As the details regarding many of the free-agent contracts made their way to the light of day last week, one deal was absent.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve now gotten our eyes on the full base numbers of the three-year contract signed by Super Bowl LX MVP Kenneth Walker III.<\/p>\n
Here are the terms of Walker\u2019s new deal with the Chiefs:<\/p>\n
1. Signing bonus: $13 million.<\/p>\n
2. 2026 base salary: $1.215 million, fully guaranteed.<\/p>\n
3. 2026 workout bonus: $135,000, fully guaranteed but must be earned.<\/p>\n
4. 2027 base salary: $14.1 million, fully guaranteed.<\/p>\n
5. 2027 workout bonus: $250,000, fully guaranteed but must be earned.<\/p>\n
6. 2028 base salary: $14.1 million.<\/p>\n
7. 2028 workout bonus: $250,000.<\/p>\n
The deal has a base value of $43.05 million. That translates to an average of $14.35 million.<\/p>\n
Coincidentally, or not, the running back franchise tag for 2026 was $14.293 million. The Seahawks decided not to apply it.<\/p>\n
The Chiefs have fully guaranteed Walker $28.7 million over the first two years, an average of $14.35 million. With no guarantees for 2028, it\u2019s a two-year deal with a team option for 2028.<\/p>\n
While not at the top of the tailback market (Saquon Barkley at $20.6 million), it puts Walker not far behind Derrick Henry ($15 million APY) and ahead of Jonathan Taylor ($14 million APY).<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a very good deal for a running back who missed 10 games over his first three seasons and who rushed for a career-high of 1,050 yards as a rookie. The investment suggests that the Chiefs plan to use him heavily; last year, they paid only $1.5 million to Kareem Hunt and $1.12 million to Isiah Pacheco.<\/p>\n
Either way, Walker will get $14.35 million in cash for each of the next two years, with every penny guaranteed. It speaks to a level of involvement in the offense that the starting running back usually doesn\u2019t have in Kansas City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the details regarding many of the free-agent contracts made their way to the light of day last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-531464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}