The Kansas City Chiefs, even after a disappointing performance in Super Bowl LIX in February, are still one of the top contenders in football. While some pieces are gone (such as veteran offensive lineman Joe Thuney) many key pieces are still present (Mahomes, Jones, Kelce and so on). The leadership structure in the front office and coaching staff is still there. And some nice moves during the offseason (drafting offensive tackle Josh Simmons in the first round is looking like a genius move right now) have given Kansas City a chance to return to the title game this upcoming season.
But the main reason the Chiefs remain top contenders is not the moves they made, its the desperation they forced from their opponents, Simply put, the Chiefs success forced their competition into numerous mistakes. Not by coercion or through any nefarious means though. These teams made this mistakes because of their inability to beat Kansas City. These mistakes have allowed Kansas City to remain on top of the AFC and should continue that reign.
What mistakes did the opposition make? The NFL is a parity league after all (the worst team gets the best draft pick, for example) and theoretically every competitor in the AFC West and AFC at large should have been perfectly suited to overcome Kansas City. And the Chiefs deal with the same salary cap restraints as every other franchise so its not like they could’ve created the “best team money can buy” or anything remotely close to that effect. So what happened? The Chiefs’ competitors over the prior 5 years (2020-2024) have been so frustrated that they mortgaged their future prospects to try and beat the Chiefs, which in turns has made them easier for the Chiefs to beat now and going forward.
Here’s what I mean by this. One of my favorite statistics to look at for roster management are “Void Year Dollars”. Void Year Dollars are salary cap dollars a team has currently allocated for void years on contracts. Void years are a relatively modern tool that teams can use to lower a player’s salary cap hit today by spreading contract over more years, even years when that player is no longer on the team.
To give you an example, let’s say Player A signs a 3 year contract with a $30 million signing bonus. In terms of cap hit, that signing bonus is spread out evenly over the 3 year contract. 30 divided by 3 is 10, so the team will take a $10 million cap hit per year due to the signing bonus of Player A. But let’s say a team added 2 void years to the end of the deal. The contract is still for 3 years. After those 3 years are up Player A still becomes a free agent. But those two void years allow the team to spread out the cap hit over 5 years (3 contract years plus 2 void years) to lower the annualized to hit $6 million (10 divided by 5 is 6). This frees up the team to spend $4 million per year over the next 3 years on other players.
Sounds good right? Except for what happens at the end of the contract. After 3 years, Player A become a free agent and signs with a different team. But because void years were used, the team will still take a $6 million cap hit for the following two seasons even though Player A is playing for someone else!
Void years appear to be something to be used sparsely and only if you are in the middle of a title window. Logic would dictate then that teams like the Chiefs would use void years extensively and competitors who were slowly building rosters to overcome Kansas City would refrain from them. In a bizarre paradox, this isn’t the case.
If you look exclusively at the AFC West, the Chiefs have far and away the fewest void year dollars (see below). The Broncos have an egregious amount, largely due to the Russell Wilson deal (a perfect example of a team getting desperate) a few years ago. But even Las Vegas and Los Angeles have more void year dollars than Kansas City, even though both teams have publicly been trying to build or rebuild rosters for the longer term.
This same pattern holds true when comparing the Chiefs against top AFC contenders. The top competitors to the Chiefs (Buffalo, Baltimore, Miami, and to a lesser extent, Cincinnati) have massive amounts dedicated to void year dollars.
All of these teams mortgaged their future to try and beat the Chiefs over the past few seasons. And the reality is, they failed. They went aggressive while Kansas City stuck to their plan and they still lost. The Chiefs went to three straight Super Bowls (winning two) while all of their competitions were borrowing from the future in a futile attempt to defeat them.
So now the future is here and the top contenders in the AFC are in a challenging spot. The Chiefs are still the Chiefs. They still have Patrick Mahomes, Chris Jones, and head coach Andy Reid running the show. They’re going to be good. But now the Chiefs’ competitors have weaker rosters due to their void year strategies. They couldn’t beat the Chiefs before when they bet big to bring in more top players from 2020-2024. How could they hope to beat the Chiefs now since they will have fewer players? The logical answer? They most likely won’t, and the Chiefs will reign the AFC. Again.
