Budget is the big word on the mind for a lot of people this year. Between the holidays, grocery prices and inflation, lots of folks are thinking about keeping the books balanced. If you went a little wild on the gifts, you might be looking to pull back in some other areas. 

NFL teams are the same way, with a few rabid spenders looking ahead to next year and bracing for a tightening of the belt. Six teams are projected by Over The Cap to be $25 million or more in the red for 2026 as things stand today, numbers that would make Dave Ramsey glower. 

• Chiefs (-$61.7M)
• Cowboys (-$59.9M)
• Vikings ($51.6M)
• Dolphins ($-29.7M)
• Browns (-$27M)
• Saints (-$26.3M)

If your favorite team is on this list, don’t worry. We’ll be doing a series of articles diving in to dig these squads out of the hole and get them back in the black. Consider this series a preview of what the coming year ahead could look like for these teams, as budget deficits this big usually mean some tough decisions are due. 

First up, the maybe dying dynasty? The Kansas City Chiefs. 

Kansas City Chiefs: -$61,736,110

The Chiefs have had a charmed run. They’ve been in every AFC championship game since QB Patrick Mahomes took over as the starter in 2018, and have been in five Super Bowls with three wins in that span. Last year, they were 11-0 in one-score games, pulling out wins they frankly shouldn’t have. 

This year, they’re not getting away with it. The 2025 Chiefs are better than the 2024 version but remain flawed in big ways and aren’t getting the lucky breaks to compensate. Kansas City is 6-7 and its playoff hopes are on the ropes. In fact, there’s a not-too-far-fetched scenario where they’re eliminated this weekend. Faced with a January at home for the first time since HC Andy Reid’s second season in 2014, along with the biggest cap deficit since GM Brett Veach took over, it feels like major changes are in store for the Chiefs. 

The first order of business will be wiping out the salary cap hole. Odds are the biggest chunk will come from Mahomes’ contract, as he’s currently slated to have a cap hit of $78 million in 2026. A simple restructure would lower that by $44 million and spread things out over the rest of his deal, which still has a staggering six years left on it. The Chiefs adjusted Mahomes’ deal in 2023 to move up some money and give him a raise to put him more in line with a quarterback market that has grown tremendously since he inked a deal worth $45 million a year. It’s possible that could be a consideration once again. 

Once that’s done, the Chiefs can get under the cap with just one more move — releasing RT Jawaan Taylor and shedding his $20 million non-guaranteed 2026 salary. Taylor has been a popular punching bag, especially given his penchant for false start penalties while trying to get a jump on the play. He’s probably been closer to average than bad but the Chiefs should be fine with first-round LT Josh Simmons and 2025 big-ticket free agent signee Jaylon Moore as bookends. 

Those are the two baseline moves to give Kansas City enough money to fill out the roster with minimum-salaried players and sign their draft picks. From there, any more moves the Chiefs make will create budget for them to reinvest into the roster. 

Cuts, Restructures & Pending Free Agents

Taylor isn’t the only potential cap casualty to watch for the Chiefs. Two more possibilities stand out. 

• DE Michael Danna ($9M)
• CB Kristian Fulton ($5M)

Danna starts across from DE George Karlaftis and has been a solid piece of the defensive line rotation for several years now. He’s a great glue guy and solid run defender. Still, he has just one sack so far this season and his career high is just 6.5 back in 2023. Nine million in savings seems like a lot to pass up for a glue guy, and the Chiefs could stand to get more dynamic up front. 

Fulton was one of the Chiefs’ biggest signings this past offseason but has battled injuries and hasn’t been able to get onto the field a whole lot. He’s played in just four games and 27 snaps all season. The Chiefs already guaranteed $5 million of the $10 million he’s owed next year, but if he’s not going to play a much bigger role in 2026, keeping him would just be falling prey to the sunk cost fallacy. 

That gets the Chiefs a little bit of budget to work with, enough to go thrifting and hope to get lucky with some low-priced deals. To make genuine waves, either in free agency or in the trade market, the Chiefs will have to restructure more contracts than just Mahomes’. These are their options:  

• DT Chris Jones ($22.5M)
• G Trey Smith ($12.5M)
• C Creed Humphrey ($8.8M)
• DE George Karlaftis ($8M)
• LB Nick Bolton ($6.9M)

There are a lot of factors that go into whether teams restructure players. A restructure now increases dead money in the future, so teams try to stick to players they are confident will be in the long-term plans. Humphrey and Smith are prime candidates. They’ll each be in their age-27 seasons and have guaranteed salaries in 2026 that Kansas City is on the hook for regardless. As part of the team’s core, they’re the most likely restructure candidates. Karlaftis and Bolton, who just signed new deals last year and will be 25 and 26 respectively, are two more compelling options. 

Jones is a more complicated case. He’s due a massive $35 million in 2026, by far the most of any player not named Mahomes. All of it is guaranteed for what will be his age-32 season. There’s no sense that Kansas City is contemplating moving on from Jones, as while he has just four sacks, he’s also No. 1 among all defensive tackles in pass rush win rate. He’s at the age though where they have to be mindful about his longevity. 

The Chiefs have an out in Jones’ deal after next season where they could cut him if his production falls off and save $18.6 million, leaving $19.5 million in dead money. If Kansas City decides to restructure Jones, that dead cap hit goes up significantly. There are no void years on the deal which might hint at which direction the Chiefs are leaning, but if they change their minds to get really aggressive next offseason, there are a lot of savings they could tap into. 

Without restructuring Jones, the Chiefs should be in the neighborhood of $50 million in cap space next offseason. That’s plenty but it’s also worth noting Kansas City has just 36 players under contract for 2026 at the moment and a long list of pending free agents, including several starters. 

• TE Travis Kelce
• CB Jaylen Watson
• WR Marquise Brown
• LB Leo Chenal
• S Bryan Cook
• RB Isiah Pacheco
• RB Kareem Hunt
• DE Charles Omenihu
• WR JuJu Smith-Schuster

It feels like the odds are good that Kelce will retire but there always remains the chance he tries to go out on more of a positive note. History suggests Watson will get a big deal from another team that the Chiefs will decline to match, instead cycling to the next option in the pipeline of young corners they like to keep stocked. 

Some of these other players could also get stolen away with deals too rich for the Chiefs’ taste. For others, it’s probably time for Kansas City to move on, if for nothing else than to shake up a roster that became stale this year. Either way, that leaves a lot of needs and job vacancies for the Chiefs to sort through. A cursory scan through the roster shows wide receiver, tight end, running back, defensive end, defensive tackle, cornerback and safety all as needs, with arguments to be made for linebacker, guard and even kicker. 

Veach has executed radical overhauls of specific position groups before but this is a challenge unique from anything the Chiefs have faced since the Mahomes era began. How they tackle it will determine whether they can keep up with the Patriots in the marathon race to be the NFL’s greatest dynasty.