Why Chris Jones should (soon) report to Kansas City Chiefs camp in own self-interest

Slog and bond and theoretically improve every day, as the Chiefs have during their rugged Missouri Western State training camp, the most compelling and pivotal plotline here remains the one conspicuous by its absence.

The one that lurks as an impediment to a season bearing priceless potential: to establish a dynasty and an indelible, even defining, legacy.

Including the legacy of the AWOL force himself, Chris Jones.

From the outside looking in, anyway, that’s an aspect of this he doesn’t seem to be embracing amid his perfectly understandable desire to reap the maximum financial reward.

But it’s a point that decades from now may swing what he treasures or rues most about a career in which he’ll continue to amass generational wealth playing for $19.5 million this season.

Whatever really matters most to Jones, the portal to the 29-year-old’s future is right about now.

And there’s still at least some form of a win-win here to be had on the eve of the Chiefs’ first preseason game on Sunday at New Orleans — and mere weeks before they play host to the Detroit Lions on Sept. 7 to open the NFL season with a chance to become the first team to repeat in nearly two decades.

A win-win, that is, assuming the spirit of Jones’ latest proclamation that he’s a Chief for life (via Twitter in March) hasn’t eroded during negotiations and that he still has conviction about his words after the Chiefs won Super Bowl LIV.

“Win not only one championship: two, three, four,” he said, repeatedly smacking his hand on a table for emphasis. “Baby, we’ve got to build a dynasty here. You know what I’m saying?”

A win-win that assumes, too, that Jones means it when he tweets about his ambitions to be named NFL Defensive Player of the Year.

If that all drives Jones as much as we believe it does, then the best thing he can do even for himself is report at least 10 days before the opener and give himself the optimal chance possible to achieve all of that — and enrich his future in multiple ways.

No doubt Jones figures to report in fine shape, but coach Andy Reid’s oft-made point also is true: Football shape is something else entirely, and being braced or not will make a key difference for Jones in the first weeks he’s back with possible ramifications all season.

Any later than time to be properly ready to go for the opener makes this situation go from a nuisance concern to downright problematic.

For the Chiefs, sure. But also to the detriment of Jones, who beyond what he’s missing in preparation and conditioning is being fined $50,000 a day while he holds out but would lose more than $1 million a week if he starts missing regular-season games.

Because even if it’s ultimately irreconcilable with the Chiefs, and it needn’t be, his future value anywhere else hinges mightily on his performance this season. Especially since he’s on the verge of 30.

This is so logical that it may well be his plan.

Trouble is, no one outside his camp knows that plan — including the Chiefs. Reid earlier this week said he had no sense of Jones’ timetable, and general manager Brett Veach described negotiations as being at a lull.

But this we do know: At some point, an ongoing holdout compromises Jones’ own self-interests.

At this stage, Jones has amply made his statement. He’s missed the most grueling part of training camp.

He should declare that a victory and come on in.

Look, reporting in time to be ready doesn’t mean capitulation.

It doesn’t mean he needs to settle for some crummy deal while he evidently aspires to secure a payout closer to that of the league’s top-paid defensive player, the Los Angeles Rams’ Aaron Donald ($31.7 million a year) than to its second-highest: the New York Jets’ Quinnen Williams at $24 million a year.

It doesn’t even mean that Jones ought to take a page out of Patrick Mahomes’ big-picture playbook — to accept less than he could command to enable the Chiefs to have flexibility to do things like, well, sign Jones and make the most of this fertile time.

Just the same, Jones might do well to consider the broader benefit of Mahomes’ stance towards what the Chiefs can achieve now … and how that might make for a self-perpetuating reward for him.

Whether here, as he seems to prefer, or elsewhere if it comes to that.

First things first, though: Rare as it might be, nothing precludes the Chiefs and Jones’ representatives from continuing to bargain as the season goes along.

This notion comes with one caveat, though, and it’s about a matter there is little way to clarify amid the fog of negotiations.

It provides that both sides, no matter how far apart they are and frustrated they may be, believe the other is operating in good faith.

And that each understands they still have some room to move closer — even as the Chiefs must weigh rewarding Jones with forecasting his future and Jones seizes a unique chance to extract all he can now.

Say this for the Chiefs’ public position: Veach was blunt about the meaning of Jones during an interview with The Star earlier this week.

“He’s the guy,” he said, “that makes everything tick.”

On defense, he meant. But enough so that he’s crucial to, well, everything.

We have no way to know how Veach’s words to us do or don’t correlate with the dynamics of deliberations with the Jones camp. But the point for broader consumption was that the Chiefs want and need Jones.

That’s also why Veach reiterated that they “want to exhaust all of our efforts” to get a long-term deal done and brought up the trade last year of Tyreek Hill in this context: It was in part to help allocate resources for the long haul with Jones.

While Veach’s words remind us that the Chiefs always have multiple long-term salary cap and roster considerations to make, they certainly suggest the Chiefs have identified him as a pillar.

And they should.

He’s the linchpin of the defense, after all, and earlier this week he was named the 10th-best player in the NFL by his league-wide peers — the same ones who voted Mahomes No. 1 and Travis Kelce fifth.

Meanwhile, the need for Jones only has been amplified in camp, particularly with the six-game suspension of veteran defensive lineman Charles Omenihu, a free-agent signee who can play multiple positions, and a tenuous start for first-round draft pick Felix Anudike-Uzomah (listed third string at defensive end on the first unofficial depth chart released Wednesday).

Most directly, the next man up behind Jones on that depth chart is Daniel Wise, who has two NFL starts and 11 tackles since coming out of Kansas in 2019.

Maybe Wise and others, such as Tershawn Wharton as he works back from the torn ACL he suffered last season, are ready to flourish or at least flash.

But wishful thinking isn’t going to extend an extraordinary time.

It’s a quest the Chiefs will be all the more challenged to make good on without a fully ready and emotionally engaged Jones.

And a quest that Jones should see is entwined with his own legacy here … and soon.