The AFC has been heavily competitive over the last handful of seasons. It has led to some teams taking drastic gambles to bring in new talent. Some of those moves have gone on to work out. But for others, it has been filled with painful regret due to moves that did not pan out.

The Kansas City Chiefs have had a fairly strong track record with their big-money gambles. There are occasional overpays that have yet to resonate into a return on their investment. Jawaan Taylor’s deal is arguably one that stands out as an overpay, compared to what he has produced on the field. But if you look at one specific category for the 2025 season, Kansas City is sitting in a pretty comfortable position.

The amount of dead cap money throughout the AFC is pretty staggering to look at. But when it comes to the Chiefs, they sit near the top of the conference on the lower end of dead cap money for this season.

According to Jason Fitzgerald of Over The Cap, the Chiefs have just $13.3 million of dead money on the books for 2025. That is the fourth-lowest amount in the AFC, as laid out visually by The 33rd Team.

Only the Indianapolis Colts ($7.3 million), the Pittsburgh Steelers ($6.6 million), and the Cincinnati Bengals ($6.6 million) are due to have less dead money on their books in 2025.

There are plenty of teams in the AFC that are eating a ton of dead money in 2025. Kansas City is not necessarily one of them.

If you just look at the other teams in Kansas City’s division, the difference in dead cap hits is mesmerizing. The Las Vegas Raiders have the most dead cap money on the books in the AFC West this year at $44.3 million. That is also sitting at the third-highest amount in the AFC, overall.

The Denver Broncos have roughly two-and-a-half times more dead money this year than Kansas City. Denver will have to eat $33.5 million in dead cap this season. That is the seventh-highest mark in the AFC. And finally, the Los Angeles Chargers will pay nearly double what the Chiefs will in dead money this season. Their $24.5 million in dead cap is the 10th-most in the conference.

Kansas City has a couple of major decisions looming when it comes to possible contract extensions. The amount that it might require to extend both Trent McDuffie and George Karlaftis will be fascinating. But overall, general manager Brett Veach and his staff have not overextended themselves too often into bad contracts.

Mega-deals like Russell Wilson in Denver, Deshaun Watson in Cleveland, and Aaron Rodgers with the New York Jets have taken up massive dead-cap hits for those teams. And in the case of those quarterback deals, specifically, those teams did not bear any fruit from those moves, whatsoever.

The Chiefs are measured in their spending. It is one thing to look at the very few players that have moved on from Kansas City and have performed well after leaving the Chiefs. But also, Kansas City is simply operating with a structure that has kept them balanced, while other teams chase them and make major decisions in an erratic manner.