The Kansas City Chiefs managed to improve their roster through the 2020 NFL Draft.

While fans throughout the Chiefs Kingdom are excited for the arrival of new players, the front office staff in Kansas City are shifting their focuses to a new daunting task. They have two franchise mainstays that are due for long-term contract extensions in QB Patrick Mahomes and DT Chris Jones.

Both players are going to command top-tier money at their respective positions which means the franchise will need to take the utmost care with their contracts. During his post-draft conference call on Sunday, Brett Veach was asked how confident he was feeling about getting those contracts done ahead of Chiefs training camp.

“I would like to think that we’re fairly confident, and we have a lot of time,” Veach said. “(They’re) cornerstones in this organization. We do have some time, and now that the draft is over, and the free agency period here with the pandemic and the virtual draft, there was certainly a lot of distractions. But now that this is behind us here, we have a window now that we can kind of reset as an organization. We have a lot of time and this will be the focus of where we are to make sure we get these guys locked up and head into training camp, whenever that is, ready to rock and roll. Again, you can never put a definitive answer on anything, but we are certainly hopeful and confident, and we’re going to put in a lot of work from now until the start of camp.”

The Chiefs have until July 15 to get a long-term deal done with Jones. If they can’t, he’ll have to wait until the 2021 season to get a long-term deal. As for a contract for Mahomes, the Chiefs don’t exactly have to rush. Kansas City Chiefs Chairman and CEO Clark Hunt also spoke on the matter over the weekend, specifically regarding a contract for Mahomes. He didn’t provide a timeline, but he did say that getting Mahomes under contract is the priority following the draft.

“I really can’t say it’s something that’s going to happen in the next three months, the next six months,” Hunt said. “It’s a priority for us and it’s also a priority for Patrick’s team, so I know it’s something that’s going to get done in the near-term. Anytime that we’re talking about a big contract for the Kansas City Chiefs, I’m intimately involved in those conversations with Brett and his cap staff. I don’t want to say that we’ve been talking about this weekly because Brett’s been very focused on the draft. As you know, and I know you’ve spoken to Brett and Andy, a lot of preparation had to go into turning this into a virtual draft and that was a challenge for everybody. So, Patrick’s contract hasn’t been a priority here over the last month, but going forward it will be.”

In any event, the Chiefs do have some options to work through with Mahomes. Just ahead of the draft, Veach mentioned the possibility of the Chiefs exercising the fifth-year option in Mahomes’ contract. The deadline for that is May 3, 2020.