Franchise Tag a Necessary Evil for Chiefs in Negotiations with Justin Houston

The National Football League has descended on Indianapolis for the 2015 NFL Scouting Combine, and while the event's main purpose is to check out this year's rookie class, there's plenty of wheeling and dealing going on behind the scenes.

For the Kansas City Chiefs, that means sitting down with the reps for outside linebacker Justin Houston. It's looking like the Chiefs and the 2014 NFL sack king are headed for the franchise tag. While it's a decision that will leave the Chiefs facing some tough choices, it's also one the team can't hesitate to make.

Terez Paylor of The Kansas City Star reported recently that Houston's camp and the Chiefs will sit down in Indy:

It isn't the first time that Houston's representatives and the Chiefs have had at least informal talks about a contract extension. According to Rand Getlin of Yahoo Sports, the two sides got together last month in Alabama:

However, there reportedly hasn't been any real progress on a long-term deal, and Mike Garafalo of Fox Sports wrote recently that the the Chiefs are expected to hit Houston with the franchise tag:

And that tag is going to hit the Chiefs right back.

Team	Amount Over the Cap
New Orleans Saints	$23.16 million
Arizona Cardinals	$10.14 million
New England Patriots	$4.92 million
Pittsburgh Steelers	$1.72 million
Kansas City Chiefs	$1.57 million
St. Louis Rams	$1.14 million

Per Over the Cap, the Chiefs are one of six NFL teams over a projected salary cap of $140 million. Add in a projected franchise tag for linebackers in the neighborhood of $11.5 million, as reported by Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports, and it starts to look like the Chiefs are being run by Congress.

And that's without signing a single free agent (either their own or another team's) or any of their draft picks.

In other words, heads are going to have to roll in order for the Chiefs to get under the cap. They already have, in fact, with wide receivers Donnie Avery and A.J. Jenkins getting released on Tuesday, according to Chris Wesseling of NFL.com.

There are a number of other big-name veterans who are either targets to restructure their contract or who could be shown the door in an effort to free up cap space.

Player	Position	2015 Cap Number	Cap Savings If Cut*
T. Hali	OLB	$11.96M	$9M
D. Bowe	WR	$14M	$5M
E. Berry	SS	$8.36M	$5.45M
M. Devito	DE	$5.4M	$4M
D. Johnson	ILB	$5.25M	$5.25M
C. Daniel	QB	$4.8M	$3.8M

Dwayne Bowe headlined a Chiefs wideout corps that went the entire season without catching a touchdown pass in 2014. Inside linebacker Derrick Johnson missed most of the 2014 season with a torn Achilles. Ditto for safety Eric Berry, who may never play again after being diagnosed with lymphoma in December.

Then there's Houston's batterymate. Tamba Hali already got his big payday, signing a five-year, $57.5 million extension with the Chiefs back in 2011. However, in two of the three seasons since inking that deal, Hali has failed to eclipse 10 sacks.

With Houston's deal coming due and 2014 first-round pick Dee Ford waiting in the wings, Sam Mellinger of The Kansas City Star thinks the writing is on the wall with Hali:

"

Hali is a luxury the Chiefs can literally no longer afford. Justin Houston is today’s elite pass rusher, and Dee Ford may be tomorrow’s. With the roster improvements the Chiefs need, they just can’t have a first-round pick be effectively benched — not only on Sundays, but with practice reps, too — for two years. Ford is talented, hard-working, cheap and eager. The Chiefs owe it to him and themselves to give Ford a chance to work opposite Houston.

"

Mind you, these aren't necessarily the moves the Chiefs want to make. Bowe and Johnson may be overpaid, but they're also easily the best players the Chiefs have at their respective positions. There's no guarantee that Ford will slide right in and duplicate Hali's production.

Still, the team isn't going to hesitate to do what it must to find room for Houston.

The alternative is lunacy.

Houston isn't just the Chiefs' best pass-rusher, or their best defensive player.

He may be the defensive player in the NFL not named J.J. Watt.

Houston set career highs in tackles (69), sacks (22) and forced fumbles in 2014. For the second consecutive season, Houston was the top-ranked 3-4 outside linebacker in the NFL, per Pro Football Focus, this time by a staggering margin.

Houston isn't just a one-trick pony either. In each of those seasons, Houston has ranked inside the top five at his position against the run.

Houston is one of the NFL's five best defensive players at any position, and in Mellinger's opinion he's shown he deserves to be paid like it:

"

He's (only) 26 years old, and is just the 10th man with 20 or more sacks in a season since the stat became official in 1982. Five of the nine others are in the Hall of Fame. Three others are still playing, and may get there someday.

He has more sacks (48 1/2) in his first four seasons than all but seven men, and this is an incredible list: Reggie White, Thomas, J.J. Watt, DeMarcus Ware, Dwight Freeney, Richard Dent and Von Miller (who got his 49th on Sunday).

Houston's agent spent the offseason making the case to Chiefs management that Houston deserved a contract equal or greater than the $35 million guarantee that Tamba Hali got three years ago. Houston spent the season making it obvious that Hali's contract is now just a starting point. He's worth something much closer to Robert Quinn's $41.2 million guarantee or even J.J. Watt's $51.8 million.

"

Yeah, in retrospect signing Houston to a "Hali deal" would have been quite the coup. Even at the $11.5 million Houston would make under the franchise tag in 2015, the argument can be made he'd be underpaid.

That may be the reason why Houston is reluctant to sign the tag right away, despite a recent report from Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk that Houston would "immediately" sign his tender.

Still, it isn't like that reluctance is going to hurt anything, either for Houston or the Chiefs. In fact, given that the combine will likely end either with Houston tagged or well on his way to an extension, a delay between assigning the tag and Houston signing it will give the team a bit more time to get a deal worked out before those tough decisions need to be made.

And make no mistake, it's that long-term extension that would be best for both sides. It affords Houston financial security and the Chiefs maximum cap flexibility as they try to make it back to the postseason after narrowly missing the playoffs in 2014.

However, regardless of how talks go this week in Indy, you can bet the rent money (and the car payment, and even the beer allowance) that Justin Houston isn't going anywhere in 2015.

And if it takes the franchise tag to keep Houston in Kansas City, then so be it.

Gary Davenport is an NFL Analyst at Bleacher Report and a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association and the Pro Football Writers of America. You can follow Gary on Twitter @IDPManor.