• March 28, 2024 12:07 pm

Brett Veach: Tyrann Mathieu and Orlando Brown are at top of the Chiefs’ off-season list

ByTravis Forsyth

Feb 2, 2022

The NFL’s 2022 off-season will be in full swing in just a couple of weeks, once Super Bowl 56 between the Rams and Bengals is officially in the books. However, Kansas City’s off-season began on Monday following their loss to Cincinnati in the AFC Championship last weekend. 

So far, Head Coach Andy Reid and various players have spoken to the media since the loss, but it was General Manager Brett Veach’s turn on Tuesday afternoon to discuss where the team’s focus will be over the next few months.

At the top of the list are two of Kansas City’s impending free agents, safety Tyrann Mathieu and left tackle Orlando Brown. Signing both players both be easy nor come cheap, especially with Patrick Mahomes’ cap number rising from $7 million to almost $36 million. But Veach seems confident something could get done for both players.

“That’ll certainly be at the top of the list of things that we have to work through; there’s a lot of questions just largely to do with the salary cap and the restrictions,” said Veach. “We had a successful 2019 season, and then as we went into the 2020 season, we were able to get a lot of guys resigned, and then we had the pandemic that really killed the cap so, there was a lot of adjustments that we had to do that limited our ability to do some things, and we had to get creative in other ways,”

Flashback to the 2020 offseason, Veach did the improbable by signing Patrick Mahomes, Chris Jones, and Travis Kelce to high-dollar, multi-year extensions, when most sports-takes at the time said the Chiefs were going to have to choose one guy over another. 

If Veach can do the same sort of thing by paying Mathieu and Brown this year, it would be even more impressive, considering the number of large contracts already on Kansas City’s payroll. At the same time, signing both would be beneficial to the team’s roster. In short, Mathieu has proven to be a vocal leader in the team’s locker room, and Brown has solidified the left side of the offensive line. 

Talks between Veach and Mathieu’s representatives surrounding a new deal went off and on last summer before the two sides decided to resume negotiations till the end of the 2021 season.  

“Before the [2021] season, [we] had a chance to talk to Tyrann [Mathieu] and his agent,” Veach began. “We got to the point where we said once the season ends, we’ll be able to look at the landscape and see where it’s going to be at once we get to this point in the 2022 off-season and where it’s going to be in 2023, and yeah, we’ll walk through that,” he confirmed. “I know it’s certain Tyrann wants to be here, and play here, and loves it here, and we certainly feel the same way, we love him, but you know it’s a long process.”

Following the loss to Cincinnati, Mathieu said he’s hopeful of remaining a Chief but understands what the future holds is out of his control.

“I hope so,” he said. “Ever since I came here, I tried to be the right kind of teammate, I’ve tried to play my part, and obviously, [there’s] always that feeling that you know you can make more plays for your team, but I’m hoping it works out. [But] I don’t have any control over that, I feel like everything that was in my control, I tried my best to handle it and to do it with a smile, so… I love this team, I love this locker room, it’s a lot of coaches that I have great relationships with, so I’m hoping.”

In order to keep Mathieu in red and gold, he’ll likely be aiming to make a salary similar to Seattle’s Jamal Admas, who’s making $17.5 million a year. However, Mathieu, who turns 30 in May, is three (almost four) years older than Adams and has a Super Bowl ring, so theirs leverage on both sides. Whether the Chiefs decide to get younger at strong safety or pay top-tier safety money for an aging veteran will be something to keep an eye on as the off-season kicks off in a few weeks.

Kansas City will also need to decide on left tackle Orlando Brown Jr., who’s also looking for a huge payday. In Brown’s case, top-tier left tackle money would be like what San Francisco is paying Trent Williams at $23 million a year, which is also a tall order. Still, it’s hard to imagine Brown being a one-year rental after all the draft capital it cost the Chiefs to trade for him (1st, 3rd, and 4th round picks in 2021 and a 2022 5th rounder). 

Veach seems confident to bring both players back, listing them at the top of the Chiefs’ to-dos for the off-season. Reality is eventually going to hit that he can’t realistically re-sign everyone. Especially since the five largest cap hits for 2022 make up 62% of the Chiefs’ 2022 salary cap, per Spotrac.com. 

However, one potential loophole would be releasing defensive end Frank Clark as a post-June 1st cut which could save the Chiefs $19.5 million which could go towards keeping both Mathieu and Brown, if that’s something Veach and his staff decide to do.

As of early February, Kansas City currently ranks 22nd in the NFL with approximately $5.1 million in cap space, according to Spotrac.com.

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