The Nick Bolton and Trey Smith problem(s)
Tackling the reasons the Chiefs may not (and perhaps should not) spend top-of-market money in their two biggest names hitting free agency.
I promise that title is not clickbait.
I’m really going to explain why there’s a problem with both Trey Smith and Nick Bolton that, in my opinion, should lead to the Chiefs allowing them to test free agency rather than offering them top of the market (or close, in the case of Bolton) deals.
That decision is not necessarily an easy one. As I wrote earlier this week, hitting on both Bolton and Smith in draft was part of a foundation that helped the Chiefs form a dynasty around their Foundational Five. They’ve both been pivotal helping not just helping the Chiefs improve in weak areas, but in providing legitimate strengths that the offense and defense could build around. Both are good players (with Trey being the markedly superior one at his position, but I’ll come back to that) whose contributions would be missed if they were to depart for greener (get it? Like money?) pastures.
But this is the time of the year that requires difficult decisions. In a world of finite resources (cap space and cash spending), not everyone can get paid, even home-grown talent like Bolton and Smith. And the reality is that with the Chiefs having already leaked that they don’t intend on using the franchise tag, both players are in a position that it doesn’t make sense for them to accept anything other than a princely sum.
That’s the first “problem” that both players share, though it’s not the problem(s) I’ll be talking about today. It’s important to remember that when a player is about to hit free agency, it’s not necessarily as simple as “a player with this skill level is worth X amount of money.” Because free agency, by its very nature, allows for multiple bidders (some of whom are desperate for an upgrade at a very specific position), the “market rate” for good players when they hit free agency is often above what contract they could get if, say, they had a year left on their deal and didn’t have multiple bidders.
Additionally, one of the pieces of leverage owners/teams have over players in negotiations while they’re still under contract is fear of the unknown in terms of injury. If a player has a year left on his contract, there’s always a chance he could get hurt in a way that will affect his future earnings (and thus cost them millions upon millions by waiting). Because of that, he’s more likely to take slightly less money (as the team is now assuming that injury risk to an extent in the form of guaranteed money). But for players like Smith and Bolton? They’ve made it! They are injury free and now don’t have to worry about that aspect of negotiation.
For both those reasons, Smith and Bolton are more expensive now than they would be in any other scenario, and have no reason to take a lower-level deal than the very best they can get on the market. That’s the practical problem with letting players “get” to free agency; The price, generally speaking, only rises for good players.
But that’s not the problem(s) I’m looking to talk about today. Rather, today I want to talk about (in what I guess we could call a soft launch of “if I were Brett Veach”) why both Bolton and Smith have a problem in their film that would prevent me from offering either of them a top of market contract. In the case of Bolton, there are several such issues. With Smith, there’s one in particular.
I’ll talk about each player one at a time, but first, let’s have a conversation on the type of player I believe teams should give “top of market” deals to.