NEWSLETTER
Patrick Mahomes led the Kansas City Chiefs to the AFC’s top seed and into the AFC Championship Game in 2018, and it doesn’t sound like it’ll be long before he’s rewarded with a big, fat paycheck for his efforts. How big that paycheck winds up, however, is an extremely interesting question, because so far, we’re hearing rumors of something massive.
ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports Mahomes could haul in an extension worth up to $200 million(!), which would be the first $200M+ deal in league history, leaving every other NFL contract in its dust. Yowza. So when would this happen?
Well, the earliest Mahomes can sign a new deal is after the 2019 season, so there’s still some time before we cross that bridge. And if we consider that the Chiefs can retain team control through 2021, it’s difficult to imagine Kansas City jumping into an extension right away that would immediately give up the flexibility that comes with having a quarterback on a rookie deal. But still … big-money deals for quarterbacks have been on the rise in recent years and Mahomes is certainly someone you want to keep around.
What makes Mahomes’ potential deal all the more interesting for Bears fans is that every quarterback who comes looking for a new contract – including fellow 2017 NFL Draft classmates Mitch Trubisky and Deshaun Watson – stands to benefit from whatever he gets. Obviously, Trubisky won’t be in line for the sort of deal for which Mahomes is on pace, but a rising tide lifts all boats.
Like Mahomes, Trubisky is on a rookie-scale contract that could last through 2021 should the Bears pick up his fifth-year option. And like Mahomes, Trubisky could seek an extension as soon as the end of the 2019 season. Trubisky has base salaries of $645,000 and $735,000 the next two years, to go along with cap hits of $7,917,933 and $9,237,591, according to spotrac.com. Those team-friendly numbers should provide the Bears the flexibility to build around their quarterback. But it won’t be long until Chicago’s front office has to decide whether he will be worthy of being handed a deal that will more-than-likely eclipse the reported seven-year deal worth up to $126 million Jay Cutler was given in January 2014 (I promise that’s the last time I mention Trubisky and Cutler in the same sentence … at least for the foreseeable future).
So while the murmurs of a potential bank-breaking Mahomes deal don’t directly impact the Bears right away, we’ll still keep an ears open, because of the potential impact they’ll have on Chicago’s QB1 down the line – just as we did when Aaron Rodgers signed an extension last August, or when Matt Ryan picked one up in May, and even when Kirk Cousins landed some major paper in March. Because before that, Matthew Stafford was locked up by the Lions and even Derek Carr received a huge chunk of change from the Raiders.
Considering the importance of the position, it’s not surprising that Mahomes is already projected to receive a multi-million dollar extension the likes of which the league has never seen.
