INDIANAPOLIS — At least the Chiefs didn’t wait until the 11th hour to change the look of free agency for the second year in a row.
One year after the Chiefs re-signed Chris Jones to a record-setting deal on the weekend before free agency opened, they reportedly will franchise tag guard Trey Smith, which is a crushing blow for offensive line-needy teams.
Smith and Bengals receiver Tee Higgins — another likely franchise tag candidate — would have been the NFL’s top non-quarterback free agents if they hit the open market.
The Giants have a Greg Van Roten-sized hole at right guard and could have been players for Smith.
General manager Joe Schoen indicated that he thinks he has four returning starters, but Van Roten is a free agent who was added last July as a one-year stopgap.
The No. 1 team thought to be a threat to poach Smith was the Bears, whose general manager (Ryan Poles) was part of the Chiefs’ front office when Smith was their sixth-round draft pick in 2021.
But the Chiefs’ offense line was completely manhandled in Super Bowl 59, so losing their top protector to Patrick Mahomes would not have been a good start to the offseason.
The franchise tag amounts to a one-year, $23.4 million deal that would make Smith the highest-paid guard in the league, so an extension shouldn’t be complicated to work out.
“We’ve already had some initial [talks],” general manager Brett Veach said earlier this week, “and feel pretty optimistic about our possibilities there.”
The big winners other than the Chiefs and Smith are the other top free agent guards who now could be overpaid with an inflated salary cap: Will Fries, Mekhi Becton, Mike Daniels and Teven Jenkins.
The Matthew Stafford buzz took another turn when the Las Vegas Review Journal wrote that the Raiders and Stafford have “common ground” on contract numbers.
The Rams and Raiders still would have to agree to trade compensation before he is moved to a place that isn’t the highly interested Giants.
The Cowboys are emphasizing a run-first approach with the promotion of Brian Schottenheimer from offensive coordinator to head coach.
That might be a bit of a sore spot for some Jets and Seahawks fans.
Schottenheimer’s play-calling was criticized in the Jets’ most recent playoff game — the 2010 AFC Championship Game against the Steelers — and in his second-to-last game, when he had Mark Sanchez drop back to pass 64 times in a season-changing loss to the Giants in the Victor Cruz Game.
And before he was ousted in Seattle in 2020?
“I got in trouble for letting Russ [Wilson] cook a little bit back in Seattle,” Schottenheimer said. “No, at the end of the day, you have to be able to run the football. We’ve made a commitment that we want to be great on both sides of the line of scrimmage.”
Michigan CB Will Johnson could be an option for the Jets at No. 7 in the draft.
As a Detroit native, he is familiar with the work of new head coach Aaron Glenn, the former Lions defensive coordinator, and two-time All-Pro cornerback and fellow Detroit native Sauce Gardner.
“I love coach Glenn and what he’s done for Detroit,” Johnson said. “We talked a little ball. It seems like they have a pretty complex scheme, but I would love to play in it. Playing with Sauce — a guy I grew up around — would be cool, too.”
