Patrick Mahomes could sign the first $200 million contract in NFL history, but the Chiefs should resist the urge to make him the richest player ever.
Patrick Mahomes has quickly established himself as not only arguably the best quarterback in the NFL but also the long yearned for franchise quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs. The question becomes what are the consequences of inking him to the long-term deal his talents demand.
Before I get into it, I should start by saying that I am a huge fan of the Kansas City Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes. My basement is a tribute to the Chiefs from 1960-2019 and all points in between. That collection includes a signed Patrick Mahomes jersey I received from my mother for Christmas last year.
An additional caveat: I understand that there is zero chance that Kansas City and general manager Brett Veach make a decision as bold as the one I’m proposing. I am very aware that as soon as the season ends, if not during the playoffs, Mahomes will sign the biggest contract in the history of the National Football League.
But should the Chiefs offer him such a contract?
The Mahomes’ contract talk was reignited in the social media world this week with the ESPN video of Adam Schefter reporting (again) that the 24-year-old quarterback’s offseason extension is likely to come in over $200 million.
Mahomes is the best player in the National Football League, at the sport’s most important position, and there is little debate about the validity of that statement. Not only is Mahomes the reigning NFL MVP, he is also the frontrunner for the 2019 award.
But, no NFL player should eat up 20% (or more) of their team’s salary cap. And, if the Chiefs decide to pay Mahomes the reported $40 million per year, he’ll be doing just that. In fact, a decision to allow their young MVP quarterback to account for one-fifth of the cap will mean that, on average, the other 52 players under contract each year will average a relatively meager $3.3 million each.
Consider the contract hits of others under contract like Tyreek Hill, Eric Fisher, Mitchell Schwartz, Frank Clark, Tyrann Mathieu, et cetera, and you’re basically in a place where you’re filling every other roster spot with guys making the league minimum or those on rookie contracts.
This is essentially the strategy of the NBA Super Team model. The biggest difference, of course, between the NBA and the NFL is the size of the roster. It makes more sense (though only marginally) for one player to take 20% of the salary cap when the roster is only 15 players and the starting lineup is only five.
In the NFL, this strategy not only does not make sense from a numbers standpoint; it has also proven, time and time again, to be a highly ineffective way to build a winning franchise. After all, the 2018 playoffs saw zero of the top six highest-paid quarterbacks in the playoffs. In fact, only one of those six teams (Green Bay Packers, Atlanta Falcons, Minnesota Vikings, San Francisco 49ers, Oakland Raiders, and Detroit Lions) had a winning record. (The Vikings were technically above .500 at 8-7-1.)
In fact, according to the numbers, Steve Young‘s 1994 cap hit with the San Francisco 49ers accounted for 13% of the overall cap and won that team won the Super Bowl. This is the highest percentage of the cap that a player has ever been paid on a Super Bowl-winning team. In second place was Tom Brady, who last year earned 12.4% of the cap in a Super Bowl-winning year. Coming in third in the salary cap era, was Peyton Manning. His salary in 2015 with the Denver Broncos came in at 12.2% of the overall cap that year.
Tom Mead wrote a lengthy data-driven piece about how important it is for teams to capitalize before teams paid their quarterbacks. In fact, “The only team to win the Super Bowl while having its two highest-paid players make more than 21.6 percent of the salary cap is the 49ers in 1994 with Steve Young and Jerry Rice.” The Chiefs are talking about (apparently) putting that much into one player.
While based on the early returns 2019, highly paid quarterbacks are likely to see better results (the Seattle Seahawks, Green Bay Packers, and the Los Angeles Rams all at least look likely to return to the postseason this year), the point remains the same that it is incredibly difficult to build a winning team around a player who is accounting for so many of the franchise’s resources.
The other significant drawback is the risk of injury. It is highly unlikely that a player will go through their entire NFL career and not have a significant injury. In the event that your team is paying a player 1/5 of the salary cap, and then that player misses the season, you’ve effectively wasted an entire season of every else’s careers. Teams need to give themselves viable backup options to remain competitive in the event of significant injury to their franchise quarterbacks.
