This is a bit tongue in cheek, of course, but just watching the Kansas City Chiefs go from Orlando Brown Jr. to Jawaan Taylor and JuJu Smith-Schuster to the rest of a formidable and budding set of receivers, it’s clear the franchise has an unshakable confidence in Mahomes’s ability to overcome most personnel situations. Again, Travis Kelce, Skyy Moore, Kadarius Toney, et al. aren’t shabby.
And Andy Reid himself told me during Super Bowl week that he felt energized by the process of piecing together new faces around Mahomes. More moves could be on the horizon. But for now, Mahomes is so good that he’s allowing the team to spend some of its capital elsewhere (the parts they are allowed to spend, anyway).
If the Chiefs want to Run it Back, that should come at the cooperation of the players, not a team stretching the team’s payment. To state the obvious, this is applicable to some players, though not necessarily to all. It’s dependent on the cost and value of potential replacement.
The Chiefs are essentially deciding whether a handful of key contributors on offense are aided by Patrick Mahomes more than the inverse. They can back-date just one year for their evidence. (Hint: It’s usually the former.)
The timing of this is fascinating, given what their counterparts are doing. On Wednesday, not-for-long Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers spent half an hour on the Pat McAfee Show declaring his “intention” to play for the New York Jets next season — none of this is his fault, he really wants you to know. He denied sending the Jets a “demand list” for players to sign, though the report actually called it a “wish list,” and he wasn’t exactly convincing that he didn’t have some suggestions.
The NFL announced performance-based pay distributions for the 2022 NFL season and second-year RG Trey Smith led the way for the team.
The league announced on Friday that NFL players are set to receive a whopping $336 million in performance-based for 2022. This is a benefit that is collectively bargained between the NFL and NFLPA to compensate players based on their playing time and salary.
Smith, a sixth-round draft pick out of Tennessee in 2021, played the fifth-highest percentage of offensive snaps in Kansas City in 2022. His 1,037 snaps earned him a 90.25% share of the team’s offensive snaps last season. As a result, he comes in at No. 20 in the NFL in terms of performance-based pay with over $663K earned.
If you’re curious about how exactly performance-based pay is determined, here’s an explainer and chart from the NFL:
Each player on the same team competes for his own share of his club’s Performance-Based Pay pool. The hypothetical example in the table below illustrates how the Player Index works, using a simplified four-player team and a club bonus pool of $1,000,000. Each player receives his share of the pool depending on how his Index compares to those of his teammates.
If you looked at the last name and wondered about the relation, you are absolutely correct. Spencer is the youngest of Andy Reid’s five children.
Reid recently spent a year as an assistant strength and conditioning coach for BYU football. He also made stops at Colorado State and Boston College in the same position under head coach Steve Addazio.
Spencer also worked with the Chiefs in 2018 as an intern in the strength and conditioning program.
One of the more notable signings by the Kansas City Chiefs thus far during free agency has been defensive end Charles Omenihu, who joined the Chiefs by way of a two-year deal worth a maximum of $20 million, according to Jordan Schultz of the Score on March 14.
The signing was notable enough that former NFL player, scout, and ESPN analyst Louis Riddick took to Twitter to sound off on the transaction.
“@charless_94 [Charles Omenihu] and @StoneColdJones [Chris Jones] together going to be an effing problem with their inside/outside pass rush skills in KC,” Riddick wrote on March 15.
Ultimately, what Louis Riddick is referring to is how Omenihu’s versatility will pair greatly with Chris Jones’ in Kansas City.
During his career, Omenihu has played 848 snaps along the edge, 464 over the offensive tackle, 414 over the B-gap, and 173 over the A-gap, according to PFF. That means he has experience playing at every position along the defensive line.
