Patrick Mahomes confident long-term deal gets done with Chiefs

Patrick Mahomes doesn’t yet have a long-term contract extension from the Kansas City Chiefs but said he’s confident an agreement will eventually be reached.

“I want to be a Chief for a long time,” Mahomes said Friday. “I want to have a contract that says that and then I can go out there and know I have that security and everything like that. I understand and trust the Chiefs’ organization and everybody in it will handle it the right way. I trust my representation that they’re going to ease my mind and let me go out there and just love the game that I’ve loved playing.

“Whenever it happens, it happens.”

The Chiefs this week exercised the fifth-year option they held on the contract Mahomes signed as a first-round draft pick in 2017. He is now under contract with the Chiefs through the 2021 season.

The Chiefs have sent mixed signals recently regarding their urgency to do a contract extension for Mahomes. They’ve called the extension a priority but chairman Clark Hunt said in January before the Super Bowl that a timetable of 12 to 15 months was a reasonable time frame to have it done.

Hunt during the recent NFL draft said, “I really can’t say it’s something that’s going to happen in the next three months, the next six months.”

Chiefs general manager Brett Veach texted Mahomes before the first round of the draft last week and asked him which player he wanted the team to select. Mahomes’ one-word reply was “Clyde.” The Chiefs wound up drafting LSU running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire in the first round.

“The first thing that stood out about Clyde was when the competition in the games got bigger, it seemed like he played better,” Mahomes said. “I always love guys that can rise to the competition. Whenever you’re on the biggest stage, you play your best football and you rise up and compete with your team.

“Obviously, I wanted to add to the offense to help me out and to help our team out. Clyde was the first thing to come to mind. I know we have a great running back room already. Bringing him in, I know he’ll fit right in and he’ll compete and we’ll be able to bring out the best in each other at every single position group and go out there and play our best football hopefully this season.”

The Chiefs recently started their virtual offseason program but before it started Mahomes, like all NFL players, faced the challenge of keeping in shape during the coronavirus pandemic, with gyms closed. But Mahomes has a few advantages that many others don’t.

“It helps out that my girlfriend is an at-home fitness guru,” Mahomes said. “She actually writes up a lot of the workouts that I was doing before we got to these offseason training things, so her, my trainer in Dallas and [Chiefs strength coach Barry Rubin] have all kind of put together these workout plans for me to make sure that I am getting what I need. And I actually got lucky enough that before all this happened, I had already started putting a weight room in my house, so I have a lot of the equipment already at the house and am able to utilize a lot of that stuff.”