Eric Berry has a reasonable case to be the NFL's highest paid safety. That honor as of now goes to Earl Thomas who is paid $10 million per season. Berry is on the franchise tag which is actually a bit more than that: $10.8 million. So it's reasonable to think that Berry's camp is asking to be the highest paid safety or close to it.
So, how will this affect Berry's contract talks with the Chiefs:
An ACL hasn't changed the plans: #AZCardinals are deep in negotiations for an extension for Tyrann Mathieu, soon to be highest paid safety
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) May 16, 2016
Mathieu sounds like Berry in that he's the face of the franchise and clearly someone the Cardinals value.
It's hard to overstate how much the #AZCardinals think of Honey Badger. He's a face of their franchise. His reward could come before summer
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) May 16, 2016
Would Mathieu's contract affect Berry and the Chiefs? It would, right? I wonder if the Chiefs would prefer to get this deal done with Berry BEFORE Mathieu gets his done. The Chiefs should set the initial market rather than letting the Cardinals pay Mathieu a boatload of money and having to negotiate off of that. That's the way I'm looking at it but no one has confused me for a cap specialist before.
The Chiefs saw a similar situation like this when Travis Kelce signed his contract right after Zach Ertz and before Jordan Reed. All these contracts are related in some fashion.
The Chiefs have until July 15 to reach a long-term deal with Berry. It is my prediction that they will get something done by then. That's partially because a long-term deal could create around $7 million in cap space for the cap-strapped Chiefs.
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