Today is July 6, which means Dwayne Bowe and the Kansas City Chiefs have 10 more days to work out a longterm contract. Bowe is currently under the franchise tag so the Chiefs control his rights for the 2012 season. Bowe can sign the tender and play in 2012 or not sign the tender and not play.

The smart money, as Bowe has already indicated, is on him playing for the Chiefs this year.

The real question is whether he and the team can agree on a contract that will keep him in KC beyond 2012.

The deadline for Bowe to sign a longterm deal with the Chiefs comes on July 16. If Bowe does not have a longterm deal by then he must play out the season under the one-year franchise tender (and the Chiefs will have to absorb that cap number instead of GM Scott Pioli doing whatever it is he does to make the Chiefs cap numbers low). They can work on a longterm deal in the future but July 16 is the deadline to have something done prior to the season.

People ask me all the time here, on Twitter and elsewhere -- are the Chiefs going to sign Bowe to a longterm deal?

The answer is I don't know and I don't think anyone has a really good read on what will happen. I haven't felt so in the dark on a story in a long time. You'd think if they were on the verge of a big contract, or if the negotiations were breaking down, we'd at least hear some rumblings about it but there's just not much there. So I really have no idea.