2024 Chiefs defensive outlook: Chris Jones or L'Jarius Sneed, por qué no los dos?
*blows into the digital cobwebs of the Substack to clear them*
It’s been a little while since I have written anything, and it’s not due to lack of thoughts. It’s mainly just due to lack of subject deep enough to dive into in a longer form than on my Twitter account. But that was always the idea and purpose of this zine. Never going to force myself to write anything I didn’t want to, not being under any quotas. Which is why this space will always be free (and thanks for anyone who is subscribed).
I wanted to opine a bit on Chris Jones, L’Jarius Sneed and the Chiefs upcoming decision on those two players, plus the rest of the impending roster departures.
Let’s start with this: as long as the Chiefs have Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes, they’ll probably be okay! This isn’t to say Mahomes and Reid are roster-proof. They lost some games prior Chiefs in the past probably wouldn’t have, and all four of their playoff wins were close games. A bounce of the ball one way or another (literally in the Super Bowl) or say, if Zay Flowers doesn’t fumble at the goal line, the Chiefs might not be back-to-back Super Bowl champions. Now that is in part just how the NFL is, a game of proverbial inches, so we can always say that. But I think it’s fair to say if the Chiefs defense was just a little worse than it was (especially in the playoffs), they probably don’t repeat.
So in that sense, I don’t think it’s quite as simple as Mahomes and Reid paper over everything. They make the margins of error larger and more survivable, but they don’t cure all on their own. We saw in the Super Bowl in 2020 that that wasn’t the case.
I’m not sure of a good tie-in here so I’ll just post the chart:
That’s the stickiness of defense - as measure by DVOA - year over year. Or to say, roughly how much defensive performances changes from one year to the next. For football (and sports in general) a 0.17 R^2 is actually pretty decent! It’s low in an absolute sense but on a relative basis, there is some signal there given how low coefficient of determinations typically are in sports.
Now here is the same for offenses (again as measured by DVOA):
Still not a huge number, but it’s more sticky than defense and I think intuitively that makes sense. Defenses are more matchup-dependent and line up based on how the offense lines up first. Also, the quarterback is the main driver of good or bad play on either side of the ball. If you have your franchise QB in place, your offense is likely to be more sticky than if you have, say, your franchise defensive end or cornerback in place.
All this to say, we shouldn’t necessarily expect the Chiefs defense next year to be as good as it was this year outright. Even if all the same players returned, there is more volatility on the defensive side of the ball relative to offense. The Chiefs defense faced the 19th toughest schedule by DVOA, including games against Easton Stick, Jake Browning, Bailey Zappe, Zach Wilson, Justin Fields, Russell Wilson (2x), and Aidan O’Connell (2x). All seven of those QBs will almost surely not be starting games next year as the primary starter outside of Fields. Now, that is partly accounted for in DVOA, both if the QB played the entire season (like Russell Wilson) or if they were starting due to injury (like Stick or Wilson). A measure like EPA wouldn’t account for that.
The slate of QBs next year should be a bit harder, as the Broncos and Raiders are going to make an upgrade (in theory), Joe Burrow is expected to heal just fine, Justin Herbert should start both games, and they’ll add matchups of Lamar Jackson, CJ Stroud, and Brock Purdy to the slate. They’ll still get likely easy QB matchup against the Browns, Steelers, and Saints, with a TBD for the Bucs and Falcons who are changing quarterback in the coming months potentially (maybe it’s Justin Fields again!).
The Chiefs defense ranked 7th in DVOA in 2023 and 11th on a weighted basis, weighing later games heavier than early season ones. Here is the question: can the Chiefs defense get stay the same and/or get better next year?
As far back as DVOA goes (1981), of the 420 top 10 ranked defenses, 215 of them stayed in the top 10 the next year (thus 205 dropped out). On average, a team dropped just over six spots in DVOA rank. Even removing the #1 DVOA defense (since they have nowhere to go but down or stay the same), it’s still about the same figure (-6.2 vs -6.3).
Does that mean the Chiefs defense is surely going to regress? No, not at all on it’s own. But the three points I am trying to drive home here is that 1) defense is less sticky year-over-year than offense 2) we’ll get into this momentarily, but the Chiefs defense has some likely turnover, adding to the potential volatility 3) a tougher slate of quarterbacks to face.
Here is how the Chiefs 2024 defense looks, via the depth charts at the wonderful Our Lads (note that gold means the player is an unrestricted free agent):
That’s a lot of spots opening up. Even if there are really only two all pro caliber players up to leave, it is still a lot of possible churn. And this doesn’t even consider that Charles Ominehu is going to miss a significant chunk of the season due to an ACL tear just a few weeks back.
