A Kansas City Chiefs fan’s guide to start of NFL free agency
Edge Defenders
The Kansas City Chiefs need edge rush help in a bad way. Frank Clark flat out hasn’t lived up to his contract. My hope is that by the time you are reading this Clark has either been cut, traded, or drastically reduced his cap number. The Chiefs are losing Melvin Ingram and Alex Okafor to free agency. I have no interest in re-signing Okafor again, but if they can get Ingram to come back on a one or two-year deal I would be all for it. Even with an Ingram re-signing the Chiefs need to sign another starter.
Joshua Kaindoh and Mike Danna are fine for depth/rotational pieces and I hope they add someone in the draft, but they need to have two starters in place before the draft so they don’t have to reach for someone. So who is available to sign? Well, I wish there were more options to choose from. Here are how I see the tiers of options available.
Elite, but older and expensive: Von Miller and Chandler Jones
If KC really wanted to make a splash, either of these two would fit the bill. Both Miller and Jones could be real difference-makers for the Chiefs, but their age means they would probably have to limit their snaps some. Plus, at some point, the decline in production is going to come. So the question is not only how expensive are these two, but how long of deals are they looking for. Would I be thrilled with what signing one of them would mean for next season? Yes, but there would be some concerns too depending on the contract.
Not Elite, but good starters: Randy Gregory, Jadeveon Clowney, Emmanuel Ogbah, and Haason Reddick
This is probably the tier I would target. If KC were to re-sign Ingram, sing one guy from this tier, and draft an edge player in the first three rounds I would feel good about where they were at going into next season. The order I have these four guys in is probably my preferred order. Reddick isn’t a natural 4-3 DE, so he would be more of a pass rush specialist, but the other three could all be three down starters.
The last of the clear upgrades: Justin Houston, Jerry Hughes, Derek Barnett, and Charles Harris
This would be my fallback tier if KC misses out on the tiers above. After these four I think you start to question how big of an upgrade the players would be over what KC has had the last couple of seasons (which isn’t good enough). Houston and Hughes are both on the wrong side of 30 and would need to be rotational pieces, but they have both proven that they can still be effective contributors. Barnett and Harris are both in their prime but are probably better suited to be the #2 edge rusher on a team, not the top guy. They would still upgrade the Chiefs, but neither are big impact players.
Next up, the linebackers: