Sorry, meant roster bonus. They can use any portion of it to spread out against the cap the following years. See below.
Patrick Mahomes’ roster bonus
The first thing the Chiefs will almost assuredly look at in order to save money is Patrick Mahomes’ $21.7 million roster bonus.
In The Art of NFL Contracts: Part 4, I went over how teams can restructure contracts to save money, and that is mainly what the Chiefs would do with Mahomes’ roster bonus. The Chiefs would convert the money in a roster bonus to a signing bonus, which the team could then spread out over five years against the salary cap.
If the Chiefs convert all of Mahomes’ 2021 roster bonus to a signing bonus, the team can immediately save $17.4 million. This doesn’t come without a cost, however. Mahomes’ salary cap hit until 2025 would go up by $4.4 million each year. This isn’t a small chunk of change.
The Chiefs can choose a smaller portion to convert to a signing bonus, but Mahomes’ roster bonus is definitely the first place the Chiefs will be looking for instant salary cap savings, as Mahomes is the safest bet the Chiefs can mortgage some of the future on.