With NFL free agency winding down, teams are starting to map out their salary cap space for the 2025 NFL season. 

The Kansas City Chiefs' true cap space is still somewhat mysterious to the public eye. Outlets like OverTheCap and Spotrac project a range of between $16-$20 million in available salary cap space, but they're each missing a few of the team's lesser free agent deals. 

After re-signing DT Marlon Tuipulotu, they have 70 players under contract on their 90-man offseason roster. It's important to remember that only the top 51 cap hits count toward the 2025 salary cap during the offseason. It's also worth considering that the Chiefs will need around $2.7 million in salary cap space to sign their 2025 NFL draft class. 

Let's dive into the details. . . 

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2025 cap hits for Chiefs' newest players (and contracts)

While we don't have numbers for Gardner Minshew and Jerry Tillery, we can make assumptions about what they'll count against the cap. Minshew is still owed money by Las Vegas, which means he could earn a veteran minimum salary in Kansas City. That number would give him a cap hit of around $1.2 million. As for Tillery, in each of the past two years, he has seen cap hits of about $2.7 million.  It'd be reasonable to expect a deal that puts him either a little above or below that range for 2025.

Here are the numbers we know for certain of the newcomers. . .

• Jaylon Moore: $11.195M
• Kristian Fulton: $7M
• Elijah Mitchell: $2.235M

As for a returning player who signed a new deal with the Chiefs, Nick Bolton's 2025 salary cap number is much lower than initially predicted. He'll count just $6.5 million against the salary cap in 2025 with $19.250 million cap hits in consecutive seasons in 2026 and 2027.

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Estimated Chiefs salary cap space as of March 20

Given what we know about Minshew and Tillery's deals, as well as deals for players like JuJu Smith-Schuster and Kareem Hunt, estimations will place the Chiefs a lot closer to $11 million in salary cap space than $16.5 million or $20 million projections from OTC and Spotrac. My calculations show that the Chiefs have $11.4 million in salary cap space while accounting for all 70 players the team currently has under contract. Considering what they'll need to sign their 2025 draft class, they have $8.7 million in usable salary cap space. The team typically carries between $5-8 million in cap space during the NFL's regular season to handle trades, signings, and procedural moves, which tells us they're probably done signing players in free agency. That is, of course, unless they make some moves to create more cap space. . .

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Trey Smith is the secret to creating more cap space

Right now, Chiefs RG Trey Smith carries the fourth-highest salary cap hit on a 90-man offseason roster for 2025 at $23.4 million. The Chiefs agreeing on a long-term contract extension with Smith can wipe out a significant portion of that fully guaranteed number. 

But why create salary cap space when the free agent class has few high-level contributors left available? Kansas City also has long-term contract extensions to work on with players like CB Trent McDuffie and DE George Karlaftis, but those players likely won't require altered salary cap numbers in 2025. They could use some of that freed salary cap space to re-sign someone like Charles Omenihu, who is conveniently still available on the market. They could also manufacture a trade before the season or later at the NFL trade deadline. They could always roll over whatever space they free up and don't use now into the 2026 NFL season.

Ideally, a long-term deal with Smith could arrive either shortly before or after the 2025 NFL draft, providing the Chiefs with the flexibility to bring back a player like Omenihu and extend one of McDuffie or Karlaftis before the 2025 NFL season begins. 

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