Latest NFL salary cap news officially puts Chiefs' top 2025 pending free agent back into play for a return to Kansas City

What does this all mean for the Chiefs' offseason plans and retaining pending free agents? It's good news for their chances of retaining their top pending free agent. . . 

2025 salary cap number means a Trey Smith extension is officially in play for the Chiefs

The fact that the Chiefs will have $7M in cap space without doing any simple restructures, extensions, or contract finagling puts the team in a much better situation to offer Trey Smith a deal that's competitive with what he'd be able to find as no worse than a top-3 free agent on the open market in March. 

Our projections for a salary cap of $277.5M saw Smith earning a five-year deal worth $97.125M. The $279.2 salary cap would bring those projections to an APY of $19.6M and a total value of $98M. Between Smith, Joe Thuney, Creed Humphrey, and Jawaan Taylor, the Chiefs would have given over $330M in total contract value to their offensive line since 2021. 

Veach has clarified that he wants to invest in the offensive and defensive lines this offseason, as he does every year. Building through the trenches is a priority for this team. Retaining top talent on the offensive line is undoubtedly a good place to start, but other O-line items, such as finding a starter at left tackle, are also high on the agenda. What you don't want to do is prevent yourself from being competitive in the free agent market as a team with a lot of underlying needs for 2025 and beyond.