If nobody came back, then the Chiefs would need to replace snaps of practically their entire defensive line outside of Karlaftis, their will linebacker, subpackage linebacker, starting outside corner, and third safety (who will probably get some playing time as Bryan Cook gets fully back up to speed from his injury), plus some rotational defensive line depth.
And rosters don’t exist in a vacuum since there are finite cap dollars to spend. The Chiefs can’t just pour resources only into the defense, because the offense needs some patchwork too (not pictured below is technically punter and long snapper are free agents too):
Again, if nobody comes back, the Chiefs would need to replace the snaps of: starting left tackle, ancillary receiving snaps Hardman and James - both who are also the primary punt and kick returners, some offensive line depth, passing down running back snaps of McKinnon and CEH, and potentially spend a few dollars on the best job in any sport: the backup QB (though that might be Ian Book, who the Chiefs signed to a futures deal).
And that is without considering that even if the entire receiving room were under contract for 2024, the Chiefs need an upgrade or two (or three) there. Furthermore, one of the main levers the Chiefs can pull to create cap space to plug these holes is cutting Marquez Valdes-Scantling, meaning it’s further snaps they need to replace. And as up-and-down as MVS was in the regular season, he’s a nice #3/4 receiver option to have, so cutting him I think is a net loss in talent, even if it’s a net gain in cap. He might not be worth the $14M in cap space and the $12M in cap savings he could create if cut, but he’s worth a few million at the minimum where I think there is actually a reasonable idea to keep him at his cap number (or see if you can work out an extension to lower the 2024 hit).
But let’s focus back on the defensive side of the ball, in particular, the two gems that are the main stone of the Chiefs offseason mining effort: Chris Jones and L’Jarius Sneed.
First, some numbers, and let’s start with the best defensive tackle the past five years not named Aaron Donald.
While Chris Jones didn’t post career high level numbers this year across the board, he was still excellent and had one of his best pass rush win rate and pressure rate seasons of his career. He did struggle in the run game, something that Nate Tice of The Athletic and Yahoo! pointed out has been a theme this season for him, taking off the first three quarters. And while Jones for his career has been good against the run, he isn’t going to be paid $90M+ for what that. Especially since he’s getting older and might be used a bit more situationally for the next 3-4 years on more pass-centric and money downs (at least during the regular season).
Jones will be 30 for his 2024 season, which isn’t that old for a defensive lineman, it’s not particularly young either. Using PFF’s free agent ranking and contract projection board (which are pretty accurate to be honest), Jones is expected to cash in to the tune of $30M AAV for 4/$120M with $80M (or 66%) guaranteed. Looking at the prior three season performance of similarly paid defensive tackles of that age (ignoring if they reached free agent status or not - which would give them a little more leverage), here is how Jones stacks up.
I added Quinnen Williams to the table, where even though he isn’t close in age to Chris Jones, he was the most recent IDL extended for a large deal. The real comparison in age/contract is going to be Javon Hargrave and Aaron Donald. Those two are similar to Jones in age prior to contract year. Hargrave got paid for his pass rush skills, as he was pretty meh in the run game and got paid as such, the lowest value of anyone above listed. Aaron Donald was, well, Aaron Donald. Dominant in every category and probably underpaid relative to his peers.
With Chris Jones though, he’s got the second best overall grade of anyone here listed, the second best pass rush win rate, and the second best pressure rate. And while in the run game he isn’t as good as Armstead or Donald, he’s similar to Williams and better by far than Hargrave.
Statistically while Jones isn’t Donald, he’s been a step up from all the other IDL peers regardless of contract, as over the past two seasons he’s (min. 800 snaps)
3rd in overall PFF grade (behind Dexter Lawrence and Donald)
2nd in pass rush grade (behind Lawrence)
13th in run grade
3rd in pass rush win rate (again behind Donald and Lawrence)
1st in pressure rate
29th in run win%
It’s clear that Jones is an elite player and one of a handful of the best interior linemen this century. But it’s one thing if Jones was Dexter Lawrence or Quinnen Williams age next season, being a half decade younger. But Jones will be 30, and again while that isn’t old, it’s not far from where interior lineman go from being power and speed threats to more power and strength with instinct.
