What Chiefs $500M Deal With Mahomes Means To Cowboys & Dak

[Stephan Bobb]

What Chiefs $500M Deal With Mahomes Means To Cowboys & Dak

 

Mike Fisher

Jul 6, 2020

FRISCO - Every new deal for a superstar in the NFL represents a "race against time,'' of sorts, each club hoping it can do a deal before certain dominos fall in a way that makes a contract more affordable ... and each superstar considering patience so the dominos fall in a way that make a contract more rich.

A domino - the biggest domino in the league - just fell.

The Kansas City Chiefs have (per ESPN) agreed with starting quarterback Patrick Mahomes on a 10-year contract extension, which means the arguable best player in the league and perennial MVP is locked in through the 2031 season - in actuality a 12-year deal.

Mahomes can be expected to be the highest-paid player in the NFL ($400 million-plus here), though terms are unknown and the devil is in the details. 

UPDATE: The details on Mahomes' deal - a "half-billion-dollar deal'' - are collected below at SI. ...

But maybe they won't be so devilish in one particular way as it relates to the Dallas Cowboys and franchise-tagged QB Dak Prescott.

Prescott is not on the same level, in terms of accomplishments, as Mahomes. Of course, that same argument can be made about Prescott and Russell Wilson, and yet Dallas has already offered Dak a Wilson-like deal at $35 million for five years.

Does Mahomes' average-per-year total impact what Prescott may ask for now, beyond the $31.409 million one-year deal that is locked in for 2020 (unless a new contract can be agreed to by July 15)? Maybe; that's part of the domino effect here - and one of the reasons critics of the Cowboys front office howl that the Joneses should've found a way to close the Dak deal last September, when they were oh-so-close.

Keep in mind, though: How many escape hatches does Mahomes' deal include? How many restructures to come in the next decade-plus? What is the guaranteed money? What is the cap impact? 

Or ... what if Mahomes' deal guarantees him a percentage of the cap? That idea - sort of like a Hollywood actor getting "points'' for a film's success - is, we believe, unprecedented in the NFL. But maybe sensible, too.

UPDATE: Mahomes' deal is not designed that way, as it turns out. But the cleverness of the concept remains ...

These are all considerations to be made only after the full numbers are in.

But for the moment ... maybe there is a domino influence or two to be judged now, relating to Prescott.

Mahomes, who won the NFL’s Most Valuable Player award in 2018 after putting up 50 touchdowns and over 5,000 passing yards in his first full season as the team’s starter, and then followed it up, with the MVP award from Super Bowl LIV by leading the Chiefs to a Super Bowl win, is getting rich here. But he surely made concessions, too, on the way to the monumental 12-year deal.

Prescott has asked Dallas for a four-year contract, a year shorter than Dallas' preference evidenced in its five-year proposal. The attraction to the shorter deal is Dak's quickened path to a second rich contract. But Mahomes and the Chiefs - with everyone in KC seemingly happy - have just demonstrated another way. If the dollars can get right, there is now heightened sense to signing not for four, not for five ... but for ... ever - as Mahomes has just done.

At the risk of being overly-optimistic, we'd also add this: The Chiefs and Mahomes' side have obviously been talking. But there was no great rumbling leading up to the agreement. This things can happen quickly. And in the case of Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys, can certainly happen in the coming days