Late on Friday night, while many were focused on the 1st Round of March Madness, the Kansas City Chiefs snuck in a trade with the Tennessee Titans, shipping off the previously franchise-tagged L’Jarius Sneed.
While it appeared the Chiefs weren’t going to be able to reach an extension with their starting cornerback from their last two Super Bowl victories, the franchise tag allowed them to keep him, at least for the 2024 season. However, paying him $19.8 million for one season wasn’t in Kansas City’s budget after committing larger amounts to cornerstones like Patrick Mahomes and Chris Jones. No one’s arguing against that.
However, others around the NFL are criticizing the Chiefs for what they got in return for trading Sneed. The trade resulted in the Chiefs landing a third-round pick from the Tennessee Titans, but not in 2024. Instead, the Chiefs, who are seeking to become the first team in the Super Bowl era to threepeat, won’t even get the pick until 2025.
The Chiefs did jump 31 spots in the seventh-round draft order this year, but that’s not going to help a team fill their sudden need for a starting cornerback. Sure, Kansas City may not have been willing to meet Sneed’s asking price, but it’s hard to imagine they didn’t get a stronger offer elsewhere, or at least one that would have helped them compete right away.
Several NFL beat writers and reporters are confused over what the Chiefs did by trading L’Jarius Sneed for such a low trade return.
Franchise tagging a player only to trade him for a tad more than what you would have received for him with a compensatory pick in 2025 after two weeks of free agency with a nearly $20m anvil attached to the cap is a pretty awful look. https://t.co/1NsIadCPLD
— Mike Kaye (@mike_e_kaye) March 23, 2024
Couldn’t the Chiefs have just kept him for 1 year on the franchise tag for 2024 if they didn’t find a better offer https://t.co/VfC77nWpJy
— Joe Schad (@schadjoe) March 23, 2024
On the surface, it looks like the Chiefs parted with L’Jarius Sneed so they could avoid paying him in the long run. But the $19 million they’ll see in cap relief right away is noteworthy. Yet, with much of the free agency market already picked over, how the Chiefs utilize this newfound space will be noteworthy.
But there’s another interesting factor at play here. Had the Chiefs simply let Sneed walk in free agency and allowed him to sign elsewhere, such as Tennessee, they still would have been eligible to land a 2025 compensatory draft pick. The highest possible pick they can receive is a third-round selection, but it would have come at the end of the round, after the Titans pick, no matter how good or bad they do.
Being that the Titans are breaking in a new coaching staff, developing a young quarterback in Will Levis, it’s possible this pick will be one of the top selections in the third round next year, which would be a far better return than letting Sneed walk in free agency. Still, the Chiefs couldn’t find an offer that would have helped them on their Super Bowl run?
The unknown factor here is whether any other teams were willing to meet Sneed’s asking price for an extension. Other teams wouldn’t make a strong offer if they weren’t sure they could get Sneed under contract for multiple seasons. Being that he just became one of the NFL’s highest-paid cornerbacks, earning an average of $19 million per season, this may be the biggest reason why the Chiefs got such a low trade return.
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