As expected, the NFL’s quarterback market has been completely reset by Patrick Mahomes. The Kansas City Chiefs inked the quarterback to a 10-year contract Monday, worth $503 million (yeah, not a typo there) that is added on to the final two years of his rookie contract.
49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo already was knocked out of having the league’s highest base salary for 2020 by Dak Prescott’s franchise tag with the Dallas Cowboys, and Jimmy G now has the fourth-largest total contract in the NFL after Mahomes’ record-obliterating contract extension.
Mahomes' new deal sets him up for an average annual salary of $47.7 million, by far the league's highest value. Garoppolo now sits No. 11 overall among NFL QBs, with an AAV of $27.5 million.
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I’m not going to waste your time comparing Garoppolo and Mahomes as quarterbacks, we all know which one is better. But just for fun, here is how they matched up statistically in 2019 (Mahomes missed two regular-season games with injury).
Garoppolo: 69.1 Cmp%, 3,978 yards, 27 TDs, 13 INT, 8.4 Y/A, 5.7 TD%
Mahomes: 65.9 Cmp%, 4,031 yards, 26 TDs, 5 INT, 8.3 Y/A, 5.4 TD%
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San Francisco 49ers
Although the two aren’t in the same stratosphere as quarterbacks, they do lead two of the NFL’s most dominant teams. The 49ers’ punishing defense and buttoned up offense bulldozed teams last season all the way to the Super Bowl, before running into Mahomes and the Chiefs’ battering ram of an offense in Miami Gardens this past February.
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It wouldn’t be at all surprising to see the two teams match up in at least one more Super Bowl down the road, especially with how well the 49ers handled this offseason, reloading through two first-round draft picks and a big-time trade for Trent Williams.
Winning a Super Bowl and a league MVP within your first three seasons as a starting quarterback is incredibly rare, and Mahomes earned every dollar of that contract. But every other quarterback in the league, Garoppolo included, have to be intrigued about how this will impact their future contracts now that Mahomes has secured the half-billion-dollar bag.