Trey Smith’s Future Hangs in the Balance as Deadline Looms—What’s Holding Up the Deal?

The deadline looms large this Tuesday at 4:00 p.m. ET, marking the cutoff for the Kansas City Chiefs and their franchise-tagged guard Trey Smith to ink a long-term contract. Now, Smith’s got a pretty sweet deal waiting on the sidelines if no agreement is reached—a fully guaranteed .4 million salary for 2025, slotting him as the third highest earner on the team and placing him just behind giants like Patrick Mahomes, Jawaan Taylor, and Chris Jones in cap impact . But here’s the catch: Smith’s at a crossroads—he’s holding more than just money in hand with this tag, as it sets the stage for either a heftier second tag next year or the gamble of free agency. It’s a classic “to sign or not to sign” scenario, and sources close to the situation suggest Smith won’t just take any offer—it’s gotta make real sense for him to bite.
With so much debate (rightfully) about the wisdom of an 18-game regular season, the default for the Chiefs over the past four years has been 20. In Smith’s career, the Chiefs have played 20 games, 20 games, 21 games, and 20 games. Smith has played in all but one of the 81 total games.
The clock keeps ticking toward an important annual deadline.
But let’s peel back another layer—Smith’s grind isn’t your average workload. Thanks to the Chiefs’ consistent playoff runs, he’s logged an astonishing 13 extra games over four seasons, playing every snap. When you factor in the heated conversation swirling around expanding the regular season to 18 games, remember, KC has practically been playing a 20-game schedule every year lately. From 2018 onward, that’s countless extra battles on the field, which—unlike the modest playoff checks—could stir a game-changing negotiation point. Smith, and frankly other key Chiefs players, might push for contract terms that include extra compensation for each playoff game, creating a new frontier in player pay that fits the sheer workload this team endures.

Of course, if Smith gets extra (i.e., fair) compensation for playing a 20-game (or 21-game) season, other key players on the Chiefs will want the same thing. Which will make the Chiefs reluctant to set a new precedent.This all dovetails into a broader conversation that could ripple through the NFL—the logistics of playoff earning, especially as the league marches toward an 18-game season and global game days. It’s no longer about just the base pay; it’s about fairness for the wear and tear players like Smith take on year after year in a near marathon of a season. Whether this becomes a sticking point or a landmark shift, it signals a brewing storm in player negotiations and league economics.The question remains a simple one to identify, even if it will be much harder to resolve. Smith has a nice bird in the hand. More money this year than the APY of any guard in football. Then, come 2026, he gets either a second tag — at million — or a shot at free agency.We don’t know whether Smith and the Chiefs are haggling over that issue. The simple truth is that every player who has been a key piece of the team’s success (Mahomes included) should be making that request. And the more physical their job description (like Smith), the better the argument for engineering extra pay for extra work.And so, as one source with knowledge of the situation recently told PFT, at this point the long-term deal has to make sense for Smith to accept it.

If no deal is done, Smith will play under the tag for 2025. He’ll have a fully-guaranteed .4 million salary. It makes him the third highest-paid player on the Chiefs, and it gives him the fourth highest cap number, behind only Patrick Mahomes ( million), Jawaan Taylor (.3 million), and Chris Jones (.6 million).On Tuesday at 4:00 p.m. ET, the window closes on a long-term deal for franchise-tagged Chiefs guard Trey Smith.Since Patrick Mahomes became the starting quarterback in 2018, the Chiefs’ floor has been losing the AFC Championship in overtime. That happened twice. The other five times, they went to the Super Bowl.That doesn’t make it an unfair request. Yes, every player contract carries with it the possibility of playing up to four postseason games each year, as relatively small game checks. For the Chiefs, it has become something much more than a possibility.LEARN MOREIf nothing else, pushing this issue could make the broader question of improving playoff pay one of the concessions the NFL Players Association will seek in exchange for the inevitable 18-game season, 16-game annual international series, and potentially shrinkage of the 50-50 share the players get from an ever-increasing pile of money.There’s another wrinkle to this that potentially introduces an unprecedented dynamic to the talks. Given the Chiefs’ annual postseason runs, the team gets much more out of its players than other teams receive. Already, Smith has played 13 extra games in four years — taking 100 percent of the snaps in each one.His deal could include significant extra payments for each playoff game he plays. If it’s an incentive, it’s not part of his APY. The Chiefs would owe it only if the Chiefs continue to be as successful as they’ve been.So here’s the possible argument, from Smith’s perspective: His deal needs to contemplate something more than the paltry (in comparison) playoff checks for the 3.25 extra games he has played, per year.