Chiefs Pre-Free Agency Offseason Checklist

The Kansas City Chiefs are Super Bowl champions, so it’s time to relax and enjoy the downtime... right?

Nope, that’s not the case for any team — certainly not one coming off winning a world championship less than two weeks ago. The 2023 NFL Combine's live drills begin on March 2, and free agency is two weeks later. The window to franchise tag players has already opened, and the arrival of the combine only means that we are closing in on the heat of the offseason. The Chiefs have vital decisions to make before the start of the new league year so they can position themselves for another Super Bowl run.

The first decision they have to make is one they pondered all of last offseason. Orlando Brown Jr. just finished his second season in Kansas City, and the best way to describe his time with the team is up-and-down. Brown struggled at the beginning of both seasons but finished strong, performing well in the playoffs.

Nate Taylor of The Athletic already reported that the Chiefs plan to use the franchise tag on Brown. That would leave Kansas City will a few choices:

Extend Brown on a multi-year contract, keeping him as the franchise left tackle for the foreseeable future
Keep Brown on the franchise tag, risking him sitting out next year and/or walking the following year in free agency
Trade Brown from draft capital, most likely drafting his eventual replacement in the upcoming 2023 NFL Draft

The Chiefs did offer Brown a long-term deal last offseason: an alleged six-year pact for $139 million. However, it was with a low amount of guaranteed money so Brown passed. Are the Chiefs willing to add more guaranteed money to the deal, or is the 26-year-old going to lower his demands this time? It’ll be interesting to see which route the Chiefs take, but the sooner they can come to a decision they are comfortable with, the better off they are moving forward in navigating the rest of the offseason.

The next decision the Chiefs have to make is with their best defensive player, Chris Jones, who is entering the final season of his four-year deal that he signed back in 2019. His cap hit for this year is nearly $30M, and the Chiefs may not keep that as-is for the 2023 season. The obvious solution is to extend Jones, who just recorded 15.5 sacks in the regular season and was an integral part of another Super Bowl championship. An extension would significantly lower Jones’s 2023 cap hit, as well as keep him as a leader on the defense for years to come.

The other solution, and definitely the less popular one if you ask Chiefs fans, is to trade Jones similarly to how the team moved Tyreek Hill last offseason. Trading Jones would free up over $21M in cap space for the Chiefs to spend on free agents, whether bringing back their own or signing players from other teams. Similar to the Brown situation, though, the Jones decision should be made before the start of the new league year to allow the Chiefs to maximize their resources.

Lastly, a decision needs to be made about Frank Clark. His 2023 cap hit is currently slated to be above $30M. There is little to no chance he’ll be back on that number in 2023. That doesn’t mean Kansas City will just outright cut him, either. Cutting him would save slightly above $20M, giving the team leverage.

With that said, Clark has proved to be a valuable leader in the locker room and while he may not have the regular season production fans would like, he still shows up in the playoffs and continues to climb the postseason record books. The Chiefs must decide before the new league year if they value Clark enough to bring him back on a reworked contract or say goodbye to one of Steve Spagnuolo’s defensive leaders.