Hours after the 49ers and tight end George Kittle agreed to a record-breaking extension, the Chiefs agreed to a new deal with their own stud TE, Travis Kelce. It’s a four-year, $57.25MM deal with $28MM guaranteed, according to Adam Schefter of ESPN.com (via Twitter). On Friday morning, the Chiefs officially announced Kelce’s new contract.
Kelce was already under club control through 2021, and the extension will be added onto that pact, keeping the five-time Pro Bowler with Kansas City through 2025, his age-36 season. He will not take home any new money this year, as Albert Breer of SI.com tweets, but he will be due a sizable guaranteed roster bonus early next year. The Chiefs, of course, authorized a historic ten-year contract for QB Patrick Mahomes just last month, so the league’s premier QB-TE combo will have a chance to bring home several more Lombardi Trophies before their time together is up.
Selected by the Chiefs in the third round of the 2013 draft, Kelce began to make his mark in his sophomore campaign, recording 67 catches for 862 yards and five scores. He followed that up with a similarly productive 2015 season, which culminated in his first Pro Bowl appearance. KC rewarded him with a five-year, $46MM extension that today’s deal builds on, and that’s when Kelce really took off.
He has recorded four consecutive seasons with over 1,000 receiving yards, the first tight end to ever accomplish that feat, and he has earned two First Team All-Pro nods during that time. He and Mahomes have been nothing short of dominant, and with Kelce creating mismatches down the seams and over the middle, speed merchants like wide receiver Tyreek Hill have had even more room to run.
Though the Chiefs suffered a difficult loss in the AFC Championship Game following the 2018 season, they won it all last year, with Kelce catching 19 balls for 207 yards and four TDs in the team’s three-game postseason jaunt through the Super Bowl. If they go back-to-back in 2020, as many are predicting, Kelce will be a big reason why.
The Cincinnati product did not quite match Kittle’s $15MM AAV, but he is also four years older than Kittle, is not called upon to block as much, and has already earned a boatload of money in his playing career. At this point, he is just trying to add more to his Hall of Fame resume, and he is in a great spot to do just that.
Ian Rapoport of NFL.com first reported that Kelce and the Chiefs were on the verge of a long-term accord (Twitter link).
No doubt this will also cripple their franchise. By the time they lock up Travis and you add the Patrick Mahomes deal that wall odds are take up at least half of their salary cap for the season for the next five years
14 million isn’t a crippling amount of money for your best receiver. The cap is almost 200 million, this contract will not be the cause of any financial limitations. You can add literally any player’s salary to mahomes and say it takes up most of the cap
The cap is going down next year.
More significantly than people realize too…..
They already set the floor at 175 million. If the NFL gets fans in the stands, the cap can only get higher.
CA, NY, NV, PHil., Arizona Already said No fans in 2020. That’s just to start
Even if the cap goes down, $14 million/year for your best receiver is not crippling. How about the $40 million the chiefs have tied up in two DL? How about ty hill’s 18/yr? If you want to talk about the chiefs poor allocation of funds, it shouldn’t start with kelce
You talk about the ones that happened after everyone knew the cap would end up dropping next season. Any contract given out before the pandemic hit is moot because you were planning on the cap to rise like normal. So, yes, you can complain about Kelce’s contract, Mahomes, and Jones. They’re going to have to trade one of their larger contract players (obviously not either of those 3) and it won’t be as easy as it was for them to trade Ford because most teams will be in a cap crunch next off-season as well.
im waiting for “by the time Kelce’s deal is up he’ll be underpaid compared to his position,” which is the same argument that was made about Mahomes and doesnt account for the fact that right now, while the window is open, they arent bargains.
Who’s the better Kansas City tight end: Kelce or Gonzalez? While Kelce has better frontline statistics, Gonzalez’s longevity and blocking can’t be counted out
Wow, I’m seriously confused about what KC is doing, handing out bonuses for winning a SB?
That team is wrecked in only a year or two with these contracts.
In Veach we trust. This will work out!
When you add Travis‘s contract with Mahomes as well as Chris Jones and their left tackle which they will have to re-up that will be half of their salary cap then in about a year or so they will have to give a new contract to hill The only way this team will be able to compete three or four years from now is by hitting a homerun on every draft
While I agree with parts of your post, Eric Fisher is definitely replaceable. If he is re-signed, it won’t be for a lucrative deal
It’s an extension it doesn’t effect the cap for two years and he is a 11.2 cap hit this year. So it’s only a slight increase and that will be in three years when the cap probably will be bigger.
How will they have cap space in the future?!?