Arrowhead Pride
Last offseason, Kansas City largely took care of its own.
Fresh off becoming back-to-back champions with a win over the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII, the Kansas City Chiefs largely planned their offseason around keeping the band together for a bid at a three-peat.
The team got a head start on free agency shortly before the league year began, re-signing star defensive tackle Chris Jones to a monster 5-year contract. Including $95 million in guaranteed money, it was — by far — the richest defensive contract of that offseason.
Not surprisingly, giving market-topping money to Jones left the Chiefs on the sidelines when unrestricted free agents started signing with new teams. In fact, Kansas City’s first signing of note — veteran tight end Irv Smith Jr. — had been among the players released after the previous training camp.
The Chiefs’ trendiest free agent signing was getting wide receiver Hollywood Brown on a one-year deal built around major incentives. Unfortunately, the veteran speedster suffered a shoulder injury on his first preseason snap. It ultimately required major surgery.
Although Brown was able to return late in the regular season (and contributed during the playoffs), the team’s vision of pairing him with quarterback Patrick Mahomes never materialized. Brown and the Chiefs will try to get it right in 2025, as he has returned to the club on an almost identical “prove-it” one-year contract.
Jones was not the only defensive free agent who returned to the Chiefs. Kansas City rewarded the 2023 contributions of linebacker Drue Tranquill and defensive end Mike Danna with lucrative three-year contracts.
In 2023, both had been signed to bargain salaries before turning in career seasons and contributing to a Super Bowl-winning defense. Sometimes, though, perceptions for NFL role players like these can change quickly after a bigger contract puts a brighter spotlight on them.
Danna and Tranquill were certainly not bad players in 2024. Their contracts — worth a combined $14 million annually — were hardly back-breaking to Kansas City’s salary cap. But whether they were better options than hypothetical replacement players is open to debate. In 2024, Danna’s sack production was cut in half, while Tranquill’s missed tackle rate surged to a career-high 13%.
Now that the Chiefs have acquired potential replacements by drafting defensive end Ashton Gillotte and linebacker Jeff Bassa, Tranquill and Danna might not remain in Kansas City for their final contract seasons in 2026. The Chiefs will have to decide if they have better uses for up to $15 million in salary cap space they could clear by moving on from the two veterans.
One re-signing that paid off handsomely for the Chiefs (and the player) was bringing back defensive tackle Tershawn Wharton. Kansas City gave Wharton its entire four-year qualifying allotment to pay him $2.74 million. Since it was a Veteran Salary Benefit contract, only about half of it counted against the cap.
Wharton then turned in a career-best 6.5 sacks in 2024. The former undrafted free agent from Missouri S&T...
