With the Kansas City Chiefs signing Stanford Routt there is now a different outlook on the Chiefs and their free agency plans. The signing doesn't necessarily mean anything for other Chiefs free agents but we can take a guess at what some of it means.

A few not-so-bold predictions on the Chiefs...

Stanford Routt is probably going to start. Routt signed a three-year, $19.6 million deal. That's "starter money" (if there is such a thing...which there isn't). Personally, I don't see the Routt signing as a depth move. I expect him to be the opening day starter opposite Brandon Flowers next September.

That said....the Chiefs do have the cap room to be flexible. Maybe Carr is in their plans. We've heard them again and again stress that signing their own guys is a priority.

Brandon Carr is probably going to hit free agency. It's not guaranteed that he'll hit free agency but I think the Routt signing makes it a lot more likely that he will. He's expendable now. The Chiefs have the leverage in this relationship, including the ability to set their price and walk away if they have to.

That said...the cap room. Same thing as above. KC can be flexible. Whether that makes sense is another thing.

Dwayne Bowe is probably going to stay with the Chiefs. Probably? I think he's nearing sure-thing category. There haven't been any indications he could leave. If he were likely to leave, someone from his camp would probably be drumming up interest in free agency. I don't see or hear any of that happening. Every indication I see and hear is that Bowe is preparing to be in KC next year. Whether that comes via the franchise tag or a longterm deal, I don't know. But, absent any news on a longterm deal, we gotta think that comes with the franchise tag.

That said...how confident are we the Chiefs are willing to commit to Bowe? The franchise tag number would roughly equal his career earnings to date -- around $9 million. That's a big raise.