Patrick Mahomes is widely considered the best quarterback in the league at this point after leading the Kansas City Chiefs to their second Super Bowl title in four years, but he is the fourth-highest paid player at his position for 2023 based on total cash.
And he's fine with that.
"I've looked at Tom's model and how he did it," Mahomes told Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated in reference to Tom Brady.
"That's it—you want to make money for yourself and for your family. You want to keep pushing the market forward for other quarterbacks. You don't want to be someone that they [use against other players]. But at the same time, I want these other guys to get paid. I want Chris Jones to be in training camp. I want Travis Kelce to always be making money. I want everybody on the team here."
Brady is a seven-time Super Bowl champion and the greatest quarterback in NFL history, but he was rarely paid like it in comparison to his peers.
In fact, Brett Knight of Forbes noted the 2022 season was the only time in the legend's career that he topped the publication's highest-paid NFL players list since it started publishing it in 2010 in large part because he gave "the New England Patriots discounts on his contracts for much of his career."
Even that 2022 ranking was because of the approximately $45 million he made off the field through endorsements and other endeavors. He was tied for eighth on the list of highest-paid quarterbacks in terms of total cash from football at $30 million.
Now that Brady is retired, Mahomes has taken over as the face of the league and is looking to find a balance between being paid what he is worth and making sure he doesn't take up too much of the Chiefs' salary cap so they can continue to bolster his legacy by competing for championships.
It's not as if he is hurting for cash since he signed a 10-year, $450 million extension in 2020, but the deal will appear more team-friendly as other quarterbacks who are less talented than he is continue to sign new contracts.
Mahomes specifically mentioned Jones, who is entering the final season of his contract and holding out from training camp.
Garrett Podell of CBS Sports noted Jones trails eight other defensive tackles in average annual salary.
"With five of those being signed over the course of the 2023 offseason, the market value for the defensive tackle position has clearly shifted in the upward direction," Podell wrote, underscoring why Jones, who is the anchor of Kansas City's defense and coming off his fourth consecutive Pro Bowl season that saw him tally 15.5 sacks, wants a new deal.
Mahomes clearly wants that deal to happen as well and is happy to make less money than other signal-callers around the league to help facilitate it.
