Kansas City Chiefs GM Brett Veach still has some work to do regarding their salary cap space for the remainder of the offseason and the 2026 NFL season.<\/p>\n
The Kansas City Chiefs have signed four of their 2026 NFL Draft picks to their rookie contracts, with DB Jadon Canady being the latest player to sign his deal<\/a>.<\/p>\n After Canady put pen to paper, the Chiefs have between $6 million and $7 million in estimated salary cap space. With the three most expensive players left to sign their deals, that amount isn\u2019t going to cut it for Brett Veach and company.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The Kansas City Chiefs still need salary cap space<\/p>\n Mansoor Delane, Peter Woods, and R Mason Thomas<\/a> all still need to sign their rookie deals. While they\u2019ll require $13.1 million in salary cap space, they\u2019ll also bump an estimated $2.7 million off the books. That\u2019s thanks to the top-51 rule, which dictates that only the 51 highest-paid players count against the salary cap during the offseason.<\/p>\n First-year cap hits for each of the Chiefs\u2019 remaining unsigned 2026 NFL Draft picks.<\/p>\n The NFL\u2019s rookie contracts scale based on draft slot<\/a>. The No. 1 overall pick has a $10.5 million cap hit. The No. 257 pick has a $915K cap hit.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n CB Mansoor Delane: $7.6 million<\/p>\n DT Peter Woods: $3.3 million<\/p>\n DE R Mason Thomas: $2.2 million<\/p>\n The Chiefs need to create roughly $10.4 million in cap space to sign the trio of Delane, Woods, and Thomas. The team also typically carries between $5 million and $8 million in cap space during the NFL season. That money allows them to make trades, signings, and procedural moves. If they want to sign or trade for a player in the wake of Rashee Rice\u2019s poor decisions<\/a>, Kansas City will need to create even more cap space.<\/p>\n How can Chiefs GM Brett Veach create salary cap space?<\/p>\n Brett Veach has already cleared quite a bit of salary cap space for the Chiefs this offseason. He went to the Patrick Mahomes piggy-bank<\/a> and restructured the star QB\u2019s contract. Then he released DE Mike Danna<\/a> and RT Jawaan Taylor<\/a>. There was the trade sending CB Trent McDuffie<\/a> to the Rams. He also convinced Drue Tranquill to take a pay cut<\/a> to stay in Kansas City. <\/p>\n There was a fake report that the team had restructured DT Chris Jones\u2019 contract, but that hasn\u2019t happened\u2026 yet. The Chiefs still have several restructures they can make to create salary cap space for 2026.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Chiefs’ 2026 restructure candidates and maximum savings<\/p>\n The Chiefs do not need to restructure to create the full amount of cap space on any of these contracts.<\/p>\n RG Trey Smith ($12.5M savings)<\/p>\n C Creed Humphrey ($8.8M savings)<\/p>\n The unwritten rule with contract restructures is that you don\u2019t want to restructure a contract of a player who could soon be cut. Why? Because you\u2019re only making that decision more expensive. In my opinion, the Chiefs should explore a full restructure for Creed Humphrey and a partial restructure for Trey Smith. Get yourself to about $20 million in cap space. That would give you enough money to roster the 2026 NFL Draft class at $10.4 million, plus some extra funds for flexibility to add to the roster before and during the season. <\/p>\n Restructuring isn\u2019t the only way to create space, though. The Chiefs could still consider releasing some players for salary cap relief.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Chiefs\u2019 2026 cut candidates with savings and dead money details<\/p>\n Clark Hunt doesn\u2019t like dead money. The candidate with the least dead money is likely the biggest target here.<\/p>\n