Vontae Davis called Sean Smith to the Chiefs long before Smith actually wound up agreeing to a deal, but he never offered up numbers for the eventual deal.
So we have no way of knowing whether Davis thought Smith would have gotten more than $18 million over three years from Kansas City. Multiple reports agree on those numbers and they also agree that $11 million of that money is guaranteed.
That’s a steep drop from what Eric Wright, Cortland Finnegan and Brandon Carr landed on the free agent market, which suggests that a crowded cornerback market made that kind of money an impossibility. The Chiefs and the rest of the league clearly didn’t see a big gap between getting Smith and getting the next choice on their list, a situation that is always going to lead to a drop in what you command as a free agent.
With Smith signed, we should start seeing more cornerbacks come off the market. If Smith has set the ceiling -- he got more per year and guaranteed than Chris Houston -- the rest of the available players will have to aim south of it.