Who is Kansas City Willing to Give Up to Keep Justin Houston?

The business side of the NFL is about to get turned up a few notches. As of Monday morning teams starting hitting their can't lose players with the franchise tag. In some cases only the player's current team can continue negotiating, but in others the player can talk to whomever he wants, but his current team gets to match whatever offers are made.

The Kansas City Chiefs hit star linebacker Justin Houston with the non-inclusive tag, but whether he is going to go to another team is not the question. The team would be foolish to let the sack champion walk. No, the question is who are they willing to let go in order to make room under the salary cap for him.

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There are several candidates and combination of candidates that will free up the $6.5 million the team currently needs to fit him under the cap.

• Cutting Tamba Hali could create another $9 million in space. While he was effective last season he is turning 32 in November making him quite old for an NFL player. 
• cutting Eric Berry would save them $5.45 million, but getting rid of a player fighting cancer could result in some lash back; maybe he would renegotiate to create space?
• Derrick Johnson would create $5.25 million
• Between Dwayne Bowe ($5 million) and Chase Daniel ($3.8 million) enough space could be made

The most logical thing to do would be to get rid of Bowe and Daniel. Wide receivers do not factor in to the team's plans much (no touchdowns last season) so getting rid of their high priced one would not hurt. At $3.8 million Daniel is a little expensive for a reserve quarterback.

The loss of either would not hurt the team at all. The team could target a wide receiver in the early rounds of the draft and still has former Georgia QB Aaron Murray to back up Alex Smith.

On the other hand, since he can still negotiate with other teams it may not suck to let him go. Should they, the team will get two first round picks, one this season and another next. While it would suck to lose someone of his talent, but saving the money, not having to cut other guys to make space, and picking up a couple extra first round picks would not suck.

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