Amateur Salary Cap Gurus
 

How do you structure a deal for Mahomes that adequately compensates him as the best QB in the league under the age of 30 in terms of being a 'fair' market deal but does not totally hinder making key signings and extensions of the rest of the roster?

Be creative.

Give him more guaranteed money with a little lower annual value.

Give him a flat percentage of the salary cap. The salary cap, historically, has always gone up so he gets continual raises. By tying his compensation to a set percentage of the salary cap, you know how much money you have left over to fill out a supporting cast.

Well we have 23M carryover this year plus 20M more if we cut Sammy, Cam, and Damien Wilson.

Next year we get 8M more relief from Berry's deal. Cap liabilities go way down in 2021 and Ward is the only guy we might have to pay to keep. He's a RFA I believe.

So you give Mahomes a 10-12 year deal with a big bonus and take the cap hit for the next 5 years while we still have most of our core players locked up. Then he gets fairly cheap about the time we need to start paying Hill, Kelce, Hardman, Clark, Matthieu again - and bringing in other core players.

Unfortunately that probably means letting Jones go for draft picks.

It could all come down to whether or not we win in 2 weeks. If we win the SB, they may feel more comfortable taking the longer-term winning approach vs. win now.

Mahomes will want a 5 year one at most to be able to get back to the negotiating table.

Just do what you have to do. Deal with it later.