An argument that people often throw out in discussions such as these is that the other players on the team will be jealous. Let’s be clear about this one: that simply does not happen in the National Football League and if it does, people are very quiet about it.
As professionals, all of whom are quite wealthy, people understand and respect the work that their teammates do. They also understand (mostly) that this is a business. It seems like, from an outsider, that players support their teammates going after their money. The best/most recent example seems to be the seamless transition for Ezekiel Elliot returning to the Cowboys after his holdout/new contract.
What should the Chiefs do instead?
First things first, the Chiefs cannot trade Patrick Mahomes. Such a trade would be unprecedented in NFL history, and the assets alone needed to secure such an acquisition would be unfathomable.
Instead, there are two parts to the way this needs to be approached.
The first is from the perspective of the front office. Veach has been thinking about this contract since Mahomes was drafted. And, its going to take every bit of his cap knowledge and creativity to create a contract that makes any sense at all for the team.
This includes the structure of the signing bonus, the year(s) in which the salary inflates versus deflates, and the nature of the incentives. To that point, it will be difficult to create incentives that make sense because of the statistics Mahomes has already put up in his short NFL career.
It would be rude, frankly, of the Chiefs to ask PMII to take a hometown discount or team friendly deal or whatever you want to call it. Not only would it be a slap in the face to the work he’s done, but it would also be unfair in the context of what the franchise will make off of him in terms of revenue over the course of his career (anyone care to speculate on how much money Clark Hunt has already made off of Mahomes given his rookie contract?). That being said – if Mahomes brings that idea to the table – the Chiefs should leap at it.
Instead, I see the Chiefs backloading this contract to account for the current contracts of the aforementioned other highly paid players. This will also help to get the highest hits as far in to the new collective bargaining agreement which will almost certainly increase the salary cap significantly.
An additional consideration the team needs to make is how to balance the other contracts on the roster. In theory, they’ve done this with the Clark, Hill and Mathieu contracts. But, they’ll also need to do so with upcoming contracts for Chris Jones and Mitchell Schwartz (and potentially Kendall Fuller).
The final consideration the team should make is tying the contract to a percentage of the cap. This protects Mahomes to a degree and may, in fact, be his preferred contract construction.
The second half of how this must be approached is from the fan base. Fans must acknowledge that with a player like Patrick Mahomes, they must get used to the reality that other fan favorites, young standouts, homegrown talents who blossom will never get a second/big contract with the team.
This may ultimately include players already on the roster like Juan Thornhill or Mecole Hardman, and future draft picks who play in Kansas City for three to five years and hit the market in their prime. Fans should also get used to seeing contracts that allow the Chiefs to get out early and often – such as what will likely be the move to decline Sammy Watkins‘ option after this season.
The other reality for fans is that they must be prepared to be incredibly patient in free agency and with trades that Veach completes. They should expect to see more deals for buy low, high upset options like what the team did with Reggie Ragland, LeSean McCoy and Emmanual Ogbah.
It will be a rare occurrence for the next decade plus of Mahomes’ career to see the Chiefs sign top tier free agents in the first few days of free agency. Frankly, this isn’t terribly different from the approach Veach has typically taken – but it has been a point of frustration for fans in the past, and they’ll have to get over it in the Patrick Mahomes II Contract Era.
No one would believe an argument that said the Chiefs should trade or let walk the MVP of the league entering his prime. The argument could be made, but no one would believe it.
Instead, Chiefs fans specifically, and NFL fans in general, must get used to the idea that Kansas City will be entering a new era of Chief football that is unprecedented in the history of the franchise, and maybe the league. Their cap management will be a work in progress and Veach & Co. will have to undergo a learning curve as they manage an unknown situation.
This is all part of the spoils of having the best player in the league, at the most important position in the game, who has not yet entered his prime, who has already won a league MVP… And the Chiefs front office, and their fans, will just have to learn to live with their new reality.