Patrick Mahomes is proof you can sign for $500 million and remain underpaid

Martin Rogers

FOX Sports Insider

Half a billion bucks … and still underpaid. Not many people get to say that. Patrick Mahomes is one of them.

Half a billion. Five hundred million dollars. Maybe if you repeat it a few times you can wrap your head around it. A lottery windfall, but only if there have been a lot of rollovers.

And not enough, if fair is fair, and if dollars and cents equal value and sense, to give Kansas City’s two-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback an equitable reward in line with what he provides to the Chiefs and matching his status in the sport.

“No matter what he makes over his career, I’m sure one way or another, he’ll be underpaid,” Chiefs owner Clark Hunt told the Kansas City Star last week.

Hunt is right. He is also, as of now, essentially the only person able to do something about it. From the sound of it, he’s either ready to do so, or least accepting of the fact that a pay bump will be required.

It isn’t quite accurate to say the quarterback pay scale in the National Football League is out of all control, but it is absolutely, categorically, undeniably on fire, surging forwards way beyond the pace of inflation and convention and outstripping any attempt at future-proofing.

Mahomes has been future-bitten. The rapid escalation in QB pay has turned him from a trailblazing ceiling-buster in early July of 2020 into a guy locked into a deal — until the Chiefs do him a solid to keep him happy — that will now remunerate him at a level way below an accurate representation of his ability.

When Mahomes signed his contract, it was for a whopping number, but remained team-friendly. He got the headline figure of $503 million but it was really a 10-year extension worth $450 million, and an overall 12-year commitment at $477 million, with another chunk available as unspecified incentives.

Given that it broke Russell Wilson’s then-record of $35 million per year, it was a step into a level of numerical heft that was unheard of. It hasn’t taken long for it to become clear the Chiefs got an absolute bargain.

Admitting you were wrong is a worthy trait, and my goodness, this columnist was very wrong a little less than three years ago, just after Mahomes signed his new arrangement. While QB salaries always tend to bounce off the one most recently completed, it seemed Mahomes was so far ahead of the pack quality-wise that agents would have difficulty attaining a similar level for their players.

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“Yes, every elite QB is now going to be targeting an annual pay scale that starts above $40 million per year,” I wrote. “But, with a couple of notable exceptions, they may have a tough time getting it.”

Needless to say, they haven’t had a tough time.

Dak Prescott got $40 million, and then everyone, it seemed, began backing up the truck. Kyler Murray and Deshaun Watson both got $46 million annually to top Mahomes’ year-by-year mark, with Watson’s fully guaranteed.

Aaron Rodgers reached the $50 million threshold first, and Jalen Hurts and Lamar Jackson have now surged past it. Joe Burrow and Justin Herbert are about to secure their great-grandchildren’s futures and there’s some backfilling going on, with Daniel Jones $40 million salary with the New York Giants proof that Mahomes’ money is now not far above middle-of-the-road status.

By the time we see NFL regular-season action commence in September, his $45 million annual value will most likely be the ninth-highest in the league. And that ground-breaking monster of a contract? It has nine years left to run.

Before long, you’d figure, the Chiefs will be moved to rectify the situation. General manager Brett Veach has alluded to the possibility, but only in loose terms. To be clear, the Chiefs don’t have to do anything, and if they really wanted to, they could enforce the contract all the way to its final day, sometime in the next decade.

But they’re grateful in Kansas City, happy with how Mahomes has represented the franchise and delighted beyond belief at the two world championships he has delivered. Even more than that, by operating as the most dynamic, nothing-is-impossible QB in the game, he has made K.C. one of the modern centers of the football universe.

One of the greatest advantages in modern football is having an elite QB at a less than elite price. However, one of the others is to have a QB who wins, and plays in a system that other outstanding players would love to be a part of. That’s another major component of what he offers.

This is a tale that will play out over time. Given the way Mahomes does things and his relationship with the Chiefs, the most probable outcome is that it is taken care of quietly, and the first we all know about it is when it is already sealed.

Barring some unexpected turn of events, the QB pay rate will keep on climbing. Eventually, Mahomes will get his raise. How much? Think absurd numbers. $60 million, $65 million, maybe more.

It will make him once again, for a while, the highest paid QB in the league. And yet still, if he keeps performing at a Super Bowl level, probably underpaid.

Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider newsletter. Follow him on Twitter @MRogersFOX and subscribe to the daily newsletter.