{"id":30511,"date":"2025-03-04T09:00:26","date_gmt":"2025-03-04T09:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=30511"},"modified":"2025-03-04T09:00:26","modified_gmt":"2025-03-04T09:00:26","slug":"breaking-chiefs-officially-inform-wide-receiver-that-they-do-not-have-enough-budget-to-renew-his-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=30511","title":{"rendered":"BREAKING: Chiefs Officially Inform Wide Receiver That They \u201cDo Not Have Enough Budget\u201d To Renew His Contract."},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div id=\"post-featured-container-id\">\n<div>\n<p>An NFL reporter relayed the Kansas City Chiefs\u2019 plans to move on from wide receiver Justin Watson in free agency.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The\u00a0Kansas City Chiefs\u00a0have several veteran wide receivers that are set to hit the open market in free agency and according to veteran\u00a0NFL\u00a0reporter and Sportskeeda insider Tony Pauline, staff favorite\u00a0Justin Watson\u00a0is not expected to be re-signed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Kansas City Chiefs are moving towards salary-cap hell and have some hard choices to make,\u201d\u00a0Pauline noted on February 28, reporting: \u201cI\u2019m told they\u2019d like to bring receiver Justin Watson back, but they informed his agent they do not have the money to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In other words, unless Watson is willing to return for next to nothing in free agency, the Chiefs will allow him to test his market and most likely leave town \u2014 assuming there\u2019s a suitor out there that is offering to pay the soon-to-be 29-year-old more than KC. And from the sound of it, general manager Brett Veach is not going to offer Watson much, if anything.<\/p>\n<p>Watson won two Super Bowl rings with the Chiefs and a third with the\u00a0Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but he\u2019s never registered\u00a0more than 460 receiving yards\u00a0in a single season. He consistently suits up for games due to his impact as a blocker and the fact that he contributes on special teams, leading to 59 appearances for Kansas City in three years (including playoffs).<\/p>\n<p>Despite that, he\u2019s only been credited with 21 KC starts.<\/p>\n<h2>Writing Is on the Wall for Chiefs WR Justin Watson Following Playoff Usage<\/h2>\n<p>Pauline\u2019s report is not entirely unexpected, as Watson\u2019s playoff usage hinted that the franchise would likely go in another direction in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>After logging an offensive snap count of 20 or higher in every regular season game,\u00a0Pro Football Focus listed\u00a0the following snap counts for the three 2024-25 playoff outings: 4, 11 and 10.<\/p>\n<p>Part of the reason for this was that Kansas City was healthier at the position during the postseason.\u00a0Hollywood Brown\u00a0joined midseason reinforcements like\u00a0DeAndre Hopkins\u00a0and\u00a0Nikko Remigio, while the team still had\u00a0Xavier Worthy\u00a0and\u00a0JuJu Smith-Schuster\u00a0above Watson on the pecking order as well.<\/p>\n<p>Although the under-the-radar wideout has been a favorite of head coach Andy Reid and quarterback\u00a0Patrick Mahomes\u00a0in recent years, it would make sense if there was a mutual parting of ways.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Andy-Reid47-e1740971646322.jpg?quality=65&amp;strip=all&amp;w=780\" alt=\"Chiefs head coach Andy Reid.\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Watson should take the best offer he can get as he exits his prime, and the Chiefs would be wise to spend their money on other players and positions.<\/p>\n<p>The Chiefs have a long list of free agents at the wide receiver position this spring, and most of them could be on their way out.<\/p>\n<p>Veach\u00a0expressed an interest in re-signing Brown\u00a0publicly, but the future is less certain for UFAs Hopkins, Smith-Schuster,\u00a0Mecole Hardman\u00a0and the aforementioned Watson.<\/p>\n<p>Reid loves reuniting with offensive players that know his system, so it\u2019s possible one or two of these players return on the cheap. Having said that, it\u2019s also possible no more than one or zero are back by the time we reach training camp.<\/p>\n<p>Brown could get a better offer elsewhere based on his potential, and after an injury-ruined season, would he take the highest amount of money he can get?<\/p>\n<p>Hardman and Watson are unlikely to get anything more than a veteran minimum camp invite from KC \u2014 leading to their departures. And\u00a0some believe\u00a0the Chiefs will choose between re-signing either Hopkins or Smith-Schuster, since they play a very similar role at this stage of their respective careers.<\/p>\n<p>One other potential departure within the Kansas City WR corps? Former second-round pass-catcher\u00a0Skyy Moore. The Chiefs can save\u00a0a little over $1.584 million\u00a0if they release Moore, who\u2019s entering the final year of his rookie contract.<\/p>\n<p>To this point, the former Western Michigan product has been a total bust. So, it could make sense for KC to bite the bullet on this draft flop and shed some more cap space for an alternative roster move.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>Michael Obermuller<\/strong>\u00a0covers the NFL and NHL for Heavy.com, where he began writing in 2021. His areas of focus include the Kansas City Chiefs, New York Giants, Pittsburgh Steelers and Miami Dolphins, as well as the New York Rangers and New York Islanders. An NYC area native and Quinnipiac graduate, his previous bylines include FanDuel\u2019s The Duel, King Fantasy Sports and Pro Football Mania.\u00a0More about Michael Obermuller<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An NFL reporter relayed the Kansas City Chiefs\u2019 plans to move on from wide receiver Justin Watson in free agency. The\u00a0Kansas City Chiefs\u00a0have several veteran wide receivers&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>BREAKING: Chiefs Officially Inform Wide Receiver That They \u201cDo Not Have Enough Budget\u201d To Renew His Contract. - 24\/7 News America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=30511\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"BREAKING: Chiefs Officially Inform Wide Receiver That They \u201cDo Not Have Enough Budget\u201d To Renew His Contract. - 24\/7 News America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An NFL reporter relayed the Kansas City Chiefs\u2019 plans to move on from wide receiver Justin Watson in free agency. 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