Free Agency

The latest newsletter from KCSN Sports Data Scientist, Joseph Hefner.

The offseason goes so fast when you play in Super Bowls in February. I looked up this week and realized the Legal Tampering Period before Free Agency was next Monday, and I had written nothing at all about the Chiefs pending free agents or the free agency class. I had intended to write a second part to the Combine article I wrote last week, but that is going to be on hold for a week or two now.

Let’s talk about the Chiefs pending free agents. We have quite a few players who are free agents this year, but only about eight that really matter. Two of those players matter a great deal, though. Chris Jones and L’Jarius Sneed. The Chiefs placed the franchise tag on Sneed, so he’s not technically a free agent anymore, but they have also made it known publicly that they are willing to trade him if they can’t come to a long-term agreement, so I am leaving him in the current free agents bucket for now.

Just how valuable are each of these free agents? Last week, I talked about PFF’s Wins Above Replacement (WAR) metric, which is an attempt at quantifying the value of each player in a single holistic number. Now, any time you try to quantify a huge subject with a single value, it’s going to have issues, and PFF WAR is no exception. It should not be taken as gospel. Instead, I like to use it more as a guide to help in the decision-making process, while also leaving room for other variables.