Mahomes’ deal shows 49ers gave Garoppolo right terms
The Kansas City Chiefs waited decades for a quarterback like Patrick Mahomes.
So it only made sense for the team to lock him up for 10 years.
Mahomes and the
Chiefs agreed to a decadelong contract Monday worth a whopping, hard-to-believebut-all-too-real $503 million, according to NFL Network, with $477 million in something they called “guarantee mechanisms.” If all of those guarantees are paid, it will be the largest contract ever for a player in a North American team sport.
And given the way Mahomes’ first two years as an NFL starter have gone, it’s impossible to argue that the Chiefs have done wrong with this massive contract.
Every NFL team needs a quality quarterback to win, and the best quarterback a team can have is one like Mahomes: young, obscenely talented, wildly prolific, and above all else, a winner.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again here: Mahomes is Steph Curry. He’s a revolution. He’s the franchise. Yes, there are risks for the Chiefs in signing a player to a 10-year contract, even in the NFL, but when you have a once-in-ageneration player like Mahomes, you pay him whatever he wants and you see how far he can take you.
The 49ers do not have a quarterback like Mahomes at the helm — we saw that in the Super Bowl. But the Mahomes mega-deal highlighted how well San Francisco did when they signed Jimmy Garoppolo to his five-year, $137.5 million deal in early 2018.
Because if you don’t have a player like Mahomes (or a player you can delude yourself into thinking is in his same class), the best thing to have is
a quarterback who wins games playing on a contract that provides both security and flexibility to the team that employs him.
When Garoppolo signed with the Niners, he had started only five games for them. The contract — at the time the largest in NFL history — was a risk for the Niners. But a little more than two years later, the deal looks like an absolute bargain.
Just a quick reminder: Garoppolo, even with his well-established flaws, has a 21-6 record at the helm of the 49ers offense and led his team to a showdown with Mahomes’ Chiefs in last year’s Super Bowl. He’s pretty good. And a little more than two years after signing a record
deal, he isn’t even one of the 10 highest-paid quarterbacks in the NFL.
But while the value of Garoppolo’s deal is strong for San Francisco, the flexibility his deal provides is even better for the team.
The Niners have the ability to release Garoppolo in the coming years with little to no friction should his performances dip or if the team decides they’re better off going in another direction ($2.8 million dead-cap hit in 2021, $1.4 million hit in 2022). Perhaps head coach Kyle Shanahan feels the next Mahomes is available in next year’s draft, or maybe the Niners — who considered signing Tom Brady this past offseason — decide a more veteran quarterback is a better play for them long term.
And it should be noted that the Niners could have extended Garoppolo this offseason — it would have
made it easier to sign tight end George Kittle to a contract extension, or perhaps even kept DeForest Buckner in Santa Clara. To my knowledge, the Niners did not present such an offer to Garoppolo.
Now, the Chiefs’ recordsetting contract more than re-set the quarterback market — it broke it down and built a new one. That could benefit Garoppolo should he get another deal from San Francisco.
But I imagine the Niners will try to ride out this deal for as long as they can.
Because while I don’t think Garoppolo is going anywhere anytime soon — I’m not sure the Niners can do better than him — in a salary-capped NFL where there’s seemingly never enough money to pay all your good players, it’s never a good idea to be fully beholden to someone.
Unless, of course, that someone is Mahomes.