If you've been following the Chiefs closely enough post-NFL draft, it's been known for a while that in order for Kansas City to sign its entire rookie class, it needed to free up a chunk of cap space. General manager Brett Veach has long been one of the league's best when to comes to using cap space effectively and to his advantage without hampering the team long-term. That's also thanks in large part to cap guru and now assistant GM Chris Shea.
While there were a number of avenues the Chiefs could decide to go down in order to accomplish this, Veach and his team opted for the most rational and readily efficient path. It was announced earlier this morning by Spotrac that KC did a full restructure of George Karlaftis's 2026 cap hit, clearing $7.7 million in cap space. They did so by converting nearly $9.7 of his salary into a signing bonus, which is typically how most contract reworks go around the league.
This now brings the Chiefs to having $13.2 million in available cap space, which is enough to cover the remaining cap hits of rookies Mansoor Delane ($7.6M) and Peter Woods ($3.2M). So in essence, when those two contracts actually go up on the sheets, the Chiefs basically have give or take $2.4 million at their disposal. This then begs the question, what will the Chiefs do next?
Chiefs may look toward adding a free agent or another money move after Karlaftis restructure.
Having over $2 million in cap space is good assurance to have heading into the 2026 season, but I don't doubt for a second that this Karlaftis restructure is part one of a bigger plan to keep adding talent to this Chiefs roster. It's been readily discussed throughout Chiefs Kingdom the possibility and more so the need of adding one more veteran pass-rusher to the defensive line who can play meaningful snaps, or perhaps another proven wide receiver after the situation with Rashee Rice has worsened dramatically.
It's also possible the Chiefs elect to do both, in which case they'd need to free up even more money on the cap. To do this, the most likely scenario would be to either restructure center Creed Humphrey's contract as they did Karlaftis', which could open up as much as $8.8 million. Or extend Humphrey on a massive deal. As the best center in the league and a guy who just turned 27 years old, Humphrey is a no-brainer extension candidate, especially after the Las Vegas Raiders signed center Tyler Linderbaum to a gargantuan amount of money, resetting the position market.
Humphrey is an elite player and is going to stick around in KC for the rest of Patrick Mahomes' prime, so there is a worthy argument to just get the extension over with now, rather than wait for the inevitable. Whether the Chiefs decide to add a free agent prior to training camp, tinker with Humphrey's deal, or make another surprising move altogether, one thing is certain. Veach is not done putting his hands all over the 2026 offseason.
Add us as a preferred source on Google