As the NFL calendar finally turned to 2025 on March 12, the Kansas City Chiefs were forced to make decisions on several restricted free agents.

Chiefs Digest insider Matt Derrick relayed those decisions on X, reporting: “Chiefs offered right of first refusal tenders on CB Nazeeh Johnson and LB Jack Cochrane. Those are contract offers of $3.263 million for the 2025 season. Restricted free agents not offered tenders: TE Peyton Hendershot, CB Keith Taylor and K Spencer Shrader.”

For those that are unfamiliar with how the restricted free agent process works, Derrick explained what this all means in a follow-up post.

“Johnson and Cochrane can sign offer sheets from other clubs but Chiefs retain right to match,” the KC beat reporter noted. Adding: “Hendershot, Shrader and Taylor can sign with any club, including Chiefs, but no right to match or [guaranteed] compensation.”

Finally, in a third post, Derrick reported that “DE Malik Herring has re-signed with the Chiefs on a one-year deal, per source.”

He went on to clarify that Herring was the sixth restricted free agent that Kansas City had to decide on going into this offseason, but that the veteran defensive end was held off the RFA list after receiving a new contract.

Earlier this offseason, Derrick and fellow beat member Nick Jacobs (KSHB 41) debated which restricted free agents would get tendered by the Chiefs, and which wouldn’t.

In the end, Jacobs concluded that he would non-tender the entire group, including Herring, Johnson and Cochrane.

“For me, all those [contracts] would have to be vet minimum,” Jacobs stated at the time. Acknowledging: “That may not be what they want to hear… they may think they can get better [offers] on the open market and if they do, they do.”

Keep in mind, Jacobs was considering this RFA situation before the Chiefs traded All-Pro guard Joe Thuney and freed up a whole bunch of cap space restructuring the contracts of Patrick Mahomes and Chris Jones, so he was trying to be fiscally responsible.

Derrick was a little more optimistic that Kansas City would find the room in their budget for a few of these players, suggesting Johnson, Hendershot and Cochrane as his three top candidates to return.

Obviously, Derrick’s prediction was closer to the eventual outcome, as the Chiefs did indeed make a move to re-sign three of these players. Herring is returning for the 2025 campaign, per Derrick, and Johnson and Cochrane should be back barring heavy $3.263 million-plus interest from another franchise.

Derrick mentioned it within his posts, but just to be clear, non-tendered RFAs can still re-sign at a later date. And it’s possible that Kansas City will end up welcoming one or two of these players back on the veteran minimum contract that Jacobs mentioned.

Before they agree to that, however, they will test their market in free agency.

So, if anyone offers Taylor, Hendershot or Shrader a salary greater than the vet minimum, they’ll probably walk. But if there’s not much interest elsewhere, it’s still possible that they return in 2025.

The difference is that it’s now entirely up to the player, with the Chiefs relinquishing any power that they had in retaining these three.