KC Chiefs: Could Damien Wilson return in free agency?

Former Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Damien Wilson will be a free agent for the second consecutive year after signing a one-year deal with the Jacksonville Jaguars during the last free agency cycle.

Wilson spent two seasons with the Chiefs in 2019 and 2020 and was a part of both of the Chiefs’ Super Bowl trips and their lone Super Bowl victory in that span. In his two seasons, Wilson compiled 154 total tackles, 6 TFL, 1.5 sacks, and 2 passes defended and provided nice depth for the Chiefs at linebacker as someone who could play the SAM linebacker position.

Wilson went on to sign that aforementioned 1-year, $2 million contract with the Jaguars in the 2020 offseason to provide a struggling franchise with some veteran leadership and Super Bowl experience. Wilson had yet another solid season for Jacksonville with 106 total tackles, 5 TFL, 3 sacks, and a pass defended.

Obviously, the Jaguars weren’t great and didn’t play a lot of meaningful games but Wilson showed that at 29 years old he can still be productive and squarely in the linebacker rotation for an NFL team.

Could Damien Wilson come back to provide some linebacker help for the Kansas City Chiefs once again?

One would probably argue that the Chiefs should have never let Damien Wilson go last free agency given he knew the defense pretty well and only signed for a couple million in Jacksonville. It’s not like they couldn’t have been competitive with that and I know we all love to bag on Ben Niemann a lot, but it does look a bit silly to let a contributing linebacker like Wilson walk for essentially nothing and then have Niemann play 50% of your defensive snaps.

Nonetheless, the Chiefs will have a chance to correct that mistake this offseason. Niemann will be a free agent who could still come back as an emergency linebacker, but the team should look to find a better 3rd linebacker after Hitchens’ release and the emergence of Nick Bolton and Willie Gay in 2021 so there isn’t such a big drop-off.

After having his nice little year-long vacation in Jacksonville, it would make sense to bring Wilson back home in Kansas City to play more SAM linebacker while Gay can play the WILL and Bolton can take over full-time in the middle. There’s probably still a lot of familiarity between Wilson and Steve Spagnuolo’s defense, too.

Wilson has sufficient athleticism and is a sound tackler who can be trusted enough to help out in run support and while his coverage seems to have dropped off a bit this past year in Jacksonville (whether that be due to loss of ability or just tougher competition) he still only allowed a 69% completion rate and 88.9 passer rating as opposed to Ben Niemann who gave up an 80.6% completion rate and a 113.1 passer rating when targeted.

Overall, you know what you’re getting with Damien Wilson. I always used to call him the definition of solid and he still appears to fit that description after being away for a year in Jacksonville. Best of all, he should be pretty cheap.