NFL
Winning the Super Bowl more important than contracts, says Chiefs’ star Patrick Mahomes
Quarterbacks Jordan Love and Tua Tagovailoa recently signed multimillion-dollar contracts in the NFL but the big prize, as always, is winning a ring.
Patrick Mahomes has remained one of the top quarterbacks in the world in recent years after leading the Kansas City Chiefs to three Super Bowls. His stats speak for themselves - last season he threw for 4,183 yards and scored 27 touchdowns.
Despite being one of the biggest names in NFL today, Mahomes remains far from the top of the highest-paid quarterbacks in the league. In 2020, he signed a 10-year contract extension for $450 million and believe it or not, some of the new contracts have been recently signed exceed it by much more.
But as the player himself admitted, there are more important things to focus on. He told told USA Today Sports: “I know every time a contract comes up, everybody looks at my APY and everything like that. I’m doing pretty well myself. For me, it’s just about going out there trying to win football games, trying to make money for my family at the end of the day. I feel like I’m doing a great job of that.”
“I think we do a great job of managing my money, so we can pay myself a lot of money and keep a good team around me. I know we’ve restructured it a couple of times and got the cash flow up in certain spots and certain years. It’s about having a good dialogue, good communication with the front office, with ownership. We’ve done that here. And as we’ve been able to allow me to be a highly paid guy while at the same time build a great team around me”.
Breaking down his earnings, Mahomes has an average annual salary of $45 million and is the 11th highest-paid quarterback, according to Over The Cap. Last month, Trevor Lawrence signed a five-year contract extension with the Jacksonville Jaguars worth $275 million with $142 million guaranteed, and Jordan Love agreed a four-year contract worth $220 million with the Green Bay Packers, including a $75 million signing bonus.
And most recently, Tua Tagovailoa of the Miami Dolphins joined on a deal worth a whopping $53.1 million per season.
Mahomes is philosophical about, saying, “I’m happy to see guys going out and getting as much money as possible. That’s awesome for the sport. But here we have a great communication system where I feel like we’ve done the best with what we can do”.