Not including rookie contracts for those rookies coming in from the 2009 draft, these players have contracts with the Chiefs NEXT season. If the trend continues, the estimated salary cap for 2009 is $121.8 million. These salary cap figures are based on the contracts that they sign. They are not factored in with their "Cap Hit." Usually, a player's "Cap Hit" is larger than their salary number.


Albert, Branden- 493,750
Barth, Connor- 385k
Battle, Jackie- 460k
Boone, Alfonso- 1.4mil
Bowe, Dwayne- 460k
Bradley, Mark- 620k
Carnahan, Andrew- 385k
Carr, Brandon-385k
Charles, Jamaal- 385k
Colclough, Ricardo- 620k
Colquitt, Dustin- 900k
Cottam, Brad- 385k
Cox, Mike-385k
Croyle, Brodie- 530K
Darche, Jean-Philippe- 745k
Darling, Devard- 1mil
Dorsey, Glenn- 385k
Edwards, Donnie- 5mil
Edwards, Ron- 1.5mil
Flowers, Brandon-385k
Franklin, Will-385k
Gafford, Thomas-385k
Gatewood, Curtis-385k
Gonzalez, Tony- 4mil
Gray, Quinn-750k
Hali, Tamba-940k
Huard, Damon-2mil
Johnson, Derrick-1mil
Johnson, Larry-4.5mil

Johnston, Brian-385k
Leggett, Maurice-385k
Macklin, David- 745k
McBride, Turk-460k
McIntosh, Damion-2.1mil
Merritt, Mike-385k
Morgan, DaJuan-385k
Pollard, Bernard-530k
Richardson, Barry-385k
Robinson, Kevin-385k
Smith, Kolby-460k
Smith, Wade-620k
Studebaker, Andy-385k
Surtain, Pat-7mil
Taylor, Herb-460k
Thigpen, Tyler-460K
Tyler, Demarcus-460k
Washington, Tavares-385k
Waters, Brian- 3.6mil
Williams, Demario-1mil


Total committed salary for the 2009 season is:
$51,743,750

Not including the "cap hit" figures and signing bonuses for rookies, the Chiefs will have somewhere around $65 million in cap room to play with. The bargaining agreement requires teams to spend AT LEAST 86% of their salary cap. That figure comes out to be roughly $99.76 million if the cap est. is correct. "Cap Hit" numbers and signing bonuses with eat up a big portion of the $40 million the Chiefs have to spend, but that still leaves a big number for the Chiefs to make up just to get in compliance with the NFL/NFLPA agreement.

Some names the Chiefs will have to look at just from their own crop of free agents, will be:
Jason Babin- Starting DE
Rocky Boiman- Starting LB
Adrian Jones- Backup OG
Jon McGraw- Backup S
Rudy Niswanger- Starting C
Jarrad Page- Starting S
Pat Thomas- Backup LB
Jeff Webb- WR

Just from that list, you're looking at having to either re-sign or replace 4 or 5 starters to go along with the holes we already have.

Let's say we let all our free agents walk. What are we left with?

Defense:
LE- OPEN
LT- Tyler
RT- Dorsey
RE- Hali
LOLB- OPEN
MLB- OPEN
ROLB- D. Johnson
LCB- Carr/Leggett
RCB- Flowers
SS- Pollard
FS- OPEN

Offense:
WR- Bowe
LT- Albert/Taylor/OPEN
LG- Waters/OPEN
C- OPEN/Waters
RG- OPEN/Albert
RT- OPEN/Taylor/Albert
TE- Gonzo/Cottam
WR- Bradley
QB- Thigpen/OPEN
FB- Cox
RB- Johnson/Charles

Special
K-Barth
P-Colquitt
KR-Robinson/Charles

That leaves us with potentially 4 holes on defense and 3 holes on offense if we go with Thigpen. 7 holes to fill with either the guys we have, free agents or the 2009 draft class.

To recap, we'll have roughly $25-35 million in cap space. We're going to be drafting in the top 5 in April. We will have a new GM. We will have 7 holes to fill.

On offense, we're going to need a:
Center
OG and/or
OT

On defense, we're going to need a:
DE
OLB
MLB
S



You are the new GM. Go have fun.