REPORT: The Kansas City Chiefs Might Be Punished for Trading L’Jarius Sneed
The Kansas City Chiefs may face problems as a result of the manner they handled their dealings with cornerback L’Jarius Sneed. Sneed will be traded by the Chiefs to the Tennessee Titans in return for a third- and seventh-round pick.
A few weeks after Sneed was given the franchise tag by the Chiefs, the decision was made. The Chiefs didn’t receive the second-round pick they desired, thus the timing of the trade was peculiar. In an attempt to free up almost $19.8 million in cap space to sign more free agents this summer, they settled for a third-round pick and change.
The trade that the Kansas City Chiefs made was dubious.
The Athletic’s Jeff Howe was astounded by the Chiefs’ decision. He graded the trade a “F” for the Chiefs because they lost a key player for a three-peat and didn’t stand to gain much more than if Sneed had left Kansas City as a free agent. If Sneed had entered free agency a year earlier, he probably would have helped the Chiefs acquire a 2026 third-round compensatory pick. Thus, a year prior, the Chiefs forfeited Sneed’s season in exchange for a superior third-round selection. That reasoning might hold water for certain teams, but it is less logical for a dynasty-spanning Super Bowl favorite.
Granted, the Chiefs’ compensatory third would have been less than what the Titans were scheduled to select in the third even if they had gotten one.
Was the trade of L’Jarius Sneed by the Chiefs a violation of the CBA?
The Chiefs’ choice perplexed Mike Florio of NBC Sports, who believes the front management may have toyed with violating Collective Bargaining Agreement regulations in this regard. Florio suggests that when the Chiefs applied the franchise tag to Sneed, they did not intend to extend him, which is under the current NFLPA rules:
That strategy may eventually violate Article 4, Section 8(b) of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, which states that a club extending a required tender “must have a good faith intention to employ the player receiving the tender at the Tender compensation level during the upcoming season” for the duration the tender is extended.
It’s not meant to be a tool for player trades. At the very least, the team should wish to retain the player for a further season. If Sneed or the NFL Players Association felt inclined to argue such a point, it could be made in this instance that the Chiefs had no genuine intention of hiring Sneed in 2024.
Sneed could have been a free agent in 2025, but the Chiefs’ move to tag and trade him for slightly more than a compensatory pick raises serious concerns since it suggests the team wasn’t even interested in keeping him for the 2024 campaign.
Few rumors have surfaced suggesting that the Chiefs and Sneed are sincerely negotiating a long-term contract. Sneed expressing a desire to remain in Kansas City is the most that I have seen. In contrast, the Chiefs thought they had enough skill in their secondary to get by in the upcoming campaign, particularly if they added cornerback assistance in the draft, according to Nate Taylor of The Athletic:
The Chiefs’ ability to find and select talented cornerbacks in the draft is one of the reasons they are willing to deal Sneed. The Chiefs would still have three players capable of starting in Trent McDuffie, Joshua Williams, and Jaylen Watson if Sneed were not there.
In the tag and trade, Sneed lost negotiating power.
The choice made by the Chiefs front staff to deceive Sneed in his contract negotiations is the crass aspect of this “business” move. For this reason, if the Chiefs had not been serious about maintaining Sneed, the transfer might not have been lawful. Florio claims that if Sneed misses free agency, he will lose money:
And there, in Sneed’s opinion, is the issue. No matter what deal he signs with the Titans, he could have signed for more money if he had been allowed to sign free agency on the opening day of the 2024 signing window.
The NFLPA now has the task of determining if the Chiefs had any intention of maintaining Sneed through the 2024 season or beyond.
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