Kansas City Chiefs star pass rusher Chris Jones brought up a bit of a sore subject after his team’s 13–12 win against the Los Angeles Chargers.
In a game in which Jones reached his season sack bonus (10 sacks) and collected a $1.25 million bonus, the five-time Pro Bowler had a shockingly honest take on why he was working so hard to hit the incentive.
“I lost so much money holding out, so I’m just making money back that I lost, honestly,” Jones said after Sunday’s victory.
Heading into Week 18, Jones needed just half a sack to trigger his incentive. Given that Chiefs coach Andy Reid was resting most of his starters for the playoffs, Jones was in danger of getting benched mid-game. But he desperately pled his case to stay on the field to Reid.
“[Reid] gave me the finger as in, ‘This is the last drive.’ I had to beg him because the play before that, we got the TFL, and I’m looking at him hollering, ‘One more drive, Coach, one more!,’” Jones explained. “I’m praying to God while I’m walking out, like ‘God, please let me get it, this is the last one’ and God is good.”
"I lost so much money holding out, so I'm just making money back that I lost." 😂
— NFL on CBS 🏈 (@NFLonCBS) January 8, 2024
- Chris Jones on the incentives he triggered on his sack | @AKinkhabwala pic.twitter.com/zd4beqQXSM
The Chiefs’ 2023 season could arguably be described by three tentpoles: wide receiver drops, Travis Kelce’s decline, and Chris Jones’s ugly holdout. Jones missed the entirety of training camp and sat out of Week 1’s loss to the Lions before agreeing to a one-year deal worth up to $25 million in incentives.
Jones was fined around $3.6 million in total during his holdout, so his $1.25 million incentive doesn’t even cover half of it. Chiefs fans also may not appreciate his comments considering how much of a headache Jones’s contract standoff gave them last summer and how Jones’s absence impacted the start of the Chiefs’ season.
In any case, Jones has his money. The Chiefs are heading to the playoffs. Life is good, for now.
