Who the Chiefs Should Be Planning to Keep in 2021

With most of their stars locked up for the next two seasons and limited salary cap space, the Chiefs will need to be selective with who they try to bring back in the 2021 NFL season.

Within the last couple weeks, the Kansas City Chiefs locked up arguably their two best players to long-term deals, paying both quarterback Patrick Mahomes and defensive lineman Chris Jones. With these new mega-deals and the already-established contracts for Frank Clark, Tyrann Mathieu, Travis Kelce, Tyreek Hill, Mitchell Schwartz, Eric Fisher and Anthony Hitchens, the Chiefs have been reduced to $6.2 million of effective cap space for the 2020 season and just $11,669,709 of effective cap space for the 2021 season. As a result, GM Brett Veach and his team will have some tough decisions to make by this time next year.

So, how can the Chiefs balance their books in the long-term as uncertainty remains with the COVID-19 pandemic threatening the league's financials? Veach is certainly planning ahead — we should look down the road too.

One option the Chiefs could use to keep more of their free agents is making some cuts following the season. The Chiefs could move on from a few veterans, including Fisher ($3.2 million dead money, $11.5 million cap savings), Hitchens ($8.4 million dead money, $15 million cap savings over two seasons) and Alex Okafor ($2 million dead money, $5.95 million cap savings). With the additions of draft picks Lucas Niang and Willie Gay Jr., these moves could make sense, though one issue here may be that Niang was a right tackle at TCU and he never played left tackle with the Horned Frogs. Nevertheless, it is an option the Chiefs can look into to save some money to re-sign or replace free agents.

Speaking of the free agents, the Chiefs have a sizable number of them who could be leaving the team after 2020. In order of snaps played, the Chiefs' 2021 free agents who played 300+ snaps in 2019 are center Austin Reiter, cornerback Charvarius Ward (who is a restricted free agent), guard Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, cornerback Bashaud Breeland, OL Mike Remmers, wide receiver Sammy Watkins, edge defender Tanoh Kpassagnon, wide receiver Demarcus Robinson, linebacker Damien Wilson, safety Daniel Sorensen, guard Andrew Wylie, running back Damien Williams, linebacker Ben Niemann and edge defender Taco Charlton. Other notable names below this threshold include interior defender Mike Pennel, fullback Anthony Sherman, wide receiver Byron Pringle and a couple of newcomers, running back DeAndre Washington and tight end Ricky Seals-Jones.

The names that stick out the most to me personally are Ward, Breeland and Watkins. Ward is coming off a season where he was among the best cornerbacks in the AFC, earning the fourth-best passer rating when targeted among cornerbacks in 2019. Breeland put on a show in the 2019 playoffs with three good performances, primarily in Super Bowl LIV, where he had an 81.9 Pro Football Focus (PFF) grade and an interception. Watkins is the ultimate decoy for the Chiefs offense as his contributions led him to the second-highest points above replacement per game in the NFL in 2019, despite putting up middle-of-the-pack numbers. Points above replacement (PAR), according to ESPN's Paul Sabin, is a stat based on another advanced metric known as expected points added (EPA) and it shows how offenses perform with that player on the field and with that player off the field. If the offense is doing that much better with Watkins on the field and Watkins isn't the one putting up the huge numbers, it seems fair to conclude that Watkins is still a big part of the offense; he is just setting up the other receivers around him more than putting up the dominant production.

Another key aspect of this free agency is going to be the interior offensive line, with four of the top five interior offensive linemen (Reiter, Duvernay-Tardif, Remmers and Wylie) becoming free agents. None of these players are particularly excellent players, with none of them receiving a PFF grade of 70 or higher in 2019, but they are all veterans with at least 1,500 career snaps and flashes of being starter-quality players. It will be a point of interest that the Chiefs will need to keep an eye on for next season. Will they want to bring some of them back? Will they choose to revamp the whole group with new, younger talent? Will they emphasize taking an interior offensive line in the 2021 NFL Draft, perhaps multiple times?

Of the remaining names, there is currently just one player that I would demand the Chiefs to re-sign after this season ends, and that is Pennel. Pennel came to the Chiefs on October 19 and his instant impact was clear for all to see. According to PFF, Pennel had a 13.3% run stop percentage, which ranked third among interior defenders. He also missed one tackle out of 31 tackling attempts, which was the best among AFC West interior defenders. To top it all off, Pennel made a crucial play in Super Bowl LIV, making a hit on 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo resulting in an interception by Breeland. Pennel is still just 29, so there could be some more good years left in him if the Chiefs want to keep the Topeka native for a while longer.

So what would I do? As of today, I would cut Hitchens to save $6.5 million ($15 million when including 2022) and Okafor to save $5.95 million to get about $23 million of effective cap space. I would then sign Ward and Pennel as the top priorities of the group. After that, I would look to see what I could do with the remaining money to retain an interior offensive lineman or potentially Watkins. It will be a difficult thing to accomplish, but difficult cap scenarios are nothing new to the Chiefs. Let's be thankful we have Brandt Tilis to handle this for us.