The Kansas City Chiefs will have a lot of tricky roster decisions coming up over the next few weeks. As we approach the new league year in March, the 2020 90-man roster will begin to take shape. Brett Veach and the Kansas City front office will have the opportunity to bring a few players back without breaking the bank. Some of those players were contributors in the Super Bowl LIV run, while others had their seasons ended too soon. Here’s a look at four players the Chiefs can bring back inexpensively.
CB Keith Reaser
Reaser was previously with the Chiefs during the 2017 season. He had his big standout game during Patrick Mahomes’ debut against the Denver Broncos. Ahead of the 2018 season, Reaser suffered an injury and was waived with an injury designation.
Eventually, Reaser joined the fledgling Alliance of American Football league, where he proved himself on the Orlando Apollos. He had 12 tackles and three interceptions in eight weeks before the league shut down operations. After the AAF folded, the Chiefs signed Reaser to a one-year contract worth $820,000 for the 2019 season. Reaser suffered a torn Achilles during training camp practice and his season was over before he had a chance once again.
The Chiefs are set to lose Bashaud Breeland, Kendall Fuller and Morris Claiborne to free agency. Reaser has inside-outside versatility at the cornerback position, which will be valuable to the Chiefs in 2020. He also is a stud special teams player which he proved during his first stint in Kansas City. The Chiefs can bring him back on a prove-it deal assuming he makes a full recovery from injury.
WR Marcus Kemp
Kemp suffered a torn ACL and MCL during the Week 2 preseason game against the Steelers. His season was over before the regular season began and he’s spent his time working toward getting healthy. Knee injuries with multiple ligament tears tend to be more difficult to recover from.
Ahead of Kemp’s injury, coaches were raving about the improvements he’d made. Not just on offense, but also on special teams. He had emerged as a more vocal leader alongside guys like Sammy Watkins and Tyreek Hill. That’s the type of guy that you want to bring back to your team, assuming his recovery is going well.
Kemp is an exclusive rights free agent, which means his first contract ended before he’s accrued three seasons. The Chiefs can offer him a contract tender by the start of the new league year or release his rights, allowing him to become a free agent. The contract tender would likely cost the Chiefs between $570K to $720K, which is well worth the price if Kemp is expected to be healthy.
OG Andrew Wylie
In 2018, Wylie won the Mack Lee Hill Award as the Chiefs top first-year player. He secured a starting spot in place of an injured Cameron Erving on the interior offensive line in Week 7. He never gave that spot up again until the 2019 season.
After starting the first five games of the 2019 season at left guard, ticky tacky injuries derailed his season. Wylie would start a total of 11 games but miss the final two games of the regular season and all of the postseason, including Super Bowl LIV, with Stefen Wisniewski taking over at left guard.
Wylie is also an ERFA and despite having some success in his career, he can’t turn down a contract tender. His tender amount will likely be the lowest amount which is $570K. It’d make a lot of sense to bring Wylie back because he’s proven to be an adequate starter and good depth off the bench. If the Chiefs are forced to make Laurent Duvernay-Tardif a cap casualty, he could be in line to take over at the right guard spot.
DB Jordan Lucas
The Chiefs traded for Lucas ahead of 53-man roster cuts in 2018. Since that move, Lucas has been a solid depth piece and a multi-phase special teams player. In 2019, Lucas only played 42 defensive snaps but he played 267 snaps on special teams. He had some standout plays on special teams including a hustle play in the Super Bowl.
This would probably be one of the more expensive contracts on this list. A one-year $2.5 million deal is not out of the question given his 2019 contract tender as a restricted free agent. However, it’ll cost Kansas City much more to keep a player like Kendall Fuller and the Chiefs need some insurance in the event Juan Thornhill’s injury recovery takes longer than expected. Lucas knows the system and still has some room for growth on the defensive side of the ball.
