NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport had some unsettling news Monday afternoon ahead of the Chiefs’ Monday Night Football game against the Denver Broncos.
A case of bad timing: The #Seahawks had lowered their asking price for star S Earl Thomas, the #Chiefs were focused on clearing cap space for a possible trade... then Thomas fractured his leg. pic.twitter.com/jAopabdRfp
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) October 1, 2018
Rapoport; “From what I am told, the Seahawks, who wanted two twos—they wanted two second-round picks, actually lowered their price to one-second round pick. The Kansas City Chiefs were then in the process of freeing up some money, creating salary cap space to make room for Thomas’ $8.5 million salary. This is something that likely would have happened and Earl Thomas would have been a member of the Kansas City Chiefs. He just needed more time. Instead, he went out and broke his leg and now is going to end up on injured reserve. As far as the other parts of this trade, the Chiefs have a lot of really good players they need to pay. It doesn't sound like an extension for Thomas would have been in the cards, but at least the Chiefs would have a really good rental.”
As Rapoport alluded to, the Chiefs have a number of high-quality players to pay. Chris Conley, Mitch Morse and Steve Nelson are all due to become unrestricted free agents in 2019 and Chris Jones, Kendall Fuller, Reggie Ragland and Tyreek Hill are all due to become unrestricted free agents in 2020.
With player holdouts in the NFL trending to the norm, it’s likely the Chiefs would have extended Thomas, who was also due for unrestricted free agency this offseason. That said, he would have been a major upgrade at a position that will once again be primarily manned by Ron Parker and Eric Murray tonight.
There are many questions to be asked stemming from this report, but the three on the forefront of my mind are:
1) What does this mean for the status of Eric Berry and/or Daniel Sorensen?
2) Why in the world, if the Seahawks were so close to this deal, did they not bench Thomas?
3) With it being obvious the Chiefs are looking to upgrade their defense before the October 30 NFL trade deadline, what’s next?