Grading the Frank Clark trade: The Seahawks fleeced the Chiefs
Steven Ruiz
April 23, 2019 3:51 pm
The Chiefs are jumping on the trend started by the Rams and Bears. Those teams recognized the benefit of having a solid starting quarterback on a rookie deal and looked to capitalize on that window by using the money saved at the QB position to spend big on stars at other positions.
Kansas City appears to be taking the same approach after it swung a deal for Seahawks DE Frank Clark, which cost the Chiefs first- and second-round picks and a five-year, $105.5 million contract, including $63.5 million guaranteed, to lock him up long term.
Now, there are worse ways to spend cap space, but this deal didn’t happen in a vacuum. The reason Kansas City was in need of a pass rusher in the first place was its decisions to trade pending free agent Dee Ford to San Francisco for a second-round pick and let the aging-but-still-productive Justin Houston go to Indianapolis for a modest deal. In all, Ford and Houston signed for seven years, $110 million, including $51.8 million in guaranteed money, with their new teams. That’s two ultra-productive players for, essentially, the price of Clark.
Now, you might be thinking that the Chiefs defense was awful last year and the biggest culprit in all of their losses, and you’d be correct. But that had little to do with Houston and Ford, who combined for 125 QB pressures. No other teammates combined for more. Clark managed an impressive 64 on his own, which is 16 more than Houston tallied but 13 fewer than Ford’s total. Pro Football Focus graded Ford as the best pass rusher in 2018. Houston ranked fifth. Clark ranked outside the top-20.
(This is all without taking into account Clark’s troubling history with domestic violence, or the time he tweeted to a female reporter that she wouldn’t last long in the business and would end up cleaning his fish tank.)
So, essentially, Kansas City gave up a first-round pick and about $12 million in guaranteed money for a player who isn’t any better than either of the TWO players he’s being asked to replace on his own. The Chiefs’ pass rush, which was the only above average facet of the defense, is somehow worse off than it was before the offseason began.
Kansas City’s defensive problems stemmed from an ineffective secondary that could not hold in coverage, and it’s going to take more than an effective rush to change that. Advanced stats suggest that in the relationship between pass rush and coverage, the latter plays a bigger role.
