Chiefs GM Brett Veach provides updates on Patrick Mahomes, Chris Jones ahead of draft
While the Chiefs are laser-focused on the next week’s 2020 NFL Draft, there are two in-house decisions facing general manager Brett Veach in the near future.
And they’re not small ones.
Quarterback Patrick Mahomes remains eligible for a contract extension, while the Chiefs have until July 15 to work out a long-term deal with defensive tackle Chris Jones, to whom the Chiefs recently designated their franchise tag.
Mahomes is entering the final year of his rookie deal, earning a base salary of $825,000 in 2020. Veach left little doubt Thursday about how the Chiefs continue to view their franchise quarterback.
“Pat is a priority and the way we look at it now with all that’s going on, I mean, we’re going to have a lot of time to work with,” Veach said during a Zoom conference call with reporters. “Again, just Pat and his agents, Chris (Cabott) and Leigh Steinberg, they know that Pat is a priority. Pat isn’t going anywhere. He’s going to be here for a long time.”
Mahomes has more than earned the right to a large pay raise since joining the Chiefs as a first-round pick (10th overall) in the 2017 NFL Draft.
Since taking over as the full-time starter in 2018, Mahomes has led the Chiefs to two straight AFC Championship Games and a win in Super Bowl LIV, marking the first championship in in 50 years for the storied franchise.
Mahomes also garnered Super Bowl LIV’s MVP award and the NFL’s MVP award in 2018 and was a first-team All-Pro selection in 2018, among other individual accomplishments. There’s little doubt the Chiefs signal-caller will command a large contract.
Still, the Chiefs have time and a potential tool to utilize, if necessary, in the form of a fifth-year option thanks to Mahomes’ first-round pick status. The league-wide deadline for teams to place players under the fifth-year option is May 30.
Veach wouldn’t commit to saying the Chiefs are planning to use the fifth-year option on Mahomes, but the door appears open.
“I can never sit here and speak in definitive, so I can’t say that the fifth-year won’t be an option or anything like that,” Veach said. “It would be hard for me to say that we’d have to use that.
“If we feel that it’s a priority when you have a great player, and that great player is a priority, to things get done. It’s just hard to put a timetable on exactly when and how that will all work out. But we know and I’m sure he knows that it will get done and it will be taken care of.”
The Chiefs have been steadfast in their goal of giving Mahomes a giant new contract at some point, and Chiefs chairman and CEO Clark Hunt provided a timeline for that during the week leading to the Super Bowl.
“I’ve said before that I hope Patrick is here for his entire career, and that’s going to be our goal,” Hunt said in late January. “There will be a right time sometime in the next 12 to 15 months to extend Patrick.”
Of course, getting anything done with either Mahomes or Jones requires a lot of money.
The Chiefs currently sit on $1.6 million in available salary cap space, according to Thursday’s NFLPA Public Salary Cap Report.
The Chiefs entered the league’s new calendar year ranked at or near the bottom of the NFL in terms of available space. But Veach made some creative moves to free up some breathing room, including converting a portion of defensive end Frank Clark’s 2020 base salary to a signing bonus and restructuring wide receiver Sammy Watkins’ deal.
Moves like that make Veach confident the team has the flexibility to find money and use it as necessary.
“The cap is flexible and what we’re able to do is flexible,” Veach said. “There’s an array of moving parts that we feel confident in, so as far as doing some business from here to the season or signing our draft picks, we have a plan that we’ve been working off all along and we feel confident in that.”
The Chiefs also have time on their side regarding Jones. And the lines of communication have remained open ahead of a mid-July deadline. The Chiefs this offseason designated Jones as a non-exclusive franchise tagged player, which carries a $16.1 price tag.
Veach said there have been “a lot of discussions” with Jones and his agents, Michael and Jason Katz. Those negotiations are expected to continue leading into the deadline, with a patient aim of keeping Jones in a Chiefs uniform.
“We know how talented Chris is and I think the franchise tag speaks for it, and we also have a lot of time,” Veach said. “I mean, I think the deadline to get a deal done is July 15, so there’s a lot of time to continue the dialogue and to work on something with Chris. We certainly are going to work to maintain him not just for next year, but for the future.”
Jones, who made a base salary of $1.9 million in 2019, has developed into one of the NFL’s elite defensive players.
In four seasons since joining the team as a second-round pick in 2016, he has totaled 33 sacks, including a career-high 15.5 sacks in 2018, and earned his first Pro Bowl selection in 2019.
