Well, there it is. After Joe Burrow got his record-setting deal on the night of the NFL’s 2023 kickoff game between the Chiefs and Lions, it was only a matter of time before the final domino of this cycle fell, and that domino was Patrick Mahomes. According to multiple reports, Mahomes and the Chiefs have agreed to a restructured contract.
Patrick Mahomes Contract Details
Chiefs Make Patrick Mahomes the Highest-Paid Player in the NFL, Again
This was a no-brainer all along. Even while the summer’s headlines were dominated by Jalen Hurts, Lamar Jackson, Justin Herbert, and eventually Joe Burrow getting one record-setting deal after another, we knew that it was only a matter of time before the Chiefs did right by their star quarterback.
Fresh off of an NFL title and a trip to the Super Bowl, Hurts was rewarded with a five-year extension worth $255 million (with $179 million guaranteed). Just before the NFL Draft, it was Lamar Jackson’s turn. Jackson topped Hurts by five million with a five-year, $260 million deal that included $185 million in guaranteed money. Naturally, Herbert topped them both, besting Lamar Jackson by $2.5 million, with more guaranteed in case of injury.
Herbert then became the latest to raise the bar for the ever-increasing quarterback market when he inked a five-year, $262.5 million extension with the Los Angeles Chargers in late July. In terms of guaranteed money, Herbert is guaranteed $133.7 million at signing, which includes the signing bonus, the two option bonuses, and his base salaries through 2025. His 2026 and ’27 salaries are guaranteed for injury, increasing the guarantees to $193.7 million. And $25 million of his 2028 salary will be guaranteed at a later date, leading to the $218.7 million in total guarantees.
Burrow’s deal, which came two weeks ago, is worth $275 million for five seasons and includes $219.01 million in guaranteed money. Now it’s Mahomes who wears the crown of the highest-paid player in the NFL once again.
Mahomes still had nine years left on his 12-year, $450 million extension signed in the summer of 2020. But that doesn’t mean that the best quarterback on the planet wasn’t due a raise. This summer, I wrote that Mahomes swapped a high APY and a complicated but lucrative guarantee structure for cash flow in the years that were most likely to be affected by the pandemic. But with those days gone, the cash flow could be boosted in the early years of a revised deal. And, well, here we are.
Mahomes’ new deal is essentially just money moved up to the front end of the deal to compensate Mahomes appropriately. The Chiefs have said that they will revisit the deal again in 2026.
