Don’t expect to see Eric Berry in St. Joe this summer. The Kansas City Chiefs safety has not signed his franchise tender so he has not reported to camp yet. Per a report from ESPN’s Adam Schefter, he is likely to skip most or all of the Chiefs preseason.
Not having signed his franchise tender, Chiefs' Eric Berry is expected to miss most, if not all, of preseason. Expected back before opener.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) July 28, 2016
I predicted that Berry would come back after the St. Joe portion of camp ended but before the preseason ended. Taking this to the week of the regular season opener would not be ideal because Berry likely wouldn’t be fully prepared. I know he’s working out and staying in shape but football shape requires more than a couple of days of practice.
Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk brings up an interesting idea. Would the Chiefs rescind the franchise tag? Andy Reid did that twice in Philly.That would make Berry a free agent. Basically the Chiefs would be betting that no other team out there would pay him more than $10.8 million this year. Let the market set his price.
That idea is intriguing but I don’t like it from the Chiefs perspective. Go back to after the tag deadline passed a couple weeks ago. It sure seemed like there was some hard feelings on Berry’s side considering someone leaked that insurance policy story without any context of whether that was normal or not, which lead the reader to believe it was not). I asked Andy Reid if it was just business and not personal between Berry and the Chiefs and he said he didn’t know because he only knows his own side of it. Reid has texted with Berry this offseason.
I would still put your money on Berry playing for the Chiefs in Week 1.