Chiefs lose out on major opportunity because they put DT on the back burner

The Kansas City Chiefs don’t mess up very often as an organization, but now they just made a mistake that will cost them some millions.

According to Tom Pelissero, All-Pro DT Quinnen Williams agreed to terms on a four-year, $96 million megadeal. This makes the deal the second largest contract for a defensive tackle ever, behind Aaron Donald’s $31 million a year.

The plan for Chris Jones’ team was to wait until New York Jets defensive tackle Quinnen Williams got his extension done. At least, I would assume that was the plane. If so, they could then see what Jones’ max value is. For the Chiefs, they should not have wanted to wait this long.

Waiting so long for Jones’ extension has hurt the Chiefs a bit. Now that Williams got his deal and is the second-highest-paid defensive tackle, Jones will want to one-up that because he is better. Not only that, but waiting this long means they could have had more cap space available to them in free agency to go after another veteran edge rusher or even DeAndre Hopkins.

Instead, they still have no cap space to work with and will be looking at paying Jones at least $25 million a year, and it could be much, much higher depending on how much better Jones thinks he is than Williams’ $24 million.

Earlier this offseason, a Chiefs’ insider revealed this could happen:

The Chiefs, according to a team source, are waiting to see if the New York Jets and defensive tackle Quinnen Williams agree to a contract extension before the start of training camp. If that deal happens and Williams indeed becomes the second-highest-paid player at the position behind Los Angeles Rams star Aaron Donald, who signed a three-year, $95 million contract restructure last June, Kansas City would then be able to negotiate a proper extension with Jones ahead of the upcoming season. -Nate Tayor, The Athletic

Jones is coming off the best season of his career, in which he also finished third in Defensive Player of the Year voting.

He’ll also still be just 29 when the season starts, which is still on the right side of 30. At the same time, it’s also his last realistic shot at a top-of-the-market payday, so of course, he’s going to want as much as he can get, especially with the recent trend of DT paydays.

This could be Jones’ last huge payday because of his age, so if I’m him, I’m getting as much as I possibly can. That could be anywhere between 25-32 million. Spotrac -while not the end-all-be-all, but still reliable enough- currently has Jones’ market value at $32.2 million per year.

They shouldn’t have put him on the back burner.