Chris Jones deserves to the paid and other lessons learned in Week 9

It Is Time to Pay Chris Jones

Chris Jones has been out a few weeks with a groin injury, an extremely painful and difficult injury to deal with, especially for a lineman. In that time, the Chiefs actually started picking up more sacks, getting 9 in Denver and 5 against Green Bay, which is more then all of the games Jones had played in to that point combined.

The lack of pressure through the first five weeks actually stuck around as a talking point for the kingdom for quite a while, with most fans pointing to Frank Clark as the problem. Fans blamed Clark, calling him “lazy,” “terrible,” and “a waste of money,” Most of the conversations surrounding Clark tended to bring up his large contract and pegged it as a reason for his lack of production.

So when the conversation of paying Chris Jones comes up, fans and analyst should have been consistent with their wariness of a big contract due to the potential drop off in production.

That was until his return this week.

Chris Jones picked up 1 sack, 2 QB hits, 1 TFL, and a ton of pressures against one of the best offensive lines in football (only 15 sacks through 8 games).

The defensive success started and ended with Chris Jones on Sunday. When he was playing well, the defense was a wrecking crew. When he was tired, the defense struggled in every facet.

A player with the ability to influence a game against one of the best offenses in football in the way Jones was able to do on Sunday is invaluable. With K.C.’s persistent defensive issues from season to season, it would be wise to pay Jones and keep that influence for at least a few more seasons.

Since K.C. failed to pick up an elite corner via trade, the Chiefs find themselves with a little bit of extra cap space. Some of that space has to be rolled over into next season to handle Patrick Mahomes’ incoming contract, but there is still plenty of space to pay Jones, which could serve the Chiefs well for seasons to come.