Report: Demarcus Robinson re-signed to the Chiefs

According to a report from ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the Kansas City Chiefs are re-signing their veteran free-agent wide receiver Demarcus Robinson to a one-year contract.

Robinson, 26, will be beginning his sixth NFL season — all of it with the Chiefs. He started nine games in 2020, catching 45 passes on 59 targets for 466 yards and three touchdowns. Over his career, Robinson has appeared in all 80 regular-season contests, starting 32 games while gaining 1,415 yards (and scoring 11 touchdowns) on 120 receptions.

While terms of the deal are not yet known, Robinson played last year on a version of the NFL’s veteran salary benefit (VSB) deal — the so-called “four-year qualifying contract” — in which he earned $2.3 million, but had a cap hit of just over $1 million.

For those types of contracts, teams are permitted to pay $1.25 million more than the minimum salary for which the player is eligible — plus a signing bonus of up to $137,500 — while carrying a cap charge consisting only of the player’s minimum salary and signing bonus. Teams may issue only two such contracts in each season — and spend a total of no more than $1.25 million over minimum salary for the two contracts combined.

Robinson will not get that particular contract in 2021, because the Chiefs have already spent all of their $1.25 million VSB allowance on the contract they gave to safety Daniel Sorensen earlier this week. But Robinson would be eligible for a standard VSB contract that would pay him $1.14 million — but would have a cap charge of only $988,000. Given that the free-agent wide receiver market is down in this cap-starved offseason, there’s a good chance that this is the deal the Chiefs have made with Robinson.

UPDATE: Now we have learned that this is precisely the deal Robinson will get.