On the positive side though, Aaron Donald saw basically no decline from age 30-33:
30: 93.6 grade, 92.7 pass rush, 90.0 run grade, 21.9% PRWR
31: 90.6 grade, 90.7 pass rush, 75.6 run grade, 17.4% PRWR
32: 91.1 grade, 91.5 pass rush, 71.4 run grade, 22.3% PRWR
The same goes for Calais Campbell, who was more of a run specialist and known as a great player rather than a hall of famer, he aged well in his skillset of run stuffing from age 30 and on.
But if we look at someone like Ndamukong Suh, another one of the handful of elite defensive tackles in this era, he did show some real decline once he hit 30:
28: 88.1 grade, 81.9 pass rush, 85.0 run grade, 13.6% PRWR
29: 89.5 grade, 74.1 pass rush, 87.7 run grade, 10.0% PRWR
30: 88.2 grade, 75.2 pass rush, 90.6 run grade, 10.1% PRWR
31: 78.8 grade, 67.2 pass rush, 80.0 run grade, 8.4% PRWR
32: 72.0 grade, 60.3 pass rush, 74.3 run grade, 8.5% PRWR
The difference between Donald/Jones and Campbell/Suh, is Donald and Jones are better in the pass rush game than as run stoppers. I don’t know if that’s something that is going to age well, as run defense intuitively seems like it does, but I’ll give you one last comp in Fletcher Cox.
Age 28-29: 91.8 grade, 91.7 pass rush, 77.0 run grade, 16.0% PRWR
Age 30-32: 69.5 grade, 72.0 pass rush, 57.6 run grade, 10.6% PRWR
Now on to L’Jarius Sneed…
The other key player up for free agency is diamond in the rough 4th round cornerback L’Jarius Sneed, who went from unheralded 227th ranked player on the 2020 consensus draft board to one of the top 10 or so cornerbacks in the league this year.
I want to get a quick point out of the way. I’ve like to use PFF grades as part of any metric to evaluate a player as you can tell, and I think they are valuable and useful, even if imperfect (no metric is). Sneed did not grade particularly well by PFF this season, mostly due to his penalties (clicking on an image below will take you to the tweet).
In my opinion, the penalties matter. It would be one thing if it were only a handful of them or they were silly ones like an offside or encroachment. Something that didn’t really have any affect on the play itself. But Sneed lead the league in both defensive holding and defensive pass interference, while having five more penalties overall than any other defender (Charvius Ward was second at 12 to Sneed’s 17).
This coincides with Sneed moving from a slot corner to an exclusively outside corner role, which might be part of the reason for the uptick in penalties. Sneed was always an aggressive corner and asked to play press coverage, something that defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo has asked of his corners. In 2021 and 2020, only former Chief Charvarius Ward had more press coverage snaps than Sneed (two more), and coming up close behind them was Jaylen Watson.
Sneed’s wide corner snaps more than doubled, as did his wide press coverage snaps this year. And while his overall grade remained about the same in what is considered a harder coverage role, it’s despite his high amount of penalties. You could imagine if he committed fewer penalties, his 2023 season wide grade would have been much higher, as evidenced by his wide press grade drop, which was due heavily to penalties he committed.
Year over year, despite having a similar amount of press coverage snaps in 2022 and 2023, he saw his press coverage grade get cut in half, while simultaneously his coverage grade in man coverage dropped dramatically:
2021: Man 62.8 Zone 60.7
2022: Man 66.9 Zone 74.9
2023: Man 43.4 Zone 85.8
Sneed had 11 penalties lined up out wide in man coverage, the most of any player (with Sean Murphy-Bunting having 9).
There is also one thing that I think isn’t talked about enough with Sneed this year: he was no longer used as a blitzer. In 2021 and 2022, Sneed blitzed on 62 and 63 dropbacks, respectively. In 2023…just 18. Those pass rush snaps went to McDuffie, who swapped roles in the slot with Sneed this year (McDuffie has 70 pass rush snaps this season).
PFF has Sneed projected for what I think Chiefs fans would assume is a shockingly low number of just $52.5M total, with $35M guaranteed. How does that compare to the highest paid corners in the league and their wide coverage snaps?
Pretty well! When the ball is thrown at Sneed (and he doesn’t commit a penalty), he’s amongst the leaders in many stats:
Forced incompletion percentage (pass breakups, knocking the ball out on contact, cutting off the route)
Yards allowed per coverage snap
Yards allowed per target
Open target rate
So what is lagging in Sneed’s overall grade out wide? Well as we discussed, penalties for one, but even on plays without penalties, here is where Sneed ranks when playing press coverage out wide:
14th in coverage grade
11th in forced incompletion%
9th in yards per coverage snap
8th in yards per coverage target
19th in success rate when targeted
15th in open target rate
Also Sneed might have gotten a little lucky this year in the QBs he faced. Only Ahkello Witherspoon (33) and Brandon Stephens (31) had more targets than Sneed (29) that were deemed wide receiver drops or QB inaccurate throws. That shows up in the PFF grade but not the statline.
