Two days ago, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes agreed to a new, restructured contract that gave him a significant raise for the short- and medium-term future while not requiring a completely new extension. It was noted that, while the overall value of his ten-year, $450MM contract didn’t change thus ensuring that his average annual salary didn’t change, Mahomes new deal set him up to potentially make $210.6MM over the next four years, the highest amount for that period of time in NFL history. It also sets him up to receive $56.8MM in cash for the 2023 NFL season, second only to Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, according to Spotrac.

This restructure was a nice reward for Mahomes, who, since receiving the original contract as a reward for winning the franchise’s first Super Bowl since the moon landing, has taken the team to two more Super Bowls, winning one of them, and has won a second league MVP award. But the new deal also serves a more magnanimous purpose.

“You’ve got to keep the bar going; you got to keep it moving,” Mahomes told Adam Teicher of ESPN. “I don’t want people to be negotiated against me, and so that’s the reason that you do something like I did…just trying to keep the market moving in the right direction…so not only me but other quarterbacks in other positions can get paid the money they deserve.”

That’s right. As odd as it may sound, Mahomes took a raise for the other quarterbacks in the league. He soundly reasoned that, as long as he continues to be one of the paradigms of the football world, anytime a young quarterback is up for a new contract, their accomplishments will be held in comparison to his.

The biggest downside of Mahomes’ incredibly long extension is that we have seen quarterback contracts more than double in value over the last ten years. Who’s to say how much they will continue to grow over the next ten? Perhaps, exponentially! If every young QB is being compared to Mahomes and their stats and accomplishments pale in comparison, they’ll constantly be dragged down to the level of his contract, fighting the natural inflation of player values.

Instead, Mahomes agreed to devise a way to raise the bar within the bounds of his current deal. As Jackson, Josh Allen, Deshaun Watson, Kyler Murray, Russell Wilson, Daniel Jones, Jalen Hurts, Justin Herbert, and Joe Burrow all have signed four- to six-year deals over the past couple of years, Mahomes decided to set a new precedent for deals ranging that amount of time. Mahomes has seen the value of the quarterback position continue to rise. As the reigning MVP and Super Bowl MVP, Mahomes took it upon himself to set a new bar that will continue to rise as quarterbacks earn new deals.

While Mahomes wanted to take care of himself and his fellow quarterbacks, he also didn’t want to hamper his team’s ability to win by bogarting all of Kansas City’s cap space. He wanted to make sure that general manager Brett Veach would still be able to surround him with the talent necessary for winning a third Super Bowl.

“You have to watch and see what’s going on around the league and find that right spot,” Mahomes said, “and I thought we found a good one in this negotiation…(in) that we will be able to still keep cap space for other guys to get signed.”

So, yes, Mahomes’ new contract makes him the highest-paid player in NFL history over the next four years, a just reward for his recent accolades, but it also raises the bar for what quarterbacks will be able to make in the future while preserving enough cap space to sign a talented crew around him. Who knew that becoming one of the richest players in NFL history could have such a selfless impact?

The Jalen Hurts, Lamar Jackson, Justin Herbert and Joe Burrow deals led to the Chiefs rearranging some of Patrick Mahomes‘ money. It marks an update for the two-time MVP, and the figures from the landmark adjustment are coming out.

While billed as a $200MM-plus guarantee bump, the through-2026 reworking does not hold that much in full guarantees. Mahomes will indeed see $208.1MM in total guarantees, which cover injuries, but SI.com’s Albert Breer notes the full guarantee number checks in at $133.7MM. The latter amount runs through 2025. No new years are included in the deal, which still runs through 2031. Mahomes remains the only NFLer signed into the 2030s.

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The full guarantee number comes in south of Jackson’s deal ($135MM) but is in line with Herbert’s ($133.7MM), with the Chargers QB’s extension likely being a checkpoint in the Chiefs’ process. Deshaun Watson‘s full guarantee ($230MM) still laps the field, with Burrow’s $146.5MM number in second. But Mahomes has already played three seasons on the historic 10-year, $450MM extension he signed in July 2020. As QBs continue to pass Mahomes to make his AAV almost look like a second-tier number, the Kansas City superstar’s camp contacted the Chiefs about an update.

Mahomes’ agent contacted the Chiefs two days before Super Bowl LVII to inquire about a contract adjustment, Breer adds. The Chiefs tabled that discussion, with GM Brett Veach indicating this offseason the team would reassess the outlier extension after the Hurts-Jackson-Herbert-Burrow contingent’s deals were finalized. Not long after Burrow inked his record-setting five-year, $275MM deal, the Chiefs moved forward with their Mahomes update.

Overall, Mahomes will make $43.3MM more through 2026 than he was originally scheduled to earn in that span, Breer adds. As OverTheCap’s Jason Fitzgerald writes, the Chiefs moved money from Mahomes’ backloaded accord to make this happen. Mahomes also picked up a $20.6MM signing bonus, which Breer confirms will be paid now and in 2024. The seventh-year quarterback will receive $56.85MM in 2023, per Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio.

