NFL Trade Rumors: Kansas City Chiefs could miss out on Julio Jones

Julio Jones has the potential to be traded as early as next week. NFL franchises are lining up at the door, waiting for their opportunity to pitch their offer to the Falcons. The three teams mentioned the most are the Tennessee Titans, Indianapolis Colts, and Green Bay Packers.

The Tennessee Titans have made it a team effort to pursue Julio Jones. A.J. Brown and Derrick Henry have flooded social media with interest in Jones joining them in Tennessee, while the Green Bay Packers and Indianapolis Colts are using the media to lure him into a Packers uniform next season.

There's a dark horse in the race to land Julio Jones, but that team faces a problem with their salary cap. The Kansas City Chiefs have expressed interest in adding a top NFL wide receiver to team up with Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce. Andy Reid made a strong push at JuJu Smith-Schuster, but couldn't get him to sign with the Chiefs this off-season.

The Chiefs are facing salary cap issues that could cause them to miss out on landing Julio Jones. Tyreek Hill has mentioned that he doesn't want to restructure his contract, and the Chiefs just signed Patrick Mahomes to an insane contract. The Kansas City Chiefs will need to make some financial changes if they want to land Jones.

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What will the Kansas City Chiefs need to do to make the Julio Jones trade work?

Divisional Round - Seattle Seahawks v Atlanta Falcons

The Kansas City Chiefs have five players who eat up $129.81 of their salary cap space in 2022. Take a look at the five players that are holding up the Julio Jones to Kansas City trade.

Our own @HomestretchKC says some #Chiefs fans are overthinking the whole Julio Jones thing. https://t.co/RFiWC8rdBa

— Arrowhead Addict (@ArrowheadAddict) May 29, 2021

• Patrick Mahomes: $35.79 million in 2022
• Frank Clark: $26.30 million in 2022
• Tyreek Hill: $29.42 million in 2022
• Joe Thuney $17.80 million in 2022

The Kansas City Chiefs will have to acquire Julio Jones' $15.3 million guaranteed salaries in 2021. Then in 2022 and 2023, the Chiefs will pay Julio a total of $23 million. According to spotrac, the Kansas City Chiefs have $8.2 million in salary-cap space left. If they want to get into the race to land Jones, they'll need to free up roughly $7.1 million in cap space.

Now the question becomes, where can the Kansas City Chiefs cut costs to make this trade work? The Chiefs could pull Chris Jones into a meeting room and attempt to renegotiate his contract that pushes $5 million into the future. If Jones agrees to do this, it will change the Chiefs salary cap number to $13.2 million.

The Chiefs will still be under the needed amount to land Julio Jones. As of right now, the Kansas City Chiefs have 14 wide receivers on their roster, counting Tyreek Hill. Julio Jones does upgrade their receivers, but the Chiefs have made it to back-to-back Super Bowls with the players they currently have.

.@danorlovsky7 believes that if the Patriots got Julio Jones, they would be a top-four team in the AFC along with the Chiefs, Bills and the Browns. pic.twitter.com/8DiQQcQguE

— Get Up (@GetUpESPN) May 24, 2021

The salary cap issue could save the Chiefs in the future by not being able to land Julio Jones. It allows the Chiefs to build within and develop the young, talented wide receivers on their roster. Do the Chiefs want to add another weapon? Of course, but it's not worth the price tag.