Trey Smith’s deal could hurt Chiefs’ future flexibility. Why it’s still worth it

By signing guard Trey Smith to a four-year, $94 million contract extension, the Chiefs on Tuesday made him whole — as the highest-paid guard in NFL history — and took a crucial step toward keeping Patrick Mahomes whole.

It’s a hefty price with some risk and complicated implications, but most of all it fulfills the abiding prime directive:

Promoting the general welfare of Mahomes, from his health to his very capacity to perform to the running game around him, is paramount for this abundant generation of Chiefs football.

That’s a point general manager Brett Veach reiterated for the umpteenth time after selecting Ohio State’s Josh Simmons 32nd pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.

“When Pat Mahomes is your quarterback, you can’t have enough of those guys,” Veach said that night, later elaborating on how vital protecting Mahomes is. “That’s the name of the game. I mean, he’s the best player in the game. And when Pat is upright, we have some talented weapons.”

And when Mahomes is horizontal or fleeing from the whirling turnstile in front of him, you get such fiascoes as their 40-22 loss to the Eagles in Super Bowl LIX and 31-9 clobbering by Tampa Bay in Super Bowl LV.

Those episodes reflected different circumstances in several ways, but the common denominator of porous line play helps illustrate what happens when it all unravels.

Yes, Smith was part of that line against the Eagles, and, no, he didn’t have a great day. Pro Football Focus gave him a just-above average rating of 63.2 overall but a 49.2 in pass blocking as he allowed three pressures, two hurries and the only sack he permitted all season.

But that just illuminates a few other things about this:

Line play is more about the symphony than the solo act. And the chaotic season-long left tackle issues — along with the sheer struggle and frequent penalties at right tackle — finally burst and rippled across the line and through the offense itself.

In hindsight, it’s a wonder the Chiefs were able to alchemize that makeshift line into a third straight Super Bowl berth.

With ample reason beyond that game, though, the Chiefs came to believe that Smith and Creed Humphrey, the NFL’s highest-paid center, are pillars around which the rest of the line should be arranged.

Earlier this week in an ESPN anonymous survey of NFL executives, coaches and scouts, Humphrey was ranked No. 1 and Smith fourth among the league’s interior offensive lineman.

Smith’s stature helps explain why they were willing to trade stalwart Joe Thuney (sixth on that very list but now 32 years old), essentially helping fund this move to seal up a mainstay who is only 26 and presumably entering the prime of his career.

Now, about those risks when it comes to a player who earned this in every way and has been an inspiration as a young man who overcame so much — including blood clots in both lungs, a life-threatening condition if left untreated.

For this deal with $70 million guaranteed to prove ideal for the Chiefs, Smith naturally must continue to perform to the road-grading standards he’s set while staying healthy doing a perilous job.

Moreover, as Exhibit A of the last Super Bowl reminds, the typically dependable and dynamic work of Smith and Humphrey can be compromised if the line around them isn’t properly bolstered.

If that doesn’t happen, in other words, the significance of this signing will be muted.

But the Chiefs have been working on that, too.

Drafting Simmons, who has massive talent and seems well ahead of schedule in his recovery from knee surgery last year, figures to help. Maybe even help a lot sooner at a position that became such an emergency last season that the Chiefs shuffled Thuney from his ideal left guard spot — and in the process were left with less than they’d want in both places.

The Chiefs also addressed it by signing former 49er Jaylon Moore, with whom Simmons is expected to compete for the left tackle job but who also could perhaps be a factor in the right tackle role now held by Jawaan Taylor.

Then there’s left guard, where second-year man Kingsley Suamataia figures to be more in his element than he was as the overmatched left tackle who started the 2024 season. His top competition likely will be Mike Caliendo, who struggled more often than not last season but is seen as a still-developing player by the Chiefs.

Within all that, the Chiefs need to make some serious strides to give the Smith signing more currency.

Speaking of currency … it’s not immediately clear how this may affect their ability to sign stellar cornerback Trent McDuffie to a long-term deal as should be their next order of business.

As a first-team All-Pro in 2023 and second-team All-Pro last season, McDuffie is one of the best in the game and prized by defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo.

The Chiefs have exercised their fifth-year option for him, as well as defensive end George Karlaftis, and no doubt would prefer to have each here for a good long while, if the right terms can be reached.

(In a pre-draft interview, Veach suggested that the Chiefs would begin dialogues with McDuffie and Karlaftis’ camps after they attended to Smith’s deal.)

Trouble is, the Chiefs already are paying top dollar or just below it at numerous positions.

According to Spotrac, Mahomes has the top-valued long-term contract among quarterbacks ($450 million); Travis Kelce’s 2025 cap hit of $19.8 million is the highest among tight ends; defensive lineman Chris Jones has the most prolific overall contract value among defensive tackles ($158.75 million); Humphrey has the most lucrative extended contract among centers ($72 million); and Harrison Butker has the best ongoing contract among kickers ($25.6 million).

And now Smith is atop the pay scale for his position — to say nothing of Nick Bolton’s $15 million for this season (third in the NFL among inside linebackers) and Taylor’s $20 million (third among right tackles).

With Kelce in the last year of his current contract and seemingly likely to retire, and the Chiefs figuring not to bring back Taylor after this season, their calculus should have more flexibility next year.

Add it all up for now, though, and no wonder Veach said this just before the Super Bowl as he considered all the players the Chiefs already had made the highest-paid at their positions.

It’s going to come to a point, he said, “where it’s just impossible.”

A moment later, he smiled and called it a good problem to have — one that about any other team would like to be dealing with.

Meanwhile, they made the increasingly impossible happen again — with a little help from the NFL salary cap rising this year to $279.2 million — even as you can’t help but think paydays like this are unsustainable.

Then again, almost everything about the Chiefs these last seven years since Mahomes became QB1 has seemed unsustainable.

Yet somehow here they are, seeking to play in their eighth straight AFC Championship Game and sixth Super Bowl in this astonishing span — for a franchise that went 50 years between appearances.

Part of that has been the front office having an uncanny feel for replenishing the team year-in and year-out, a willingness to make bold decisions — from signings like this to trading Tyreek Hill — and a certain mastery of the mystery of harnessing contracts to somehow straddle both the present and future.

So there’s no guarantee this will play out as the Chiefs and fans hope — with revitalized line play that in turn can help catalyze an offense that finished 15th in points scored in each of the last two seasons.

Or no immediate way to know how it will impact signing McDuffie long-term.

But the Chiefs still achieved what they needed to do most — make everything else possible by resetting the line around an interior it couldn’t otherwise take for granted.

Vahe Gregorian

The Kansas City Star

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Vahe Gregorian has been a sports columnist for The Kansas City Star since 2013 after 25 years at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He has covered a wide spectrum of sports, including 10 Olympics. Vahe was an English major at the University of Pennsylvania and earned his master’s degree at Mizzou.