What Does A Possible Orlando Brown Jr. Contract Extension Look Like?

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Today marks one month before the deadline for teams to reach long-term deals with players who received 2022 franchise tags expires. Ultimately, July 15 will be a crucial point for players hoping to get well-deserved pay raises. One of those players, is Kansas City Chiefs left tackle Orlando Brown Jr. Despite just one season played in Chiefs’ red and gold, he is looking to become one of the highest paid players on Kansas City’s roster.

The Chiefs were able to quickly rebuild their offensive line last season. Along with Brown Jr., the left side of the blocking unit is manned by the veteran presence of Joe Thuney. Kansas City found two draft steals in the 2021 NFL Draft with center Creed Humphrey and right guard Trey Smith. Meanwhile, right tackle still needs to be locked down. Out of all of the positions upfront, Brown Jr.’s at left tackle may be the most important, though.

Maintaining a steady command on Patrick Mahomes‘ blindside is paramount. With his ability to manipulate the pocket and win from the outside while on the run, Brown Jr. has a unique set of blocking assignments. He was able to figure out the play style of Mahomes and how to protect for that as the season got deeper last year. Overall, the strong finish of Brown Jr. led to the peak of the Chiefs’ passing offense last season.

Today, we will be exploring a possible contract extension for Orlando Brown Jr. What may that look like? Can the team and player come to an agreement by the July 15 deadline? Plus, we will look into recent offensive tackle contract extensions, the Kansas City salary cap situation and more. Let’s kick it off.

Recent Offensive Tackle Megadeals

According to Spotrac, the current top ten total values on offensive tackle contracts range anywhere from $71.246 million to $138.06 million. That is over the course of the full life of the deal. Of those ten highest values, seven of those deals were agreed to since the beginning of the 2020 calendar year. Those seven contracts included in that timespan are as follows, from highest total value to smallest total value:

• Trent Williams (San Francisco 49ers)- six years, $138.06 million
• Ronnie Stanley (Baltimore Ravens)- five years, $98.75 million
• Ryan Ramczyk (New Orleans Saints)- five years, $96 million
• Brian O’Neill (Minnesota Vikings)- five years, $92.5 million
• David Bakhtiari (Green Bay Packers)- four years, $92 million
• Terron Armstead (Miami Dolphins)- five years, $75 million
• Taylor Moton (Carolina Panthers)- four years, $71.246 million

The AAV, or average annual value per season, of those recently signed contracts ranges anywhere from $15 million to $23.01 million, according to Spotrac. Trying to climb up that per season salary leaderboard may be just as important for players, compared to climbing up the total money leaderboard on the life of the contract. For Orlando Brown Jr., it is unclear as to which one he will climb up higher on, if a deal is reached with Kansas City. Possibly, the Chiefs could allow him to rise up both leaderboards, depending on their language of the contract.

Chiefs Salary Cap Situation

The 2022 NFL salary cap was set at a base value of $208.2 million. As things currently stand, the Chiefs have $14,454,908 in available salary cap space, via OverTheCap. Even though it is still late in the offseason, that ranks as the 13th most available salary cap space out of all 32 NFL teams.

It is also important to note that the Chiefs are set to have a dead money figure of $7,983,236 in 2022. Why is that so significant? First off, that number being just under $8 million is one of the smallest dead money figures of all NFL teams in 2022. Kansas City has been rather superb about their spending and how they design contracts, especially under the Brett Veach front office regime. Furthermore, that lower team dead money number could help the Chiefs meet the possible monetary demands of Orlando Brown Jr.

As mentioned in the past, the NFL salary cap is expected to continue to increase in the near future. Some projections have even hinted at the salary cap reaching around $250 million for each team to spend under in a few years. With the help of television deals and streaming rights alone, the NFL continues to get more bang for their buck. Because of that, team spending could continue to become less restricted, so to speak, with the salary cap growth.

Unique Factors In Brown Jr.’s Negotiations

Like any NFL contract negotiation, there are specific unique factors that players are hoping to meet with their team. If those are met, the team could better benefit when handing out the new contract, at least in the long run. We wrote about some of those items in last week’s article. You can read the full article here.

There are a couple that stick out immediately. We would have to start with the fact that Orlando Brown Jr. recently just hired a new agent. Beforehand, he had not had any representation and was handling negotiations himself. For those that missed it, his agent has never had an NFL client. Brown Jr. could either heavily benefit from that, or fall a bit short of an expected deal.

Elsewhere, Brown Jr. and the aforementioned Thuney could help the Chiefs offensive line eventually lead the way in Kansas City’s spending on offense. Outside of Mahomes or Travis Kelce, there are not many offensive players that the Chiefs are breaking the bank for or heavily rewarding. Finally, Brown Jr. has made hints about business and marketing factors for his personal brand as well.

Final Prediction

The gap between Trent Williams and Ronnie Stanley at the top of the offensive tackle salaries is quite large. When you think about it, it is not entirely impossible to see a path for Orlando Brown Jr. to fall in between those top two values with a new contract extension. Could he even pass Williams’ average salary per season figure of $23.01 million? That may not be as far-fetched as one would assume either.

The Chiefs have been adamant about Brown Jr. being their long-term future at left tackle. They can now secure a young blocker into the fold while he is in his prime. Meanwhile, Kansas City could fully have a stable offensive line set in place in front of Mahomes for the next handful of seasons by getting this deal done. Getting something done before the July 15 deadline seems highly likely. In the end, we believe that Orlando Brown Jr. will become the second-highest paid offensive tackle, in terms of total value on the life of the contract, with his new deal.

Final prediction: the Chiefs sign Brown Jr. to a five-year contract extension worth a total of $117.5 million. That would give him an average annual value of $23.5 million per season. Thus, it would give Brown Jr. the highest AAV among NFL offensive tackles.

Be on the lookout for more FPC Chiefs articles in the coming days. For more great sports and NFL content, stay tuned to Full Press Coverage.

– Braden Holecek is the Kansas City Chiefs managing editor for Full Press Coverage. He covers the NFL. Like and follow on Follow @ebearcat9//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js Follow @FPC_Chiefs//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js and Facebook.