Chris Jones has every right to do what’s best for him. Is that taking Chiefs’ contract?

The saga that is the Chris Jones holdout has stretched more than 40 days, blowing past all leverage points and artificial deadlines, while its central question remained unchanged: Will he show up?

With that answer evident for the opener — Jones is absent from the team this week ahead of the Chiefs’ date with the Lions Thursday — let’s work through the parameters of what’s really been the most pressing question all along:

Should he show up?

The quick-fire response is probably yes, though the means to arriving at that conclusion is different than the narrative would have you believe. In a business that is cruelly disloyal to its employees, Jones does not owe his employer any sort of discount, even if his two high-profile teammates accepted one. His focus should be what he owes someone else:

Himself.

That — and that alone — is the foundation behind the quick-fire response. The Chiefs have offered Jones, who is entering the final year of his contract, an extension that covers two additional seasons for $54.5 million in new money, per reports. Jones wants more, or he’d be here in Kansas City; the gap between the two sides is as much as $10 million over the two seasons combined. That’s not a small amount.

He’s ready for the fight. Maybe the Chiefs miscalculated that initially, but they know now.

For everything Jones has missed — mandatory minicamp, workout bonus and training camp — he has totaled well above $2 million in fines, with another $1.1 million or so for each game he skips. If he actually waits until Week 8 to report, as he suggested on social media, he could sacrifice $10.5 million — for an effort to gain about $10 million.

He’s dug in.

But for now, I’m going to dig elsewhere, to the contract he could sign today, right now, if he wanted to — because the focus shouldn’t solely be what he’s missing while he prolongs the holdout. It’s about what he would be getting, too.

We’ve heard a lot about annual average value in these negotiations. It is the most intriguing position on the field to have that discussion, given the massive gap between defensive tackle Aaron Donald’s $31.7 million per season with the Rams and Quinnen Williams’ $24 million per season with the Jets. It’s clear Jones and his camp believe he’s much closer to the anomaly of the former. There are semantics involved, which I’ll get to later, but the new money in the reported offer splits the two at $27.25 million per season.

It doesn’t blow anyone out of the water, but I don’t consider it a dollar-store discount, either. If I’m wrong — if it is below market value — then the real problem here is the team involved. The Chiefs cannot be the team to pay market price, at least not as long as Patrick Mahomes is on the roster. And they cannot change that stance if they drop a couple of early games.

But in the offer before him, there’s another combination that would be quite appealing: largely guaranteed money coupled with a short-term deal.

Why would a short-term contract ever be preferred to a long-term pact?

Well, it’s situational, but Jones is potentially an ideal fit for the situation. As a hypothetical, let’s say he agrees to the proposal. He becomes the second-highest-paid defensive tackle in football — the landing spot most of us assumed before this all started. If he underperforms, it has no bearing on his wallet over three years — he’s still earning $27-plus million in 2024 and 2025, when he will be 31 years old.

But the far more likely scenario is that Jones continues to tear it up, same as he’s done for years. And guess what, he’s right back on the open market. And quickly.

While I understand the desire for stability, the market not only catches up to long-term deals by Year Three or Four, it can often blaze right by them. Heck, by Year Two, the best players can be left in the dust. I’ve wondered when some of them will strive for a different objective: Get to the bargaining table as frequently as possible while you’re still dominant.

NFL contracts are not ordered by player productivity. Rather, it is a league of one-upmanship. The last to the table wins.

This offers Jones a seat at that table again while still on the heels of his prime years.

Why is Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes already underpaid? He signed a 10-year contract. It’s been a minute since he negotiated it. Why has Kirk Cousins totaled the fourth-most earnings among active quarterbacks and made $20-plus million for eight straight seasons? He takes short-term, fully guaranteed contracts, only to return to the bargaining table every couple of years after the market has shifted in his favor each and every time.

A short-term deal puts Jones in line to negotiate a fourth multiyear contract. He seems to be on board with that piece — the fight is not over the length or duration. But it has not been swayed enough by that possibility to accept being the second highest-paid defensive tackle.

Think about it: If he produces each of the next two seasons, he will actually have the opportunity to once more hold out for a new deal as he enters the final year of the agreement in 2025. And at 31 years old then, he will be equipped with a pretty key argument: I just dominated at 29 and 30 years old. Who are you to say I can’t do it at 31 and 32?

Plus, he would have that conversation potentially after a couple of other defensive tackles have shot past him in annual earnings. Someone will pay, whether it’s Kansas City or otherwise.

Truth be told, it’s why I’m not really all that crazy about the offer from the Chiefs’ standpoint, even though they backed themselves into a corner by failing to more adequately address his potential absence in the spring. (Yes, I understand the irony of preferring the deal for the side who is declining it.) When you provide expensive short-term deals with lots of guaranteed money, what you are really guaranteeing is there is very little chance the player can outperform the paycheck. You just hope he meets it.

It has the illusion of less risk because there are fewer years. But those years would be huge numbers on the Chiefs’ cap. In long-term deals, by contrast, the back end can either include cheaper years (relative to an inflating cap) or be used to help free up cap space in the immediacy. That’s where Jones stands now. It’s why he’s holding out. The cap increased. The market increased. His 2023 salary, which he signed more than three years ago, did not.

Really, it’s pretty simple: Wouldn’t he prefer to have this year’s discussion as a free agent, particularly if he thinks he’s worth more than what one of the 32 teams is offering?

He can give himself that opportunity in two additional years — so long as he signs an extension that clears the league’s second-highest paid defensive tackle by $3 million annually.

It might not be a win-win. He clearly thinks he’s worth more. He might be right. What you’re worth is what someone is willing to pay, and someone else might be willing to pay more.

But the offer is perhaps a push-win. Break even now. Win later.

Chris Jones contract: New money vs. old money

The publicized counterpoint to much of what’s above is that because Jones is slated to make $19.5 million this season, he is not actually only being offered an additional 2 years for $54.5 million — that it’s more like 3 years for $74 million. That’s a potential explanation for the breakdown in the negotiations.. After all, Donald had his existing contract ripped up in favor of his payday. Why shouldn’t Jones seek the same?

The problem is Donald remains an outlier across the league, not a trend. The rest of the league did not follow suit. The verbiage for the vast majority of NFL contract extensions are determined by their new money. As one agent told me, “If we could just ignore the current contract, we’d all be telling our Pro Bowl players to hold out every offseason, even if they had three or four years left (on their deal).”

As Joel Corry, a former NFL agent and current salary cap expert for CBS, said on his podcast, “Every time I had a negotiation for a player under contract, we were talking about how much new money we were adding and over how many new years. ... That’s typically how professionals within the industry, agents and team negotiators value deals when there is time left under contract.”

Look, I’ve long argued for Jones’ value to the Chiefs, even placing it at a premium above Tyreek Hill. I’ve explained why his impact to the defense is irreplaceable. I’ve explained why he should have some leverage.

The Chiefs will undoubtedly miss his presence Thursday. They are thin on the defensive even with Chris Jones. He deserves a raise that comfortably clears Williams’ number.

He’s got one on the table.

It ought to be appealing.

For his sake.