The cap numbers from this rare agreement have not emerged yet, but ESPN.com’s Field Yates notes the transaction actually saves the Chiefs 2023 money. The defending champions created $2.5MM in cap space by making this move. The Chiefs came into the week with just more than $5MM in cap room. Mahomes also agreed to push back roster bonus dates to May during this through-2026 agreement, Breer adds, allowing for Chiefs flexibility during free agency. These bonuses, as part of a rolling guarantee structure that locked in the 28-year-old QB’s salaries a year out, were previously due on the third day of each league year.

None of the QBs to ink extensions since Mahomes’ came out have followed the future Hall of Famer’s blueprint. Burrow, Herbert, Jackson and Hurts each signed five-year deals, though Jackson’s is a true five-year pact due to the Ravens having franchise-tagged him. Hurts is signed for six years, while Burrow and Herbert are attached to their respective teams for seven due to the Bengals and Chargers signing their franchise QBs with two years remaining on their rookie contracts. This group will have more bites at the apple, but as Monday’s Mahomes move shows, the Chiefs are willing to accommodate their cornerstone player despite having him locked down for nine more seasons. It took a unique reworking to do so, however.

This agreement makes 2027 a natural next phase for negotiations. The QB market, which did not have a $30MM-per-year player until 2018, has climbed by $10MM in average salary since Mahomes raised the bar three summers ago. More QB extensions will move the salary ceiling well past $60MM by the time Mahomes and the Chiefs huddle up again. Mahomes will be set for his age-32 season in 2027.

Patrick Mahomes‘ contract has come up a few times this year, and once Joe Burrow and Justin Herbert are extended, the issue figures to be a regular talking point. The most accomplished of the league’s current wave of 20-something quarterbacks has been passed over several times now, with no QB yet to follow Mahomes’ 10-year extension blueprint.

That 10-year, $450MM deal drew scrutiny in the moment, tying the game’s biggest star to a team for 12 seasons. Nine remain on the Chiefs quarterback’s contract. A rumor earlier this offseason pointed to the Chiefs restoring Mahomes as the game’s highest-paid player by Week 1. With Mahomes signed through 2031, the mechanisms of Kansas City doing so would be unusual. But the two-time MVP is not making an aggressive push for a new deal — at least not publicly.

“I’ve always said I worry about legacy and winning rings more than making money at this moment,” Mahomes said, via ESPN’s Adam Teicher. “We see what’s going on around the league, but at the same time, I’ll never do anything that’s going to hurt us from keeping the great players around me. So it’s kind of teetering around that line.”

Whereas Rob Gronkowski‘s lengthy Patriots extension once gridlocked the tight end market for a stretch in the 2010s, Mahomes’ pact did not serve as a roadblock for other extension-seeking QBs. Aaron Rodgers, Deshaun Watson, Kyler Murray, Russell Wilson, Jalen Hurts and Lamar Jackson have all passed Mahomes’ $45MM AAV number within three years. Teams have successfully made Watson’s fully guaranteed Browns deal an outlier, but Hurts and Jackson just signed for north of $50MM apiece on five-year re-ups. Questions about each dual-threat QB’s prime duration aside, both Jackson and Hurts may well be in position to cash in again later in the 2020s. Mahomes’ lengthy deal would, in a vacuum, not force the Chiefs’ hand.

Then again, GM Brett Veach said earlier this offseason the team would reexamine Mahomes’ contract once Burrow and Herbert signed. Seeing as not to enter a dispute with the biggest star in franchise history, the Chiefs would seem unlikely to refuse a renegotiation.

“You just want to do whatever to not hurt other quarterbacks [financially],” Mahomes said. “Whenever their contracts come up, you want to keep the bar pushing [higher]. It’s not about being the highest-paid guy; it’s not about making a ton of money. I’ve made enough money where I’ll be set for the rest of my life. But at the same time, you got to find that line where you’re making a good amount of money but you’re still keeping a lot of great players around you so you can win these Super Bowls and you’re able to compete in these games.”

When Mahomes signed his extension in July 2020, he passed Wilson’s AAV lead by $10MM and only did so because he signed off on the unusual term length. While the Chiefs included a rolling guarantee structure that locks in money a year out, Mahomes will likely soon see his deal trail the game’s salary leader by more than $10MM. Burrow or Herbert ending up at $55MM per year or beyond that point is not difficult to envision.

But the team-friendly deals Mahomes and Travis Kelce accepted in 2020 allowed the Chiefs to extend Chris Jones. The All-Pro defensive tackle has maintained top form and is now in a contract year again. The Chiefs, who passed on paying Tyreek Hill top-market money and let the Patriots outbid them for JuJu Smith-Schuster, will also have second-round standouts Creed Humphrey and Nick Bolton in contract years in 2024. Cornerback L’Jarius Sneed became extension-eligible in January, though the Chiefs have avoided paying corners for most of the Andy Reid era.

“If you look at the greats in the league, they find that right spot where they’re getting paid a lot of money but at the same time keeping a lot of these great players around,” Mahomes said. “… I understand you look at the team and you’ve got guys like Chris and Sneed and even Travis — all these guys that you need to keep around you to have these great teams. But at the same time, you want to make sure you’re taking care of yourself.”

Not all the QBs around the league have operated this way; Mahomes doing so has certainly aided the Chiefs. With the two-time Super Bowl champion not exactly shutting down the idea of a renegotiated deal, this will be a key NFL storyline as the Bengals and Chargers navigate their respective negotiations.