Kansas City Chiefs UNLEASH $12.5M in Trey Smith Restructure—What’s the REAL Plan?

0:00Chiefs needed to find some extra money and they found it. From the land of the free and the home of the chiefs, this is the Lockdown Chiefs Podcast. You are Lockdown Chiefs. Your daily Kansas City Chiefs Podcast. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. And welcome back to the Chiefs Over Time. I'm Chris Clark from Chiefs Corner. He is Ryan Tracy from MargiR Football. We're going to talk about Tracy Smith's restructure and what does it mean for the team a little bit later on the show? We're going to start by talking about his actual restructure and what it meant or how much they freed up. But today's episode is brought to you by Kalshi. For a limited time, download Kalshi app and use code Lockdown to get $10 when you trade $10. You look at this contract and it was always going to be something that I thought was probably going to get restructured in at least one year, if not two years. And they are restructuring it in 2026. They freed up, I believe, $12.5 million by RE.

1:01Yeah. So they took $18.5 million of his 2026 salary which was guaranteed and they paid it to him and as a roster bonus, which they can spread over the life of the contract, which means they could spread it over three years. Freed up $12.5 million in 2026, although it adds $6.18 million in 2027 and 2028 to the cap. So the chiefs are now sitting at a spot where they have about $13.8 million in cap space. If you do the math, that means before this move, they had about $1.3 million in cap space, which is definitely not enough to get through the season. I'm not shocked by this move. This is something that I thought was probably coming with either Crete Humphrey or Tray Smith. It ends up being Tray Smith. Don't have a problem with it at all, although his cap numbers in 2027 and 28 are going to be very high. Yeah. And I'm going to talk about the repercussions of that coming up later.

2:01I agree with you. We knew they had to do something and Tray and Crete were the two most likely suspects here. So I have no surprise factor here. Other than I didn't think they'd take the whole kitten commutal. It looks like they got, they took every dollar they could as I understand it. So I wasn't sure if that was going to be the scope of it. But I have no problem. I know people are concerned about Tray's had an injury through this camp. But honestly, it just doesn't bother me. The guy was diagnosed with a blood clot disorder that they said he was never going to play again. Like he knows what it is to persevere through some things. And I have no doubt that he will hear too. I still feel he's an ascending player as well. Not only does he deserve to be paid well, but I think he may actually live up to the contract. Now, what those numbers will be, we'll talk about it in a bit. Those are not guard numbers. But for what he is being paid, I think as long as this injury is nothing significant, like he is saying that it's normal wear and tear.

3:05What was his comment today that it's football? You're never 100%. So I take that as this is normal operator procedure. And he's going to be just fine. And that is just fine with me. I don't know that it does anything that they can actually use. What it's for is probably the bigger question. We'll get to that too. But if you had to pick, would you have done this deal this way? Based on the way the chiefs do things, I'm surprised at the amount. Like that's the bigger thing to me. Like they could have done a restructure where they freed up five million in cash space and gotten a six and a half, seven million. Now, the problem is, and this is the way it works with all restructures, is when you do this, you can't do it again that year. So in some ways, I understand it because the thought process is, and it's possible that they're looking at this saying, we just want the ability to do something, because it really doesn't matter. We can basically take this forward into 2027 if we don't spend it.

4:09That is one thing that actually also helps play in their favor a little bit. Is yeah, they're costing themselves 6.8 or 6.1 million dollars in 2027. If they have 6.1 million dollars, it's basically a wash. Like if they have it at the end of the year, it's basically a wash. This gives them the ability to do multiple different things. It gives them the ability to be active in the trade market at some point. This was one of the bigger ways to create space. So yeah, I'm a little surprised at the amount that they did. I'm not surprised that they picked this player specifically. I have to agree. And if there was going to be, I think we all agree that Creed Humphrey is the leader of the offensive line unit. If there's like, you know, the crown prince or whatever, it's trade. So this is not just an investment in the play of a single position of a five-man unit. This is an investment in the leadership of that unit and therefore the offense as well. Yeah. And during the situation, and we'll talk about this a little bit more about what it means,

5:10in just a second, but you are in a position where you have Creed and Trade under contract for the long term. You have Simmons for another two, three years, including this year. And you have Sumatia for another two, who could be eligible for a extension after this year. Could that play into it? We'll talk about all of what this is going to mean coming up right after this. Football is finally back. And that means Sundays are about to get a whole lot more interesting. Every week brings new matchups, breakout players, bigger performances, and plenty of storylines to follow. And if you're, if you like getting even more engaged with the players and stats you're watching, there's a new way to make game day even more exciting. Pricepix is bringing out its best offer yet for kickoff. New user sign up can get $150 in lineups if they win their first $5 lineup. And Pricepix is now available nationwide. With Pricepix, you're building daily fancy lineups by choosing two to six players and selecting more or less on their projected stats, like passing yards, rushing yards,