With Sneed it ultimately comes down to if 1) you think penalties are sticky and 2) if you think he’ll adapt better to his coverage role change going forward. And in either case, even if both are false, Sneed won’t necessarily break the bank or have a huge hit on overall cap if his projected contract comes true.
So what should the Chiefs do?
I’m a pass coverage > pass rush believer and there is some good evidence behind that (source 1, source 2, source 3, source 4, source 5), so given equal costs and value, I’ll take the coverage defender.
But in the debate between Jones or Sneed, they are widely different players in both age and contract expectations. Jones is three years older and expected to get double the contract than Sneed. Jones of course is the better player (he’s a hall of famer - Sneed is “merely” a pretty good cornerback).
The Chiefs don’t have that many levers that can pull for the cap. Right now they have ~$12M in effective cap space and can create up to ~$61M in additional space with simple restructures (per OTC). That would put them at 13th overall in cap space relative to if every other team did the same (Chiefs are currently 17th in effective cap). But that assumes they want to restructure all of Mahomes 2024 cap hit, which they’ve been reluctant to do. It would also mean restructuring all of Joe Thuney, Travis Kelce, and Jawaan Taylor’s 2024 cap hits, in which they would be punting money further down the line for a 32 year old guard and 35 year old tight end. With Taylor, they can get out from under him next year completely clean, but he has no guaranteed money left (it would just be his prorated bonuses). If they restructured him, it would tack $6M per year on him for 2025 and 2026.
They can cut MVS, but it makes a weakness even weaker. They might be able to work out a deal with Ominehu while he rehabs, but it’s not like Charles is going to give them a discount and take less money, it’ll cost something somewhere.
Let’s say they do the simple restructure route, and increase their effective cap from $12M tom $74M. Sneed and Jones are projected to have APY’s of ~$47M combined (if Jones is tagged he’s guaranteed to be $32M+ by himself). That is roughly 60% of the Chiefs newfound cap space. Of course, they can structure the contracts to lessen the cap hit in 2024, so let’s say it’s closer to $30M combined in cap hit for 2024, which would be roughly the prorated signing bonus guarantees. That would leave them with ~$40M (and they’d want to carry some space for moves in-season) to fill a few wide receiver holes, left tackle, a few defensive line holes, two starting linebacker spots, filling out the running back room, and probably could use some offensive line depth.
I’d opt to re-sign Sneed and let Chris Jones walk. Maybe you could tag and trade him but you don’t get any of that cap space cleared until you trade him and you have to find someone willing to trade assets to make Jones likely the highest paid defensive tackle in the league…and Jones would have all the leverage over his new team for an extension too.
What’s probably best is to just thank Chris Jones for his service and wish him well with all his new found money. That leaves $30Mish in space to fill out the rest of the roster. Meanwhile, you retain Sneed and cornerback continuity. Sneed represents pretty good overall value if he’s willing to sign for $50M and put up numbers that place him closer to $90M.
Using OTC’s valuation tables, Sneed was the 4th most valuable corner in the league this year.
And while he’ll immediately lose all his surplus value when he signs a new deal, if he’s paid close to PFF’s projected APY, he’ll have some wiggle room and be closer to break even than his higher paid peers.
As well as Brett Veach and the Chiefs front office has done in finding good cornerbacks, I would not presume that they can always tap that well when they need it. It seems especially unlikely, presuming they don’t take a cornerback in the first round, that they’ll just easily find another Sneed in the 3rd or 4th round again.
The Chiefs could opt to keep both, but that seems antithetical to the how they’ve operated under Mahomes new deal and it would only further make it harder to fill out what would still likely be 7 or 8 starting spots that need filled.
As it stands, the Chiefs don’t have a defensive tackle on the roster for 2025 outside of Neil Farrell Jr. They don’t have a linebacker other than Leo Chenal. Their starting center and right guard are free agents in 2025, and only Rashee Rice, Skyy Moore, and Justyn Ross are in the receiver room.
Spending $100M+ on an older (but still good!) defensive tackle, when other more important and younger spots/players need filling/are due up loom just doesn’t seem to make the best financial sense. The idea isn’t to go all in in 2024 (which signing Jones would be a proxy for), but to build a long term competitive roster. If that is the goal, you re-sign Sneed and use the Jones savings elsewhere.