The Kansas City Chiefs took their first big steps to address their salary cap deficit, creating major space for the 2026 season.
The Kansas City Chiefs needed to free up vital cap space ahead of the new league year as they come off their first losing season in more than a decade. They will have to make some tough choices on pricey veteran stars as they need to get under cap compliance before the NFL league year starts March 11. They took their first major steps to do that this week after multiple outlets reported that the Chiefs restructured star quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ contract. It is now the fourth straight year that the team has taken steps to save the cap by a restructure of his contract.
The move saves Kansas City $43.56 million in cap space, as they converted $54.45 million of his contract into a signing bonus. It resultantly lowers Mahomes’ cap hit from $78.2 million to $34.65 million. As it’s been a trend for several seasons now, this reworking of his deal was to be expected even if Mahomes hadn’t torn his ACL in Week 13. It’s possible that there was a sort of discount that Mahomes agreed to in light of that, or simply an attempt to try to retain and bring in talent to make a push for another Super Bowl in this window.
Here is the full story from Chiefs Roundtable writer Bob McCullough on the restructure and what moves might be next for the team.
Kansas City was more than $57 million over the cap when this offseason began, making this the first of what will be several necessary moves to get in cap compliance. Currently, they now remain $11.3 million over the cap. There will likely be several cap casualties to follow in the next few weeks. If the Chiefs want to be able to move this offseason, they need cap space to do it – including a potential final return for tight end Travis Kelce in his 14th season.