If chicks dig the long ball in baseball, then men surely dig quarterbacks in football. If you thumb through the books you will find the top-ten biggest NFL contracts ever belong to quarterbacks. That's true this year, next year, and every year. Just look at some of these swollen salaries for pro passers.
1. Dak Prescott / Dallas Cowboys
$75 million / 2021
This is literally just in. After suffering an injury to his ankle that was so gruesome - the bone popped out of the skin - it made hardened NFL players tremble, the question of whether it will impact his status as Cowboys QB has just been emphatically settled. Jerry Jones opened his checkbook wide open and gave Prescott a four-year, $160 million deal with $126 guaranteed, including a record first-year salary of $75 million. Even the most hardwired NFL beat writers didn't have the answer to the Jerry Jones - Dak Prescott salary squabbled. Turned out there was no squabble at all. It's good to be the QB of America's Team.
2. Aaron Rodgers / Green Bay Packers
$66.9 million / 2018
We're so quick to hand the baton of best QB to the youngsters that we forget how much we jam to the oldies. It may be blasphemy to say Rodgers is better than Bart Starr and Brett Favre - two Green Bay gridiron gods who need no defending - but in terms of pure talent, he is (which explains his $66.9 million salary in 2018, $57.5 million of which was a signing bonus). The brooding intellectual part is what makes Rodgers seem so distant and condescending. He's not the cheerleading kind of guy most folks expect from quarterbacks, the spiritual leader of the team who picks up anyone who falls down. But Rodgers reads defenses and throws a football so well that his salary is, frankly, a discount. The Packers are a stumbling mess without him. They are four quarters from the Super Bowl - exactly where they finished the last two seasons - with him.
3. Russell Wilson / Seattle Seahawks
$53 million / 2020
If the NFL needed a Captain America, Wilson would be the perfect person for the role. Wilson is tough, smart, fast, and built hard as a fireplug. He's one of those Jimmy Stewart types, who's always smiling and seems too cheerful to be true. But he really is. And he's a great player, played in two Super Bowls, and won one of them. If you think his choices on the field are intelligent, consider he's married to an impossibly beautiful singer named Ciara, with whom he has a couple kids. If life can get better for a man, please email us. By the way, $35 of his $53 million salary was - you guessed it - a signing bonus. What's scary is he will likely get a raise soon, and deserve it.
4. Matthew Stafford / Detroit Lions
$51.1 million / 2017
Sure, Stafford was just traded to the Los Angeles Rams, but until he plays a single game for them, his considerable salary has been exclusively paid by the Lions. Detroit has tried to "Restore the Roar" for decades, and are one of very few teams that have neither won nor played in a Super Bowl. (Their last NFL title came in 1957.) Even without a ring, Stafford has done well for himself, earning over $225 million in his NFL career, including $51.1 million in 2017, even if $50 million of that was a signing bonus. Stafford, long considered one of the most talented and nicest guys in the league, now gets to play for coaching wunderkind Sean McVay and get a real shot at a Super Bowl.
5. Patrick Mahomes / Kansas City Chiefs
$45 million / 2020
Sometimes we gawk at a pro athlete's contract and wonder why they get paid more in a day than we do in a decade.Then you watch quarterback Patrick Mahomes and understand. Mahomes is one of the few football players - or players of any sport - whose talent tells the story. He has the Herculean strength to heave a football out of Arrowhead Stadium - we've seen the video - yet has the touch and talent to toss a ball behind his back to an open receiver. It makes sense that Mahomes can throw, as his father is a former MLB pitcher. But this other stuff proves he's either a comic book character come to life or a demigod humoring us through football. In fact, you may someday argue that Patrick Mahomes was underpaid at $45 million. If he stays healthy, Mahomes will have every salient record in the NFL archives.
6. Matt Ryan / Atlanta Falcons
$44.8 million / 2019
Perhaps the least talented among the final four, but still good enough to get the Falcons to the Super Bowl, where he was leading 28-3 in the second half. Sadly, his opponent was a man named Brady, who engineered the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history, and left Ryan as the punchline and bridesmaid that winter and beyond. Ryan, who was out of Boston College in 2008 and has played for the Falcons ever since. Naturally, his $44,8 million salary two years ago included $42 million in signing bonuses. There are rumors that Ryan will get traded while Atlanta completely rebuilds for the first time since the 1860s.
7. Drew Brees / New Orleans Saints (2012), Kirk Cousins / Minnesota Vikings (2020), Alex Smith / Kansas City Chiefs (2018)
$40 million
Brees - who will retire at or near the top of all passing records - got $37 million of his $40 million in a signing bonus in 2012. He is by far the best QB among the three tied at No. 6.
Cousins - who has either the greatest agent or greatest luck in NFL history - got $30 of his $40 million salary by signing bonus in 2020.
Smith - who has a most common name but most uncommon character - came back from perhaps the most gruesome leg injury anyone has seen on a football field. Not only did he suffer a compound fracture in his leg, he developed a flesh-eating bacteria that almost led doctors to amputate his knob of a leg below the knee. He got his $40 million salary in 2018, $27 million of which was a signing bonus.
10. Eli Manning / New York Giants
$37 million / 2015
Once again, the younger Manning brother is sneaky good. Not only did he beat Tom Brady in two Super Bowls, while older brother Peyton struggled against the GOAT, Eli made more money - for one year and for his career - despite the fact that Peyton was clearly a better quarterback than Eli. Must make for some fun Thanksgiving dinner chats.
11. Ben Roethlisberger / Pittsburgh Steelers
$35.3 million / 2015
This number, of course, includes a $31 million signing bonus. We know why. Pittsburgh darted out to an 11-0 record in 2020, which made Big Ben's return from injury the story of the NFL season. Then the Steelers fell apart and lost their first playoff game to - it's hard to even say it - the Cleveland Browns - against whom Big Ben was 17-2 over his career. So instead of morphing into a wonderful comeback story, Ben Roethlisbrget is now a 38-year-old washout with a surgically repaired throwing elbow and more memories than abilities. Lord knows Big Ben, the tough, big, mobile QB who was born to play in big games in cold weather, has been the perfect emblem of Pittsburgh's hard-hat ethos. And his two Super Bowl wins earn him enough credit for a curtain call, which this season will surely be. He will just make less money to say goodbye.
12. Peyton Manning / Indianapolis Colts
$35 million / 2004
About 99% of this salary was a signing bonus ($34.5 million). Maybe Manning has suffered some indignities at the hand of his kid brother, but Peyton has done pretty well for himself. He made almost $249 million just in football salary over his career. This is to say nothing of his Papa John's pizza deal or State Farm insurance commercials or any of the myriad products he plugs. It's hard to think of two better sibling quarterbacks in our planet's history than Peyton and Eli Manning. For sure we can't think of two prouder football parents than Archie and Olivia Manning, who raised a crop of crazy good football players.
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