If the Kansas City Chiefs felt like Matt Cassel was not going to be the starting quarterback they wanted him to be, there's apparently some news on the horizon if they wanted to take a chance on another back-up. Reports are surfacing that the Green Bay Packers are not likely going to be able to keep Matt Flynn with the franchise tag given their current salary cap status. That means Flynn will likely be a free agent in just a matter of weeks.
Brad Biggs of the National Football Post writes, "It’s not a matter of not wanting to franchise tag Matt Flynn before trading him, it’s a matter of not being able to for the Green Bay Packers. According to Tom Silverstein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Packers simply don’t have the salary-cap room to make such a move – and they’d almost certainly need to have a trade worked out in advance to pull off such a plan.
"The Packers might use the franchise tag, but it would likely be aimed at Finley, who has already said he would not be opposed to that. The tag for tight ends will be about $5.5 million. There are a lot of things general manager Ted Thompson must consider, and extending the contract of quarterback Aaron Rodgers is one of them. Doing a tag-and-trade with Flynn doesn’t look likely."
Because of this, Flynn is likely to become a free agent along with other veterans like Kyle Orton and Jason Campbell. Certainly the quarterback needy teams mentioned in the draft as trade candidates for Robert Griffin III will also kick the tires on Flynn, but this opens up hope for teams likely too far back to be able to trade up for one of the draft's best quarterbacks.
Flynn might want a situation where he's clearly the guy, a la Kevin Kolb with the Cardinals last season or Cassel when he first arrived in Kansas City. That said, the Chiefs would offer him a place where he could clearly win the job in training camp while the Chiefs would have a competent back-up after enduring four games started by Tyler Palko. The money would have to be right, but this is also a team that saved nearly $30 million less than the salary cap last year as well.
All things considered, it would be a smart move to at least check in with Flynn to get an honest scouting appraisal and to check the prices.