The Chiefs’ new contract with Derrick Nnadi is for more than we expected

In his seventh year with the team, Kansas City is paying the former third-round pick a little more than we thought.

On the evening of March 14, news broke that the Kansas City Chiefs were re-signing defensive tackle Derrick Nnadi to a seventh season with the team. It was going to be the third consecutive one-year contract the 27-year-old player Nnadi had signed.

Since he played the 2023 season under a veteran salary benefit (VSB) contract that paid him $1.23 million (but occupied just $1.1 million of the team’s cap space), it was widely assumed that Nnadi — who was on the field for just 46% of the team’s defensive snaps in 2023 — would again be signing another team-friendly VSB deal.

Now, however, Nnadi’s contract details are finally available — and this is not the case.

His base salary of $1.13 million is the league minimum for his experience, but it is guaranteed. He is also receiving a $665,000 signing bonus and will earn a bonus of roughly $12,350 for each game he is on the roster. Since he appeared (and started) in all 17 of 2023’s regular-season games, the entire $210,000 roster bonus is considered likely-to-be-earned (LTBE) for 2024, giving him a total cap hit of $2 million. That’s currently the team’s 20th-highest cap hit.

While Nnadi isn’t being compensated at a level similar to the team’s star players, he isn’t being paid as a depth player, either. It seems clear that the team expects Nnadi to make this season’s final roster — and continue to make significant contributions on the defensive line.

With these new figures for Nnadi — and accounting for all known transactions — we now estimate that with 70 players under contract, Kansas City has $25.7 million in cap space.