How Brock Purdy’s Contract Affects Patrick Mahomes, Chiefs

Patrick Mahomes has a new haircut and, thanks to the quarterback he beat in Super Bowl LVIII, a new position on the NFL’s list of highest-paid players: Tied for 14th.

Brock Purdy, who agreed to terms on a five-year, $265 million contract extension this past weekend, became the latest player to pass Mahomes on that list. Purdy’s average annual value ($53 million) is now tied for seventh in the league with Detroit’s Jared Goff. According to Over the Cap, Purdy follows Dak Prescott ($60 million), Jordan Love, Trevor Lawrence, Joe Burrow, and Josh Allen (all $55 million), and Tua Tagovailoa ($53.1 million).

Insider James Palmer explained Monday that Purdy’s new deal has guarantees into the third year of the contract and a no-trade clause, both rarities. But Palmer also said that while 13 players now sit ahead of Mahomes, the 10-year, $450 million contract he signed in July 2020 is arguably the NFL’s most creative – a product of the excellent relationship he shares with the Chiefs.

“That relationship is unique in the NFL, and the length of the contract and the relationship that they have with Mahomes, they consistently ask him if he's happy with where he stands,” Palmer shared on Monday’s edition of the Heed the Call podcast. “The flexibility they have in the deal, it'll change again, and it'll constantly change, and their malleability within that contract lets them do a lot of interesting things. Right now, it's 14th. I don't think that stays very long.”

It changes regularly. Early in the 2023 season, according to Over the Cap, he signed a revised deal to shift cash forward from later years, increasing his AAV to approximately $48.3 million each season from 2023-26. And along with a few other strokes from the pen of Kansas City’s contract negotiator, Chris Shea, Mahomes has consistently agreed to free up cap space to allow the Chiefs to add talent.

Two years ago this month, Chiefs CEO Clark Hunt acknowledged that Mahomes will never be paid his true value to the franchise.

“Well, I don't know that there's really a way to quantify it financially, and no matter what he makes over his career, I'm sure one way or another, he'll be underpaid," Hunt said in May 2023. “The great thing about Patrick is, when we did that deal, he recognized that he wanted to give the club the flexibility to build the team around him. And that contract was structured in that way.”

Interestingly, Purdy’s new deal has a connection to the Chiefs. Kansas City was the last team to ink a quarterback drafted in the seventh round to a contract that lucrative. It was Matt Cassel, who signed a six-year, $63 million deal with the Chiefs in 2009 after leading the Patriots to an 11-5 record the year before in relief of an injured Tom Brady.

San Francisco is hoping Purdy doesn’t follow a similar path. Cassel signed that extension five months after he and Mike Vrabel arrived in Kansas City in a February trade. But hampered by his knee injury, Cassel finished 4-11 in his first Chiefs season.

While he rebounded to go 10-5 and guide the Chiefs to the postseason in 2010, a hand injury ended his 2011 campaign with a 4-5 record. And in 2012, the year before Andy Reid arrived, Cassel finished 1-7 and lost his job to Brady Quinn. Kansas City released him the following March.

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