Spotrac says Patrick Mahomes extension could earn $130 million guaranteed

Spotrac put out numbers on a few potential quarterback extensions on Thursday with Patrick Mahomes receiving the most money of them all.

At this point, the only thing known about the future of Patrick Mahomes bank account is that, some time soon, it’s going to enjoy a substantial increase for the next several years. The Kansas City Chiefs have made no secret that a long-term extension is coming with the reigning Super Bowl MVP. It’s only a matter of time.

On Thursday, Spotrac, a site which tracks player contracts and team payrolls in most sports, put out projections on the next few big-money quarterback contracts. Mahomes, after all, is not the only young quarterback looking for a considerable raise. Both Deshaun Watson of the Houston Texans and Dak Prescott of the Dallas Cowboys are ready to sign on the dotted line—at the right price.

Just how high that price will go is dependent on the situation, but Mahomes will be the most expensive of all given the achievements on record in such a short amount of time. Mahomes sat for his first full year in the NFL before winning the league’s Most Valuable Player award in 2018. His production fell the following year given a sore ankle and dislocated knee that plagued him or forced him out for much of the year, yet the Chiefs ended the season by hoisting the Lombardi for the first time in 50 years.

Here are the numbers from Spotrac:

Mahomes has one more year on the base rookie slotted deal he was forced to take as the tenth overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft—a contract that has a cap hit of $5,316,413 this season. From there, the Chiefs also control Mahomes in 2021 with a fifth year option given his first-round status. The total for such options for quarterbacks was nearly $22.8 million in 2019, which shows the immediate raise that Mahomes would enjoy even without an extension next year.

From there, the Chiefs could use the franchise tag up to two more times to make sure that Mahomes would stay in Kansas City through the 2023 season. Instead, an extension rewards Mahomes for a job well done up front and then tags on those four (assumed) years after this season, which means that the team, in this instance, would lock him up through 2024.

Right now, Russell Wilson is the NFL’s most valuable quarterback with an average of $35 million per season. These new deals are expected to eclipse that amount but $40 million annually might be a bit much. Then again, no player with the resume of Mahomes has come along so early. This is uncharted territory, financially speaking, and the Chiefs have a lot of research to do to finalize a deal of this size with all details considered.

Then again, this is the best sort of problem to have, wondering how long and how much to commit to the very best player in the NFL, one who is still so young and has already taken the team to the Promised Land.