KANSAS CITY, Mo. — It became increasingly clear in recent days that Chris Jones and the Chiefs would not resolve the stalemate between the two sides regarding a new contract extension for the All-Pro defensive tackle, and on Tuesday afternoon the Chiefs took the next step in pushing the standoff further down the road.
The club placed Jones on the reserve/did not report list ahead of Tuesday’s deadline to reduce the roster to 53 players. Jones has been AWOL from the Chiefs for nearly three months, with his last appearance with the club during their White House visit on June 6.
The Chiefs did not comment on the placement of Jones on the reserve list. General manager Brett Veach is scheduled to speak with reporters on Wednesday.
Jones skipped the team’s offseason workouts including the mandatory minicamp. That forced him to forfeit a $500,000 workout bonus. He didn’t report to training camp on July 21, and he’s racked up $1.95 million in fines. He will hit the $2 million mark on Wednesday, and if he doesn’t report by Sunday his fines will total $2.2 million. Jones will likely total up to $2.7 million in fines or lost bonus money before the regular season opens. Under the current collective bargaining agreement, those fines cannot be waived by the club and must be paid by the player to the NFL.
And landing on the did not report list means Jones could start losing significantly more money next week.
By placing Jones on the did not report list, the Chiefs removed him from the active roster. While on the reserve list, his Paragraph 5 salary will not count toward the Chiefs’ salary cap allotment.
Paragraph 5 is the legalese for a player’s regular-season salary. For Jones that is $19.5 million in 2023, or $1.083 million per week over 18 weeks. If he’s not on the active roster for next Thursday’s season opener against Detroit, Jones will lose one week’s salary.
His so-called “dead cap” money will still count toward the Chiefs’ salary cap, so right now Jones has a salary cap figure for 2023 of $8,291,668. That includes $7,041,668 that is part of his signing bonus and restructured contract bonus prorated over the length of the four-year deal signed in 2020. It also includes the $1.25 million incentive he earned last season for reaching 10 sacks. That bonus is charged against the 2023 salary cap.
But his $19.5 million base salary won’t count against the Chiefs for now, and that’s why the club had no choice but to place him on the reserve/did not report list. According to the NFL Players Association public salary cap report, the Chiefs on Tuesday morning had $194,569 in available cap space. During the offseason, only the top 51 contracts of a team count toward the salary cap. Now the Chiefs must adhere to the full salary cap, which includes all 53 players on the active roster plus players such as Jody Fortson and Nazeeh Johnson who are on injured reserve. It also must include the 16 players the Chiefs can sign to their practice squad starting Wednesday.
Without playing Jones going on the did not report list, the Chiefs would have violated salary cap rules and wouldn’t have room to sign a single practice squad player.
Now that Jones is on the reserve list, what’s next? When and if he reports to the club, the Chiefs can apply for a roster exemption of up to two weeks. That would allow Jones to practice with the team and start shaking off the rust from his layoff. It would also mean up to two more weeks without a paycheck. But when the roster exemption ends, the Chiefs would need to come to terms on a restructured contract for Jones to reduce his $19.5 million base salary cap hit for 2023 or restructure the contracts of other players to comply with the salary cap.
If Jones doesn’t report until Week 8, as he suggested recently on social media, he would sacrifice as much as $9.75 million in salary this season — and save the Chiefs just as much against the cap. That scenario would mean Jones losing out on nearly $12.5 million in wages, bonuses and fines.
That’s not the only solution, however. The Chiefs could trade Jones to another club willing to part with both the draft picks to acquire him and the money to sign him to an extension.
Whatever happens next, however, it doesn’t appear the standoff between the Chiefs and Jones is any closer to a resolution. The Chiefs signaled as much early on Tuesday when they sent a 2024 sixth-round draft choice to Las Vegas in exchange for defensive tackle Neil Farrell, a fourth-round choice for the Raiders in the 2022 NFL Draft.
While neither side has taken negotiations public, there is little indication of progress between the Chiefs and the Jones camp. It’s also not entirely clear how far apart the two sides are, and whether the issue is the length of the contract, the overall value, the guaranteed money or all of the above.
