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Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes has agreed to terms on the richest contract in NFL history according to a report from ESPN. Adam Schefter say the deal will top $400 million in total. Some are even expecting it to be the richest contract in sports history, topping Angels outfielder Mike Trout’s 12-year deal which is worth $426.5 million.
While complete terms of Mahomes’ contract aren’t out there just yet, we do know a few things. We’ll update you with all the details of Mahomes’ contract once they’re known. Here’s what we currently know about the supposed record-setting deal:
The two years that Mahomes had remaining on his current deal won’t be erased, effectively making this a 12-year deal tying Mahomes to Kansas City. If those years aren’t altered at all, which is a possibility, Mahomes will make $27.6 million over the next two years. Add that to Schefter’s reported $400 million and you already have exceeded Trout’s deal.
The new contract lasts longer than the current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) which means that an obscure rule called the 30% rule will come into play. The rule dictates that after the current CBA ends, a player’s salary cannot rise more than 30% of his salary during the final CBA year. This basically prevents teams from backloading contracts with future money that might not exist.
One theory that has been getting some play, is that Mahomes’ contract will be tied to a percentage of the salary cap. That means if the salary cap increases, so will the amount of money that Mahomes makes that year. In recent years the salary cap has risen by roughly $11 million each season. This would be very unprecedented for the NFL, as well as the Chiefs and Mahomes, however, with such a long deal it would make a lot of sense for both parties to tie the contract to the salary cap. It’d also help with some of the uncertainty out there surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and its future impact on the salary cap.
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