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7:12And as the probability changes, you can buy in and out of your position. Trade the traffic, the game, and more on CalShi. Download the CalShi app and use code lockdown to get $10 when you trade $10. KALSHI, CalShi, trade on anything. 18 plus only, restrictions and eligibility requirements apply. A bit contract trading involves risks and may not be suitable for all investors. CalShi products are not available in all jurisdictions. Prices, values, and available markets may differ from those mentioned. For more information, see calShi.com slash regulatory. Now, when we look at this contract from a little bit of a distance, it becomes a question of what's it mean? What's the team doing this for? Is there any possibilities of this could be a setup for a move that's coming in the next week? I would say yes, but the question is to what move that could possibly be is the question. Yeah, and we have this little gap right now, right? What is it? Five days off that the team has now that they've completed their last practice of this week until they're back in the office.

8:14So they've got some time to do something right now. If they're scouring, you know, what and who people have been looking for on the waiver wire, maybe they get some indications on a couple of positions. The two that come to mind for me would be they seem to have still a lot of depth and money into a couple of positions. And I know you have your favorites, but I don't know if they're not trying to look at another weapon for Patrick or Holmes because if this is going to be a rapid fire offense because you can't protect him enough, you need guys that can get yak. And I wonder if there's any veteran wide receivers out there that they might be trying to to garner as just let's stock up on all the weapons. It's possible. I could see that. I could see that. I could see looking at another tied end because they desperately need a tied in too.

9:14Let's not forget the chiefs have a history of giving players extensions right before the season starts right before the game even. No, agree got one before a game a couple of years ago. There's been a couple of different contract extensions that have come out right before the actual first game of the season. They won't do extensions in season, but up until the first kickoff, it could be free game. They could be looking at other players. Shemari Conner would be the only one that I would really see that they could possibly be looking at. Rishi Rice is eligible, but I just don't know that you can do something right now with rice. Yeah, I mean, I don't want to extend rice anyway. So I mean, there's been nothing to change my mind from the summer when he went to jail. I'm not interested. The only way that I would be interested is if he balls out the first half of the season. And then I would maybe even consider it, but quite frankly, that's a big uphill battle and you got a stone to push to get there. Well, and it just doesn't seem like he's, I mean, the fact that he didn't really play in the preseason didn't really get any touches in the preseason also makes you wonder because he wasn't

10:19ready. His knee wasn't ready from the surgery and the timing of that, his decision making still doesn't seem to have changed after his issues. So I don't think that that's really a possibility. Is it possible they're freeing up money for an acquisition of some sort from somebody from another team? I would say that could be likely. But then again, you just look at it. Maybe they're just looking at the saying, this gives us the flexibility to be able to do whatever we want or for the most part, whatever we want, for the rest of the season, as opposed to just getting enough to get by and having to do something later or, you know, having to throw in a higher draft pick because you have to have the other team take on more money. This honestly may be earmarked for October at the trade deadline because they've taken significant gambles. You're gambling with youth at corner. You're gambling with youth at tackle for the most part, especially what we know about right now. You're gambling that the same wide-resue record is enough with this one edition of one late round rookie.

11:22You're gambling that you have enough tight end depth. There are a number of things that they may just be trying to feel out through the first half of this season before they have to do something. You're gambling that you only have three. You only really have two. No, I guess you have three defensive ends that are healthy right now. Jaladi is still not practicing in Armason Thomas, mispractice on Thursday. Now, not really sure what the deal is with Armason Thomas, we will find out, but that's not something you want to be going into the Denver Broncos with a situation where you might not have either of those guys. You could have both of them for all we know, but it's still a question mark and I don't think that this money specifically was designed to do something before the Broncos game unless you're extending somebody and I don't see that happening. I agree. We're going to have to see what it comes to. That's going to be it for us today. Let us know in the comments what you think the Chiefs did this before. Did they free up all this space to be able to sign somebody or to be able to trade for somebody or is this just something that they'll be carrying and have it in their back pocket

12:24in case they need it in October? That's going to be it for us today. Thank you all for listening. We do truly appreciate it. Do not forget to like and subscribe down below and we will talk to you next week.