If the Chiefs do trade Chris Jones, where may he wind up?
The Kansas City Chiefs seem intent on keeping Chris Jones despite his cryptic tweets, and it’s tough to blame them. Jones, now on the wrong side of 30 (trust me, I’m there, too), is coming off his best season and routinely applies pressure on some of the best quarterbacks in football.
While the Chiefs have Patrick Mahomes leading the way at the quarterback position, a key facet to both of their Super Bowl teams is that they win at the line of scrimmage. If Kansas City willingly trades Jones away, they arguably lose that X-factor.
KC general manager Brett Veach doesn’t want to trade Jones, even admitting on the record that he needs a new contract.
"“He’s a great player, and he wants a big contract. He deserves a big contract, and I don’t think there’s any surprises in that regard,” Veach said Monday, h/t Sports Illustrated. “But there’s just some hurdles we have to work through in regards to how we can keep this thing going for the short- and long-term. But we’ve never wavered on, ‘This is a guy that we want to exhaust all of our efforts to get done,’ because that’s how much we think of him.”"
So, the far more likely outcome is that Jones and Veach eventually reach a compromise. But what if things go south?
NFL Rumors: A Bears trade package for Chiefs star Chris Jones
Ryan Poles is very familiar with Jones from his time with the Chiefs front office. He knows that Jones can be a gamebreaker. Justin Fields is on the rise this coming season and the next, so the Bears would rather keep a vast majority of their future first-round selections with the hope of building around him. Four draft picks may seem like a lot for a 30-year-old defensive tackle, but Jones is coming off an 15.5-sack season.
KC will likely prefer two firsts in return for Jones, but in this case they receive more overall early draft capital, which should benefit them in the long run. When you have the scouting department that Kansas City has, the more picks, the merrier.