As always, when one player signs a massive contract in the National Football League, it has a ripple effect around the league, especially when it’s a young quarterback.
With the news coming down on Monday that the Dallas Cowboys and quarterback Dak Prescott have agreed to a four-year, $160 million extension, it put things a bit more into focus on what the Buffalo Bills may be looking at with Josh Allen as his rookie contract is set to expire.
Allen is set to earn less than $1 million in base salary for the 2021 season, but carries a salary cap hit of $6.9 million due to the prorated signing bonus of his original four-year deal. The Bills have until May 3 of this year to exercise a fifth-year option for 2022, which, at this time, projects to be north of $21 million. Absent an extension before May 3, there’s no doubt the Bills will exercise that option on the league’s second-leading vote-getter for MVP last season.
Many have wondered and debated what an Allen extension might look like. Back in December, Spotrac placed Allen’s next contract valuation just north of $42 million per-season, behind only Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who has an annual average salary of $45 million per-season.
Based on Prescott‘s new deal, that valuation for Allen seems like it could be right around the perfect landing spot, if the Bills and player were to work out a new deal this offseason. That figure would still place Allen as the second-highest paid quarterback in the NFL on a per-year basis, just ahead of Prescott ($40 million), Deshaun Watson ($39 million), and Russell Wilson ($35 million). It’s no coincidence that the top-three paid quarterbacks all signed their contracts within the past 12 months. That’s what happens with big contracts for important players. Whenever one gets signed, the next at the position comes in on top of it.
Allen and 2019 league MVP Lamar Jackson of the Baltimore Ravens are next. Both are staring at new deals possibly coming this offseason.
The Bills can either exercise Allen’s fifth-year option and have him play his fourth year under his current deal, or look to sign something now, locking in their long-term price.
With the salary cap going down this season and the Bills having some other decisions to make, it’s not the ideal situation to give Allen a massive bump in pay in 2021. However, Bills general manager Brandon Beane told WGR at the end of January:
“I think we can make something fit…I definitely think it can be done.” So it sounds like the team is very willing to go forward this off-season with an extension."
That would be the smart thing to do, especially now knowing what Prescott signed for.
Aside from Allen and Jackson both looking to sign new deals soon, so will Cleveland Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield. All three were drafted in 2018.
Next offseason, Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray will be eligible for his first extension. Then it will likely be Joe Burrow of the Cincinnati Bengals, Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert, Tua Tagovailoa of the Miami Dolphins, and even Jalen Hurts, who is now the starting quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles, all prior to the 2023 season. All of those may seem far down the road, but they would be at the same time Allen’s fifth-year option expired.
And who knows if any other quarterbacks will have their current contracts restructured or ask for new ones?
Although some on that list may not appear to be worthy of commanding as much as Allen, if they are next up, they’ll most likely be asking for that kind of money - if not more - especially with the salary cap projected to skyrocket over the next five years or so due to the league signing new television deals and fans returning to stadiums.
So that $42.1 million market valuation from Spotrac could be dead-on for a new Allen contract, if signed this offseason.
But the Bills don’t necessarily have to give that huge bump to Allen right away, even with a new deal this offseason.
In fact, the Bills already have one model of their own they can use for Allen’s contract structure. The team was in a similar situation last offseason with All-Pro cornerback Tre’Davious White. They exercised his fifth-year option in May, then signed him to a four-year extension in September. That four years doesn’t actually kick in until after the fifth-year option has expired, prior to the 2022 season. But White got $69 million in new money, with $55 million in total guarantees.
Obviously, the money would be much higher for Allen considering he’s a franchise quarterback, but this type of model would allow the team to lock him in now, with his salary among the top in the league, but before others start escalating the market. It would also give him security and the team stability with their own cap situation for the next several years.
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