After four mediocre seasons with the Tennessee Titans, cornerback Kristian Fulton reinvigorated his career with a standout season with the LA Chargers. Fulton's 2024 campaign with the Chargers netted him a two-year, $20 million contract from the Kansas City Chiefs — which many Chargers fans called an overpay at the time.
As promising as Fulton's turnaround was on the Chargers, under the hood, the Bolts knew they had a sputtering engine running on low fuel. Fulton started reverting back to bad habits late in the 2024 season, foreshadowing a predictable regression back to his previous form.
Still, the Chiefs signed the former rival to beef up the secondary and they may already regret it. Injuries hampered Fulton's arrival in Kansas City, allowing those around him to surpass him on the team's depth chart. He's played in just one game this season and has been a healthy scratch in the last two.
It hasn't gone well for Fulton, and now, there's speculation (and that's all it is to this point) around the Chiefs cutting ties altogether with a trade. Matt Conner of Arrowhead Addict broke down all the tea leaves surrounding Fulton and a potential move, whether it be the Chiefs' silence, the young cornerbacks on the roster, or the "move before a move" Kansas City already made.
In summary, Conner penned the following:
"All of these dots, when connected, point toward a potential move of a cornerback for help at another position. Knowles in now in place to fill someone's spot. The one standing on the outside of it all is Fulton, and that's been the case for a few weeks. Perhaps it's Joshua Williams, although his contract is a wrinkle to be ironed out. Either way, the Chiefs have at least signaled a move and it's possible that it involves a player whose entire tenure in Kansas City has raised questions."
Chiefs' Kristian Fulton signing is aging even worse than Chargers fans could've imagined
We're less than two months into the 2025 season and there is already talks of the Chiefs potentially trading Fulton. Chargers fans didn't expect this signing to go well, but we didn't expect it to age poorly that quickly!
Fulton is clearly the odd man out in Kansas City and the uncomfortable truth for the Chiefs is there might not be an out. The rest of the league is seeing what is going on with Fulton, so it's hard to imagine a team wanting to trade draft capital for the veteran cornerback.
Maybe the Chiefs could swing some kind of trade that swaps a seventh-round pick for a sixth-round pick. But at that rate, Kansas City is better off just keeping Fulton around in case he needs to fill in due to injuries.
Fulton carries a $7 million cap hit this season that grows to $13 million in 2026. There's a real possibility Fulton could be a cap casualty ahead of the 2026 season. If the Chiefs cut him before June 1 next year they will save $5 million in cap space with an $8 million dead cap hit. The numbers are the same if they cut him after June 1, too.
Even though it would create more salary-cap space, that's still $8 million in cap space down the drain if the Chiefs can't figure out how to maximize Fulton. That's a big deal considering Kansas City is currently projected to be $42 million above the salary cap next season.
The Chiefs have made out in bringing in former Chargers in the past, most notably in linebacker Drue Tranquill. This time, though, Kansas City is getting burned.