Kansas City Chiefs offseason primer: Can Brett Veach build a championship roster?

SALARY CAP CONCERNS

The great debate among Chiefs fans is what to do with Dee Ford. Ford has emerged as an elite pass rusher, but there are still doubts about his reliability. Ford earned his money this last year, managing 14 sacks and 7 forced fumbles.

Additionally, the Chiefs have the monstrous contracts of Eric Berry and Justin Houston on the books. Many fans are calling for Houston and Berry to restructure their deals. While moving money around is possible for both of those players, it is difficult to speculate who and how much so for this scenario we will assume neither player is willing to change their deals. For the record, I expect the Chiefs to at least try to move some money around with these two.

Steve Spagnuolo’s best defenses have come when he had a wealth of pass rushers at his disposal, so keeping Dee Ford should be a priority for Kansas City. The most logical move appears to be for Kansas City to use the franchise tag on Ford, but that comes with a massive $14 million dollar price tag. That hurts and would leave the Chiefs with just over $20 million in cap space.

However, there are some moves the Kansas City could make to make the impact of tagging Ford less painful. Releasing maligned safety Daniel Sorenson would recoup $2 million for Kansas City. The Chiefs could also let backup quarterback Chad Henne walk and save another $2 million. This would bring the Chiefs’ cap space back to the $25 million range, which should be enough to fill out the roster.

The Chiefs have made known their desire to lock up defensive lineman Chris Jones and wide receiver Tyreek Hill, but until they’ve struck those deal we won’t consider them for these predictions and fits.