The Kansas City Chiefs and Tyreek Hill’s camp continue to work toward a deal on a contract extension for the star receiver.
The two sides have been talking extension since the 2022 NFL Scouting Combine, but haven’t been able to come to an agreement yet. With the 2022 NFL free agency period closing in fast, Hill’s salary cap hit of $20.6 million is becoming increasingly problematic for the Chiefs. An extension could help the team lower that cap hit by nearly half the amount, freeing up some space to do deals with other free agents.
Here is the latest from NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport:
From Free Agency Frenzy: The #Chiefs don't have a lot of cap space… but could change with a phone call or two. They are deep in talks on a contract extension for WR Tyreek Hill that will get him more than $20M per year and give KC some breathing room. pic.twitter.com/3g6Qy9TSXw
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) March 16, 2022
“The Kansas City Chiefs have made one free agent deal so far, Justin Reid. They don’t have a ton of cap space, but cap space could be coming at some point in the near future. Tyreek Hill and the Kansas City Chiefs are deep in talks on a contract extension that will pay him more than $20 million dollars per year. Likely to be a shorter-term extension, perhaps three years. It’s not done yet, but this is something that could happen in the coming days. I would not describe it as close or closing in, but the two sides have done significant work on this deal. When this happens, and it does seem like it is going to happen at some point, then the Chiefs will have cap room. At that point maybe they can look to the free agent pool and add, oh I don’t know, potentially a receiver? Jarvis Landry is someone they may have interest in. This is big time on the agenda right now for the Kansas City Chiefs. Something that they are focusing on, despite it not exactly being a pressing free agent issue.”
It would seem that Hill’s contract is one big hurdle keeping Kansas City from being bigger spenders in free agency so far. They’ve got a number of ways to create cap space, but a Hill extension seems to be the chosen route for the team getting involved in the next wave of free agency. While nothing appears to be imminent and there’s no hard deadline to get an extension like this done, it’s likely that the Chiefs would like to have this deal done sooner than later.
