Patrick Mahomes’ contract isn’t all that ‘team-friendly’ when you dig into its structure

Like clockwork, every NFL offseason seems to see the creation of a new highest-paid quarterback in the league, usually a reflection of teams locking in their starters as contract players while they are on their rookie contracts.

Earlier this month, it was Jacksonville Jaguars passer Trevor Lawrence’s turn to reset the market. Lawrence, the No. 1 pick in the 2021 draft, signed a huge extension worth $55 million per season. Cincinnati Bengals For the highest average annual value (AAV) for that position.

Another inevitability in the quarterback market is that as new lucrative contracts are announced, attention will return to Patrick Mahomes’ relatively low salary.

The league’s biggest star signed a 10-year contract worth $450 million in 2020. Four years later, the quarterback market has boomed and Mahomes’ $45 million per season is the ninth-highest in the league.

But Mahomes Kansas City Chiefs A big hometown discount: His status as the league’s ninth-highest paid quarterback is an illusion that exists solely for accounting purposes.

After Burrow signed his extension last offseason, the Chiefs made significant changes to Mahomes’ 10-year contract, which is still technically valid, but accelerated money due after 2027 to pay Mahomes an average of $52.7 million from 2023-2027.

In exchange for effectively giving him a raise in less than three years of a 10-year deal, the Chiefs gained valuable flexibility in how they claimed the money for salary-cap purposes. The deal is undoubtedly “team-favorable,” but that overused phrase doesn’t mean the compensation is actually a financial bargain.

Anyone who follows NFL contracts knows that the annual average is often a meaningless number and the true measure is the guaranteed amount. With his contract restructure, Mahomes got a record-setting $210 million guaranteed over four years.

At first glance, Mahomes appears to be well behind his contemporaries in average salary, but this apparent farce is merely a technicality, as Mahomes could expect to make more than his contemporaries during the terms of their more lucrative contracts.

But Mahomes is still under contract through 2031, right? The best answer to that question is “it’s complicated.”

The restructured deal preserves his original contract and technically keeps him under contract for the duration of his original contract, but there are two key reasons why Mahomes’ contract effectively only runs through 2027.

As the face of the league, Mahomes now has a strong influence on the team due to the salary cap structure for the coming seasons, with three years of Mahomes set to account for more than $60 million of the Chiefs’ salary cap starting in 2025. Kansas City will also need to immediately turn its attention to some of the talented young players who helped them win back-to-back championships, such as cornerback Trent McDuffie.

At some point — likely before they are forced to pay $66.3 million per player in 2025 — Chiefs general manager Brett Veach will negotiate an entirely new contract with the quarterback. The Chiefs cannot afford to keep Mahomes on his contract and continue to have a championship-caliber roster.

Mahomes’ current contract has a similar expiration date, even if ownership makes the horrifying decision that Kansas City has had enough playoff success and adopts an austerity approach to weather the cap crisis.

The $45 million salary that’s often cited to justify the theory that Mahomes is underpaid assumes a nearly impossible scenario: Mahomes is actually scheduled to make $52.9 million in 2027. 2028 is the first year that money is “borrowed” to fund the 2023 restructuring. Mahomes is currently only actually scheduled to make $27.2 million that year.

Does anyone really believe the league’s most famous player would accept a $25 million pay cut for a contract seven years into after printing money for the NFL for almost a decade?

Long before that becomes an issue, Mahomes should land another record-setting contract. Expect his next contract to have an unprecedented contract structure similar to his first extension. Don’t be surprised if it includes another 10-year contract period to maximize the opportunity to restructure his high salary and spread out his cap hit.

You’ll likely hear that same group of pundits lament how Mahomes is making the Chiefs underpay him, especially if he doesn’t reach the top of the market level of a fictitious AAV value.

The future Pro Football Hall of Famer does a lot of charitable work, but Kansas City’s front office isn’t benefiting from it. The details of his salary for the rest of his career may be unconventional, but his true income will reflect his status in the sports world going forward.