The Chiefs reportedly picked up quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ fifth-year option for the 2021 season Thursday, but could Kansas City agree to a new deal with the Super Bowl LIV MVP before the 2020 campaign gets underway? The former Texas Tech product has made it clear, at least, that he doesn’t see himself leaving the organization anytime soon, trusting that the Chiefs will ultimately get a deal done ‘the right way.’

“I want to be a Chief for a long time,” Mahomes told ESPN on Friday. “I want to have a contract that says that and then I can go out there and know I have that security and everything like that. I understand and trust the Chiefs’ organization and everybody in it will handle it the right way. I trust my representation that they’re going to ease my mind and let me go out there and just love the game that I’ve loved playing. Whenever it happens, it happens.”

According to ESPN NFL insider Jeremy Fowler, several variables stand in the way of whether or not the Chiefs get Mahomes a contract extension, laying out the details regarding money and a tentative timeline for an agreement.

“On both sides of that, very preliminary discussions,” Fowler said Friday evening on ESPN’s SportsCenter. “It’s early, but it’s been a feeling-out process and both sides know there will be a gap in money early on because, as one source told me, there’s no way, early on, that he’s going to take less than $40 million on a new deal — that’s just what his market is going to be.”

In addition to Mahomes, the Chiefs are also still trying to sort through matters with defensive tackle Chris Jones, who was voted a first-time Pro Bowl pick at the end of the 2019 season.

“He’s on the franchise tag,” Fowler said of Jones. “I’m told his market is well above $20 million per year in a long-term deal. That’s just what it’s going to take to get it done with him. The Chiefs know that.”

As far as when a long-term deal for Mahomes will happen, the Chiefs’ front office has previously called the extension a priority, but chairman Clark Hunt also remarked January that a timetable of 12 to 15 months was a “reasonable” time frame, according to ESPN.

Mahomes, who turns 25 in September, signed a four-year deal for north of $16 million after the Chiefs selected the former Red Raider with the No. 10 overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft. After sitting the 2017 season and logging just one game, a start, he took off in his full 2018 campaign as Kansas City’s quarterback. Mahomes was named the NFL’s MVP in 2018 after going 12-4 and completing 383 of 580 passes (66.0 percent) for 5,097 yards and 50 touchdowns to 12 interceptions in 16 regular-season games, with the Chiefs reaching the AFC Championship Game that year.

Mahomes came back in 2019, only his second year as the starter and third NFL season, and led the Chiefs to another division title before breaking through in the postseason for the team’s first Super Bowl title since the 1969 season. He went 11-3 in 14 regular-season games, completing 319 of 484 passes (65.9 percent) for 4,031 yards and 26 touchdowns to five interceptions.