The Chiefs elected to franchise tag guard Trey Smith this offseason instead of letting him hit free agency.
Now, Smith and Kansas City are facing a July 15 deadline to strike a long-term deal.
In a recent interview with Up & Adams, Smith was asked what he feels the latest is on the contract front.
“I just leave it to the hands of my agents,” Smith said. “And obviously, the front office staff of the Chiefs are elite. At the end of the day, I let them take care of it. I just have to focus on being the best version of myself, being the best football player, and being prepared for training camp because St. Joe’s is around the corner. That’s going to be — I don’t even want to talk about that right now.”
Smith is currently slated to earn $23.4 million on the franchise tender in 2025.
A sixth-round pick in 2021, Smith has started 67 of 68 possible games in his career, winning Super Bowl LVII and LVIII with the Chiefs. He was a Pro Bowler for the first time in 2024.
Chiefs owner Clark Hunt, who lost a 9-year-old relative in the Texas Hill Country floods, released a statement and announced a donation to flood relief efforts.
FC Dallas, which is owned by Hunt, and Austin FC, Houston Dynamo FC and Major League Soccer are committing $500,000 to recovery efforts.
“Our family is devastated by the tragedy in Central Texas,” Hunt said in a statement. “Our hearts go out to those grieving — in particular, to the parents who lost children, those who lost family members, and the far-too-many who have lost friends, neighbors, and loved ones.
“This has shaken our community to its core. Today, along with our MLS partners, my brother, [Dan], and I are humbled to support those directly assisting the victims of this unimaginable tragedy. In the wake of such sadness, we are awed by the hearts of our fellow Texans, and we are grateful for the true community leaders — in boats, helicopters or trucks filled with food — who are showing up for their neighbors in need.”
Janie Hunt, the great-granddaughter of late American oil baron William Herbert Hunt, the brother of Chiefs founder Lamar Hunt, was one of the campers at Camp Mystic who died. She is one of the 120 confirmed deaths, with at least 170 still missing.
“The FC Dallas family is heartbroken over the disaster in Central Texas,” Dan Hunt said. “We are grieving alongside the families and communities who are living through the unimaginable right now.”
The Cowboys, Texans, Vikings and the NFL Foundation each donated $500,000. The Dallas Mavericks, Houston Rockets and San Antonio Spurs, along with the NBA Players Association, have donated at least $2 million toward recovery efforts.
Major League Baseball’s Texas Rangers and Houston Astros each donated $1 million.
July 15 is an important date on the NFL’s offseason calendar. This year, there’s only one team and one player for whom the date has importance.
Next Tuesday is the deadline for signing any franchise-tagged player to a long-term deal.
For the Chiefs and guard Trey Smith, it means the window closes in six days on turning his one-year, $23.4 million franchise tender into a multi-year contract.
Smith signed the one-year contract in early March, making the payment fully guaranteed. And that makes sense, for two reasons. First, because the franchise tag for offensive linemen doesn’t distinguish between tackle, guard, and center, the tackle market drives the number. For Smith, his $23.4 million instantly makes him the highest-paid guard in the NFL — by $2.9 million.
Second, the franchise tag can be rescinded before its signed. That has happened three times. Twice, Chiefs coach Andy Reid did it. (Both were during his time with the Eagles.)
For the Chiefs and Smith, the challenge becomes turning that large one-year payment into a multi-year deal. The usual approach is to fully guarantee the player the first year and second year (at a 20-percent raise over the first year), with two or three non-guaranteed years on the back end.
For Smith, that would mean $51.48 million fully guaranteed over the first two years. Which would equate to an average for the first two years of $25.74 million.
Absent a multi-year deal, Smith would be on track for the franchise tag again in 2026, at a price of $28.08 million. If not tagged, he’d be eligible for unrestricted free agency.
Given the magnitude of the tag and the realities of the guard position, it could be a challenge to get a deal done before Tuesday of next week. For Smith, the choice is to proceed at $23.4 million in 2025 with either $28.08 million or a trip to the open market in 2026 — or to accept the team’s best offer on a multi-year deal.
Basically, the team needs to offer him enough to get him to trade in the very large bird currently in his hand.
A sixth-round pick from Tennessee in 2024, Smith became an instant starter at right guard. He has started 67 of 68 regular-season games in his four-year career. He also has taken 100 percent of the snaps in 13 postseason games.
A radio host in Kansas City had some things to say about a shirtless July 4 image of Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes. Now, Mahomes’s trainer wants a piece of said radio host.
Via TMZ.com, Kevin Kietzman of KCMO called Mahomes “fat.” Keizman also said Mahomes was an “embarrassment.”
Trainer Bobby Stroupe fired back, with a now-deleted message on Twitter.
“Send me your location,” Stroupe reportedly said. “You obviously need attention. If you want to see what in shape is -- go make it through a practice at [training camp] or run hurry up offense scrambling back to back to back plays. You don’t have a clue what it takes. It’s not a look, it’s performance.”
Stroupe is right. Mahomes isn’t getting ready to star in a Rambo reboot. He has always shown up and performed well during his seven years as a starter. He’s already one of the best quarterbacks to ever play the game, with five Super Bowl appearances and two overtime losses in the AFC Championship.
Skinny players are actually at greater risk of getting injured. A little thickness operates as natural armor that keeps a player going when he’s getting banged around by much larger opponents.
By getting caught up in how Mahomes looks with a shirt off, Kietzman is telling on himself regarding his lack of understanding as to how football works. Mahomes will be far better than fine. Because he always has been. And it’s safe to say he always will be, for as long as he wants to be.
Travis Kelce is 35 years old and is currently the oldest tight end in the NFL. And that means the Chiefs don’t expect him to sustain quite the same level of play he was at during his prime. But they think they can get prime Kelce when they really need him.
Chiefs General Manager Brett Veach says Kelce can still play like an elite tight end in the biggest moments.
“The great ones know how to find it,” Veach said, via Adam Teicher of ESPN. “They know where it’s buried, and they know how to access it. And they can’t access it at that age week in and week out, but when they need it, they know how to find it.”
Last year Kelce never had more than 100 receiving yards in any game of the regular season, then promptly had 117 yards in the Chiefs’ first playoff game.
“We’ve all seen it over the last few years,” Veach said. “There are periods throughout the season where you’re like, ‘This might be it.’ But when the games are the most important and the lights are the brightest, he finds it somewhere.”
The Chiefs are counting on Kelce to be able to find it for at least one more year.
