a long-term contract on Wednesday, the Kansas City Chiefs opened up close to $8 million in cap space for the 2015 season. Before Houston signed his deal the Chiefs had just over $500,000 in cap space to work with headed into training camp and now they have room to sign current free agents or even extend a couple of their own players before the season starts. Let’s take a look at a couple of the options that they could choose to use their available cap space on moving forward.

One of the places where the Chiefs could elect to spend some of their new cap space is on Evan Mathis to step in and solidify right guard. Mathis was released by the Philadelphia Eagles right after the draft and could step into Andy Reid’s offense without skipping a beat. He would have to flip sides as Ben Grubbs is already holding down left guard spot that Mathis is used to playing but it should be a transition that he can make quickly. Mathis was released because he was seeking a new contract in the range of $7 million a season, and while it is more than likely too late for him to get that this year he should be able to find a team willing to pay him between $3 and $4 million.

Kansas City now has the cap space to bring in Mathis and while I don’t think it would be the best use of their cap space spending $3.5 million to shore up the offensive line would not be a bad investment. Signing Mathis to a two or three-year deal with a larger bonus that would be prorated over the life of the contract would make it easier to pay Mathis more than $3 million this year and still keep his cap hit from taking up most of their available cap space. If the Chiefs wanted to bring in Mathis on a two-year, $10 million dollar contract with $5 million as the signing bonus and a $1 million base salary, that should be a good enough contract.

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