Kansas City Chiefs in 2020: Patrick Mahomes and the quarterbacks

Our new series looks at the long-term plans for the Chiefs roster, and we start at the top with what Patrick Mahomes will cost down the road.

The 2020 season will be an interesting one for Kansas City. With 19 projected free agents entering that season and $61,820,815 million in cap space, there will be a changing of the guard at many positions. That means some longtime Chiefs will no longer be on the team.

When 2020 rolls around, both Patrick Mahomes and Chase Litton, if he’s around, will both be in the last year of their contracts. The Chiefs will still be in a very good position when it comes to how much they are spending at the quarterback position. Mahomes and Litton will make a combined $5,926,443 on the year. We can assume that any cost to keep Litton past the 2020 season will be a minimal amount. It will most likely end up being close to Tyler Bray’s extension with Kansas City, which was worth $1.925 million.

The big question is how much will the Chiefs have to pay to for Mahomes’s continued service? The NFL has shown over the past few years that there is nothing more valuable than having a starting quarterback on a rookie contract. This is for a good reason, since a glance around the league show numerous quarterbacks making insane amounts. Matt Ryan, the longtime Falcons quarterback, signed the largest contract for a quarterback ever, with a monstrous $94.5 million fully guaranteed over the six years of the contract. Looking at that number and its implications against the cap should give you heart palpitations.

When looking at Ryan’s new contract, we see he had a $10.5 million increase in guaranteed money past the last big quarterback contract held by Minnesota Vikings new quarterback Kirk Cousins. If you go back to the contract before that Ryan received an astounding $34 million more in guaranteed money than Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford. This is also taking into consideration that none of these quarterbacks have ever won a Super Bowl. In fact, Cousins and Stafford do not even have a playoff win between them.

Now, this does not mean that the Chiefs must pay Mahomes, since there is always the chance that he isn’t actually a good quarterback. However, let’s assume that Mahomes performs as expected and become the best quarterback in Chiefs history. What would Kansas City end up paying him? We can safely assume that Kansas City would pick up his fifth-year option, which will be calculated using the transition tender at the quarterback position.

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The transition tender for a quarterback in 2017 was $19 million, and the transition tender for 2018 is projected $20.9 million. That’s a difference of $1.8 million and some change, so adding that over the next couple years we can assume that his cap hit will be in the $24.6 million range (yay math!). This number could change since there are a lot of factors that play into it.

Moving into the seasons beyond Mahomes’s fifth year option, we can see that before Cousins received his new contract, there was a steady increase of $3 million guaranteed on average per contract. Add in the fact that the top ten quarterback contracts average out to 52.68% of a teams cap and we have a base of what Mahomes contract could be. Unfortunately for the Chiefs, Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson, Andy Dalton, Case Keenum, Marcus Mariota, Carson Wentz, Jared Goff, and Jamies Winston all need extensions within the next two years.

Looking at that list, it is probably a safe bet that Rogers, Wilson, Mariota, Wentz, and Goff will all be trying to one-up each other with their next contracts. So if we continue with the $3 million bump per contract, we are looking at $15 million increase in guaranteed money over the next two years. Adding that to Ryan’s recent $94.5 million, and Kansas City would be looking at a bill of $109.5 million in guaranteed money. The projected cap space by Overthecap for the 2020 season and beyond right now is $200 million, which would put Mahomes cap hit percentage right at 54.75%. That percentage is pretty much in line with what we got when looking at the current top ten contracts.

Now there are many more factors that go into this whole equation. Rodgers next contract is more than likely to jump more than the average $3 million we have seen over the past few years. Mahomes could also end up being a terrible quarterback which would bring down that heart-stopping number. Another issue that will be considered is whether or not the Brett Veach wants to wait that long to extend Mahomes.

Veach has to to be thinking about the looming lockout that is bound to happen in 2021, which will be Mahomes fifth season. Locking up Mahomes before the pending changes to the collective bargaining agreement could be more beneficial in the long run. There is also always the possibility that Veach decides to try and extend Mahomes before most of those other quarterbacks sign starting at the end of 2019 in an attempt to have a lower overall cap hit. We all saw how fast Veach traded Alex Smith this past offseason to try and get ahead of the quarterback market.

This situation will continue to be fluid as we go forward into the Mahomes era. Hopefully, Veach drafts well enough over the next few seasons so that Kansas City will have enough available money to be able to pay out that large of a contract.