By the time you finish reading this, Trey Smith might be signing on the dotted line.
The National Football League has instituted a July 15 deadline for teams who applied a franchise tag on a player to reach a long-term contract extension. If no such deal is reached, the financial terms of the tag are cemented for the year ahead.
For the Chiefs, this would make Trey Smith's deal an official one-year deal worth approximately $23.4 million. That's undesirable for a few reasons, but the primary one being that such a massive cap hit hinders flexibility in case of roster issues that arise during the season.
It's in everyone's best interests to get a deal done between the Chiefs and Trey Smith.
For Smith, this is also not a desired outcome. If something happened to him, such as an injury, he'd be set to hit the open market in 2026 once again with far less leverage in free agency. Players have taken such risks before only to lose millions of dollars of future earnings in the process.
A long-term contract is in the best interest of everyone involved between the Chiefs and Smith. For the Chiefs, an extension allows them to mitigate the financial hit in 2025 and create a well-crafted plan going forward with regard to the salary cap. It also gives the Chiefs another cornerstone up front after trading Joe Thuney this offseason.
For Smith, now is the time to cash in after four years of exemplary play. He's put in the work. He's done the time. Unless Kansas City is somehow not the place he wants to be—which would be a surprise given the organization's level of sustained success—gaining securitiy from the team that drafted him should be the goal here above all else.
That means that fans should expect to see some hard news in the next day or so before the NFL's July 15 deadline. Going into training camp, the Chiefs should have a new dynamic duo up front in Creed Humphrey and Trey Smith to anchor the offensive front for the next half-decade.