The Chiefs’ 2024 cap hit for Mike Danna is a bit more than expected

We now have the details for the three-year contract Kansas City gave to its fifth-year defensive end.

When the Kansas City Chiefs re-signed free agent defensive end Michael Danna to a new three-year contract last Friday, we only knew the broad strokes of the deal: it was reportedly worth a total of $24 million, with $13 million of that guaranteed. On Friday, the salary-cap site OverTheCap published contract details it obtained from its own sources — and those original figures were correct.

We had estimated that Danna’s 2024 cap hit would fall between $3.1 million and $5.1 million — and would probably land somewhere around $4 million. According to OTC, this season’s cap hit falls on the high side of that range. It is $4.67 million in 2024, increasing to $8.17 million in 2025 and $11.17 million in 2026.

Danna is being paid a $6.5 million signing bonus, which accounts for $2.17 million of these yearly cap hits. He’ll be paid a base salary of $2.25 million this season, increasing to $5.24 million in 2025 and $8.24 million in 2026. All of his 2024 salary (and $4.25 million of his 2025 salary) was guaranteed at signing.

In each season, he can earn a workout bonus of $250,000 — and in the final two years, he can earn a per-game roster bonus of $30,000, which will count for $510,000 against the cap in each of those seasons.

This means he’ll be paid a maximum of $9 million in the first season of the deal, $6 million in the second and $9 million in the third. The Chiefs expect him to remain on their roster through 2025, since he will have $8.6 million in dead money against a cap hit of $8.2 million — but after that, he could be released with just $2.2 million left on the cap for 2026.

Including all known transactions — and with 74 players under contract — we now estimate that Kansas City has $19.9 million in cap space.