Patrick Mahomes Talks About Chiefs Contract and Legacy Goals
The NFL is in a fantastic spot in regards to having an embarrassment of high-level riches at the quarterback position. Particularly with players under the age of 30, the league boasts talents such as Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert, Jalen Hurts and others to serve as faces of the league. Mahomes leads the pack as the consensus best quarterback in football, although his contract doesn't necessarily align with that.
Sure, Mahomes is currently in the early stages of a hefty 10-year extension that came with a sticker price of $450 million. His cap hits over the next several years are nothing to scoff at, especially when looking down the road to a 2027 spike that is currently slated to see him reach just above the $62M mark. He's making a great deal of money as things stand, and the chances are that he'll only continue to see raises as his career unfolds.
With that said, Mahomes's $45M average annual value (AAV) on his deal ranks seventh in the league. That's behind Herbert, Lamar Jackson, Hurts, Russell Wilson, Kyler Murray and Deshaun Watson. It's just above Allen's $43M figure. Once Burrow inevitably gets paid by the Cincinnati Bengals, Mahomes will drop to eighth on the list. Many have speculated that a restructure of sorts could be in the cards for Mahomes very soon, but he's been on the record this offseason about worrying "about legacy and winning rings more than money at this moment."
In a recent article from Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated, the 27-year-old superstar doubled down on his stance and compared his mindset to that of perhaps the greatest quarterback to ever play, Tom Brady:
“I’ve looked at Tom’s model and how he did it,” Mahomes says. “That’s it—you want to make money for yourself and for your family. You want to keep pushing the market forward for other quarterbacks. You don’t want to be someone that they [use against other players]. But at the same time, I want these other guys to get paid. I want Chris Jones to be in training camp. I want Travis Kelce to always be making money. I want everybody on the team here.
“I have a great offensive line. It’s everything around me. It’s all about having open conversation with [GM] Brett Veach, Coach Reid, [owner] Clark Hunt, and just knowing where that happy medium is. That will be out there throughout my entire career. To me, it’s not always about being the highest-paid. It’s about making enough money for me and my family, and keep moving the game forward for everybody.”
That open conversation is something Mahomes brought up earlier this offseason, and it appears to be a driving force behind him being so content with his financial prospects right now. He and the team have a terrific working relationship and if the time for a restructure comes, both sides stand a great chance of working something out. At this moment, however, Mahomes is doing what he can to follow Brady's model and give the franchise some extra funding to keep an elite-level team around him.
Why does Mahomes want such a great supporting cast? Legacy. He's aware that winning championships is what quarterbacks are judged by, and it's every team's ultimate goal at the beginning of each season to go out and hoist the Lombardi Trophy. Brady did it a whopping seven times and while Mahomes doesn't have even close to that many, his two rings are the most of any active NFL field general. With his below-market-value contract being everyone else's talking point, Mahomes made it clear to Breer that he wants his focus to be on winning as much as possible:
“Obviously, as a competitor, you want to win as many championships as possible,” he says. “Tom has the ultimate goal, at seven. It’s hard to see seven. You know how hard it is to win championships in this league. But I’ve always said what motivates me is not having regrets. I truly mean that. I know how blessed I am to be on this team with Travis Kelce and with all these receivers and Coach Reid calling plays and all these great coaches.
“I don’t want to look back at the end of my career and say I didn’t give everything I had. I think if I give everything I have, obviously I want to win as many rings as I can, but when I leave my career, if I say I gave everything I had, it won’t matter how many rings. I’ll know that I’d have done everything I could on the football field.”
