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Kansas City Chiefs star defensive sort out Chris Jones is at the moment holding out from the group’s coaching camp practices at Missouri Western State College in St. Joseph, Missouri. He and the group are mentioned to be “far aside” on negotiations for an extension to his present contract, which runs by means of the approaching season.
As conversations about Jones’ contract have taken place, there has usually been a misunderstanding of one of many essential elements within the equation: what Jones might earn if he’s franchise-tagged for the 2024 season.
In fact, official franchise tag values for 2024 received’t be obtainable till subsequent spring. In 2023, nevertheless, defensive sort out tags have been valued at 120% of a participant’s prior yr wage or $18.9 million — whichever is larger.
Many have interpreted “prior yr wage” as a participant’s base wage, which does not embrace roster bonuses, the yearly pro-rated quantity for the contract’s unique signing bonus and different gadgets included in Jones’ wage cap hit for 2023. Beneath this understanding of how it’s calculated, as a free agent in 2024, Jones’ franchise tag quantity could be 120% of his base wage of $19.5 million. That will be $23.4 million.
However that’s incorrect.
The confusion arises from how the worth of franchise and transition tags are outlined within the 2020 Collective Bargaining Settlement (CBA), which in Article 10, Part 2 (a) (i) (B) makes use of “prior yr wage” to outline the quantity multiplied by 120%.
However later in Article 10, Part 2 (e) says that for the needs of Article 10, “prior yr wage” means the participant’s base wage (“Paragraph 5 wage”) — together with “roster and reporting bonuses, pro-rata portion of signing bonus, and different funds to gamers… aside from efficiency bonuses apart from roster and reporting bonuses.”
Right here’s how former agent Joel Corry (now a CBS Sports activities analyst) recently put it:
Wage for franchise & transition tag functions is basically the participant’s wage cap quantity with some minor changes. The 20% improve could be based on Chris Jones’ 2023 cap quantity. https://t.co/NJZr7O0sah
— Joel Corry (@corryjoel) July 23, 2023
Corry is just stating that for functions of the franchise tag calculation, “prior yr wage” is the participant’s cap hit minus any incentives within the participant’s contract.
The issue is that we don’t all the time know precisely what these incentives are — whether or not they’re likely-to-be-earned (LTBE) or not-likely-to-be-earned (NLTBE).
So it’s primarily inconceivable for us to calculate precisely what Jones’ potential franchise tag quantity could be in 2024. We can say, nevertheless, that given his 2023 cap hit of $28.3 million minus the $1.25 million charged in opposition to the 2023 cap for NLTBE incentives earned in 2022 (information through Spotrac), his 2024 franchise tag must be someplace round 120% of $27.1 million, which works out to $32.5 million.
Given this, the rumors that Jones is in search of one thing round $30 million per yr in common annual worth (AAV) aren’t stunning — or maybe even unreasonable. It’s because if he turns into a free agent below the franchise tag in 2024, they’ll pay him extra than that.
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