KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI – JANUARY 12: Quarterback Patrick Mahomes #15 of the Kansas City Chiefs warms up before the AFC Divisional playoff game against the Houston Texans at Arrowhead Stadium on January 12, 2020 in Kansas City, Missouri. (Photo by David Eulitt/Getty Images)
Patrick Mahomes is eligible for a new contract, and the deal he’ll get is in line to break every possible record.
The Kansas City Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes are clearly set to have a long-term relationship. To that end, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network, the team is hoping to complete a “mammoth” contract extension this offseason that would make Mahomes the highest-paid player in the league.
Next year will be the fourth year of Mahomes’ rookie contract, and he’s set to make $2.7 million in total. It’s a foregone conclusion the Chiefs will pick up his fifth-year option before they have to in early May, which would lock in something around $24 million for him in 2021.
Russell Wilson is currently atop the financial heap, with four years and $35 million per year in new money coming to him after this year. Mahomes is sure to push toward, if not all the way to or even over, $40 million a year in new money. As Jeff Diamond of Sporting News laid out, a five-year, $200 million extension would hit that $40 million per year mark. That deal, while accounting for the two years he has left on his current contract, would also push Mahomes over the $31.4 million per year bar Wilson has set (counting this year).
The Chiefs will be challenged to keep Mahomes among the highest-paid quarterbacks in the league as others line up for new deals (Deshaun Watson, etc.). So maybe they take it up a notch right away, before new CBA and television deals come, and see going over a $40 million per year average in a new deal as palatable due to the likely rise in the salary cap to come down the road.
In terms of purely guaranteed money, Jared Goff is currently the leader at $110 million in the deal he got from the Rams. Mahomes will surely blow that out of the water when he signs his new contract, to the tune of $150 million or more in guarantees.
By virtually every measure imaginable, Mahomes will set a new financial bar for NFL players and quarterbacks when his new contract is done. It’s just a matter of when it gets done, and how high those bars will be set so as not to necessarily be surpassed quickly.