The Kansas City Chiefs surprised their fans on Saturday with the release of kicker Cairo Santos. Here’s everything you need to know about the situation.
It’s been a surprising year for the Kansas City Chiefs, to say the least. From the firing of their general manager John Dorsey to the trade up in the first round to secure Patrick Mahomes, those moves are just two examples of an unprecedented offseason and season (so far) for a franchise that’s been the model of consistency and success since Andy Reid first arrived. Yet even on Saturday, the team announced another move that surprised fans and analysts alike with the release of kicker Cairo Santos.
Many have raised their eyebrows at the movement of Santos from injured reserve to the waiver wire, wondering how the Chiefs could just cut ties with the most accurate kicker in franchise history. That’s a hard sell on the surface, but the move makes sense in the right light and if you believe in his replacement. But there are a lot of moving parts here, so we’ll do our best to explain it all.
Here’s everything you need to know about Cairo Santos, Harrison Butker and what general manager Brett Veach is thinking by releasing Santos outright instead of carrying him on the roster—or at least on injured reserve.
Injuries are starting to take their toll on the Chiefs at this point. Feature back Spencer Ware has been lost for the season before September ever arrived. Safety Eric Berry only last three quarters into the season before the Chiefs had to say goodbye to the heart of their defense. Pass rushers Tamba Hali and Dadi Nicolas both began the season on the Physically Unable to Play list. Defensive back Ashton Lampkin tore his ACL and was stashed away on IR. Cornerback Steven Nelson has also locked down a spot on injured reserve, and much-needed starters like center Mitch Morse and linebacker Dee Ford and left tackle Eric Fisher are all questionable for Week 4 after missing time in practice.
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That’s a long list of players before even getting to Santos, who originally injured his groin at some point early in the preseason. Plenty of Chiefs fans can tell you who Sam Ficken is because we learned it over several weeks in the preseason, as Santos sat and the Chiefs went with the unproven but impressive product from Penn State. Santos was on schedule, however, to be ready for the regular season and he proved as much by even playing late in the preseason to prep for the real deal.
Once the regular season began, Santos looked like the accurate kicker we’ve all discovered him to be over the last three seasons. The Chiefs did well to sign the Brazilian as an upgrade over previous kicker Ryan Succop, who left in free agency to kick for the Tennessee Titans (where he still remains to this day). Through the first three weeks of the regular season, Santos was perfect in field goals and extra point attempts.
Then came the report that he had re-injured his groin. It circled back to the preseason injury and was worse than before. What took a few weeks in August was now going to take up to a half season. The Chiefs had no choice. Santos was placed on injured reserve.
In tandem with the announcement that Santos was placed on IR, the Chiefs also announced his replacement—except it wasn’t Ficken. The first surprise of this entire episode is that Brett Veach had a new man, despite the solid showing from Ficken in the preseason. Eschewing Ficken’s familiarity with the coaching staff, the playbook and the locker room, Veach decided to pluck a prospect from the Carolina Panthers, taking Harrison Butker from the Panthers’ practice squad.
Butker was the Panthers seventh round choice, a Georgia Tech product who graduated as the team’s all time leading scorer. Butker converted 88 percent of his field goal attempts in 2016 and was one of only four kickers invited to the NFL Combine. Yet this preseason, the Panthers decided to go ahead with the veteran Graham Gano, leaving Butker to take up a practice squad spot.
What’s clear is this process is that the Chiefs front office is very excited about the possibility of adding Butker at this point. There’s only one reason to not go with the familiar and successful option and that’s if you truly believe there is something much better out there (e.g. Butker over Ficken). We’re learning a new name at kicker because the Chiefs believe there’s a new name worth knowing. We can lean on that trust.
A new story at the mother ship even mentions that special teams guru Dave Toub loved Butker coming out of college. If you’re going to trust any incoming rookie to potentially replace Santos, it should be the one to whom Toub is pointing.
It’s important to note at this point that Butker was a seventh round choice making seventh round money. Next year he will be making far less, a mere percentage, of what Cairo Santos will be making. Whether that’s with the Chiefs or another team (give us a minute to explain), the finances need to be discussed.
If Santos can prove he’s healthy and just as accurate as ever, he stands to make around $3 million on the open market per year. That was the annual going rate for this year’s top kickers and Santos is certainly among that group. Given his youth and accuracy, Santos has every reason to believe he can match those deals and average the same, likely over 3 years.
Compare the $3 million cost per season to the cost of keeping Butker around. By signing Butker away, he becomes an Exclusive Rights Free Agent (ERFA) in 2018. This means every offseason, the Chiefs can offer a veteran minimum tender to Butker and he has to sign it (or sit out a season). Essentially, the Chiefs have an ongoing year-to-year ability to sign Butker for the veteran minimum for the next two seasons. After that, he will be free from the ERFA designation.
This means that instead of paying Santos $6 million over the next 2 years, the Chiefs can pay Butker approximately $1 million total over the same time span. If Butker delivers, that’s a decent savings for a team that’s constantly against the cap.
Despite all of this—the injury, the release, the signing of Butker—the Chiefs aren’t actually officially done with Cairo Santos. Unless, that is, they want to be done.
Santos is an injured free agent right now, yes. Once he’s healthy, Santos is free to sign with any team in the NFL for any amount of money over any length of time. However, if there’s been some backroom handshakes of any kind, Santos might have already worked out a deal to return to the Chiefs when he gets healthy.
Remember this: every single team has only two slots on injured reserve for players who they can activate at some point during the season. As we mentioned already, Steven Nelson is one such player. For a season that’s still more than 75 percent unfinished, the Chiefs could not have felt comfortable using both of those spots before the first month was even finished.
Is it possible the Chiefs set Santos free only to re-sign him later, having told him that it’s official even as they need to make if unofficial to keep a roster spot open? Yes, it’s very possible. However, the only way we will know for sure is to see where Santos is kicking once his groin has healed.
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Even more importantly, what if Butker looks like a rookie phenom? Would the Chiefs let him go to keep a promise? Or did they tell Santos that all doors are open for now but they needed to see his replacement perform. The NFL is a business, after all.
There’s a lot at play here, but the bottom line is that Santos could still be kicking field goals for the Chiefs this postseason if that’s what Brett Veach wants to do. It just depends on money, timing, health and his replacement. Given how surprising this season has been so far, anything is on the table.