The Chiefs started their signing period early by grabbing the recently released former Oakland Raider Stanford Routt, locking up the cornerback with a three-year, $19 million deal. Does that mean free agent Brandon Carr is all but gone? It's very, very, likely, but Scott Pioli would still have fans believe that the two deals - Routt's signing and whatever Carr ends up getting - aren't mutually exclusive. That's tough to swallow given the logistics of Dwayne Bowe's yet-to-be-determined deal, but hey, the G.M. says he's trying.
Here's exactly what Pioli said to 810 WHB:
"I’ll say this: The signing of Stanford Routt does not impact where we’re at with Brandon Carr. As a matter of fact, Romeo and I both reached out to Brandon yesterday as this was unfolding and talked to him. I spoke personally with Brandon, and without getting into the details of what that conversation was, he knows and he’s known before that he’s someone that we want to try and keep here and he’s still someone we want to keep a Chief. This signing doesn’t eliminate the feelings that we have for Brandon and how we want to have him here. He knows that. He wants to be here. We want him here. And we’re going to try to work. If both sides find a deal that makes sense for one another, we’d love to have Brandon back. Part of the big-picture philosophy between keeping a large amount of cap room and managing the cap the right way is that when opportunities come to improve your football team with good players, you keep trying to do it. So, we had conversations not only with Brandon, but his agent and told him, "We’ve been talking, let’s continue to talk, let’s see how things work out." If we come to a deal that makes sense for everybody, let’s do that."
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