2017 NFL mock draft: Quarterback or bust
By John McCarty
With the future of the most important single position in sports in question, Smith’s agents can ‘sell’ the organization that new deal will secure the position for years to come, eliminating the need to use valuable draft resources at the position. In addition, with the Chiefs facing a numbers crunch with the 2017 salary cap, a new contract could greatly reduce Smith’s cap number for 2017 (currently is $16.9 million) and help the Chiefs possibly keep their core together to make a run.
What would a new Smith contract look like? We’ll take a quick look.
Based on the current market values provided by Spotrac, if Smith were available on the market, and thus a ‘in the ballpark’ valuation would look something like this. A likely contract value is $20.34M million a season, with $10.47M per season of the contract in guaranteed money. The signing bonus would likely compute to just under $5 million per season of the contract. Or another way
4 years / 81.36 million / 41.9 million guaranteed / 19.7 million signing bonus
5 years / 101.7 million / 52.35 million guaranteed / 24.75 million signing bonus
That’s a lot, nay, a ton of money. However, if the Chiefs decide/are forced into doing a new contract with Alex Smith, this is ballpark what he statistically values out at. Obviously, there are different ways to value a contract for Smith. When we discuss the need for the quarterback position to be addressed, this is a big reason why.
Understand, I’m not saying a new contract would look like this. By using and showing these numbers, we can all get an understanding of what Smith’s value is or could be. Obviously, depending on what the Chiefs and Smith are looking for. The most important number is the guaranteed money, and roughly what that equates to per season (just over $10 million). That is likely what Smith and his camp will be most interested in, and what would be the most interesting and telling.