The drama around star defensive tackle Chris Jones’ holdout just got uglier as the two-time Super Bowl champion reveals how long he’s willing to stay away from the Kansas City Chiefs facility going into the final week of the preseason.
Chris Jones has anchored the Chiefs’ defensive line since the club drafted him in the first round of the 2016 draft. After helping the team triumph over the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl 54, the team rewarded him with a four-year, $85 million contract with $60 million in guarantees on July 14, 2020.
As Jones approaches the final year of that contract, he made it clear to the Chiefs’ front office that he wants a new contract extension in the ballpark of $30 million per season. Numbers are similar to what the Los Angles Rams are paying defensive tackle Aaron Donald. The four-time Pro Bowler has since held out from all of Kansas City’s offseason activities and let it bleed into training camp, amounting to more than one million dollars in fines after remaining absent from every practice.
Jones has not shown up to either of the Chiefs’ first two preseason games, and on social media, he shared that he’s not afraid to miss at least half of the regular season.
If Jones is telling the truth, that means he would miss games against the Detroit Lions, Jacksonville Jaguars, Chicago Bears, New York Jets, Minnesota Vikings, Denver Broncos, and Los Angeles Chargers. Kansas City’s Week 8 game will be played against the Broncos at Empower Field at Mile High on October 29.
Missing that many games won’t be cheap either, as it will cost him $1,083,333 for every regular season game he misses, per the folks at Arrowhead Pride.
When a popular Chiefs page on Twitter (recently rebranded as “X”) mentions the fines to Jones, the star D-tackle simply responded, “I can afford it.”
As of now, Jones is currently the ninth-highest-paid defensive tackle in the National Football League. On August 11, NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport appeared on the Pat McAfee Show and shared an update that Kansas City attempted to pay Jones, but it wasn’t enough to make the club’s best defensive player happy.
Chris Jones made a massive impact on the field a year ago for Kansas City, starting all 17 games and recording 44 tackles (30 solo), 17 for a loss, 15.5 sacks, and 29 QB hits. Not having him for the majority, if not all, of the regular season in 2023 would be a significant blow on defense.
