Brett Veach said the Kansas City Chiefs would use the franchise tag on either defensive tackle Chris Jones or cornerback L'Jarius Sneed if they can't get them both re-signed by the start of free agency next month.
The Chiefs' general manager told reporters at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis he was still optimistic of re-signing both players to long-term contracts.
"If you get close in negotiations, I think you get the added benefit of the ties go to the Chiefs,'' Veach said, indicating he has been told by both players their preference is to remain with the Chiefs. "It is a money deal at the end of the day, and people aren't going to turn down a huge discrepancy in contracts, but I think we get the benefit of breaking all ties.''
Veach acknowledged the challenge of re-signing both players.
"That's always a stress,'' Veach said. "You'd like to be able to tag all the guys and pay all the guys. It's tough because the more you win, the more you've got to pay players, and obviously when you have this amount of success, you're paying a lot of players a lot of money, and then it's equally as tough because you're drafting late.
"Certainly we want to do what we can to try to keep both those players and that's going to be our goal and intent. Hopefully we're able to figure something out. But every free agency is different, unique and crazy. We do have one tag, and I anticipate probably using it to help us. But I think our goal is to try to get both those players done and then work down the rest of our roster.''
To tag Jones as the franchise player would cost the Chiefs more than $32 million against their salary cap. A tag for Sneed would cost about $19 million.