After a record-breaking offseason for contracts, the Detroit Lions’ Jared Goff leads a group of 10 gridiron stars collectively hauling in an estimated $644 million this year.
By Brett Knight, Forbes Staff
An NFL offseason that doled out a record $12.4 billion in new contracts—a whopping $2 billion beyond the mark set in 2022, according to data tracking by Spotrac—also set or matched the high for average annual contract value at 13 different positions. The football trailblazers include left tackle Tristan Wirfs, poised to make an average of $28.1 million a year with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Detroit Lions right tackle Penei Sewell, who will earn $28 million on average. The Kansas City Chiefs’ Chris Jones lifted the ceiling for defensive tackles to $31.8 million while Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson, at $35 million, is now the top-earning player who is not a quarterback.
It’s a long list of names, and a whole lot of cash. But this season, even a record payday isn’t enough to guarantee a spot on the list of the NFL’s 10 highest-paid players.
That honor is reserved for nine star quarterbacks—led by the Detroit Lions’ Jared Goff with an estimated $85.6 million, including his playing contract, endorsements and other business endeavors—plus Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, who comes in at No. 7 with an estimated $52 million.
Combined, the top 10 players are set to collect $644 million in the 2024 league year (before taxes and agents’ fees), demolishing the record of $508 million set last year. The total is more than twice what the top 10 took home just seven years ago, when 2017’s list collectively earned $296 million. And the $47 million cutoff for this year’s top 10 is up 15% from 2023’s record $41 million.
For the third year in a row, the list includes at least nine quarterbacks, and there have been no fewer than seven since 2018. Kelce is the lone aberration thanks to a monstrous $35 million in estimated off-field income, the best mark in the 15-year history of Forbes’ ranking by any player not named Tom Brady. (In each of his final two years with the Buccaneers, Brady hauled in at least $44 million off the field, according to Forbes estimates.) The largest chunk of Kelce’s money will come from the New Heights podcast he co-hosts with his brother, former Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce, after they struck a three-year deal with Amazon’s Wondery in August for a minimum of $105 million over three years, according to a person with knowledge of the agreement.
That abruptly ends a one-year reign by Travis Kelce’s Chiefs teammate Patrick Mahomes as football’s off-field king. But Mahomes, who has lucrative endorsement deals including Adidas, State Farm and Subway, is still head and shoulder pads above the rest of the league with an estimated $25 million in off-field earnings. No other player in the top 10 for total earnings expects to make more than $10 million away from the game this year, according to Forbes estimates.
The real boost to NFL players’ pay is coming on the field as teams’ revenue soars, up 8% year over year to an average of $630 million last season, according to Forbes estimates. Because the league’s collective bargaining agreement guarantees players at least 48% of all revenue, those increases are driving up the salary cap—to $255.4 million this season, a $30 million increase over 2023—and giving front offices more money to spend. Just look at wide receiver, where the five top contracts ever as measured by average annual value—and 10 of the top 15 for the position—were signed within the last six months, according to Spotrac tracking.
Of course, no matter a contract’s average annual value, what an NFL player actually receives in any 12-month span can vary widely. For instance, Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love got a record $75 million signing bonus, paid upfront, boosting him to No. 3 on the earnings ranking with a total of $80.5 million for 2024. His on-field pay is reportedly due to drop to $13 million next year, however, before rocketing back up to $51 million in 2026. A different bonus structure left the Jacksonville Jaguars’ Trevor Lawrence and the Miami Dolphins’ Tua Tagovailoa just shy of the top 10 for 2024, even though their average annual figures ($55 million and $53.1 million, respectively) are in line with Love’s $55 million.
Those fluctuations ensure that the NFL’s top 10—unlike, say, the NBA’s highest-paid players—looks quite a bit different every year, with now-retired quarterback Drew Brees standing as the last back-to-back earnings leader, from 2012 and 2013. But there may already be a favorite to lead the 2025 list: Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott, who is entering the final season of a four-year contract and had hoped to sign an extension this offseason.
His patience may be rewarded—and the NFL’s contract record book may need another rewrite.
Editor’s note: After the publication of this article, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott signed a contract extension for a reported four years and $240 million, with a record $80 million signing bonus and a record average annual value of $60 million. He is due to make $86.3 million on the field during the 2024 league year, plus an estimated $10 million off the field. Prescott’s new contract will be reflected on Forbes’ 2025 list of the world’s highest-paid athletes.
#1. $85.6 million
Jared Goff
Age: 29 | Position: Quarterback | Team: Detroit Lions | On-Field: $80.6 million • Off-Field: $5 million
Kevin Sabitus/Getty Images
After guiding the Lions to their first playoff appearance in seven years, Goff received a four-year, $212 million contract extension in May, with $170 million in practical guarantees plus a no-trade clause. His $73 million signing bonus stood as an NFL record for two months, until Jordan Love eclipsed him with $75 million from the Packers. Goff supplements his income with endorsements from brands including Ford, Old Spice and—appropriately—Jared jewelers, and it appears he knows how to spend it: Last year, he bought neighboring homes in Manhattan Beach, California, for $10.5 million and $8.6 million, among the most expensive real estate transactions by a sports figure in 2023, according to analysis by luxury real estate brokerage RubyHome Northwest.
#2. $81 million
Patrick Mahomes
Age: 28 | Position: Quarterback | Team: Kansas City Chiefs | On-Field: $56 million • Off-Field: $25 million
Reed Hofmann/Associated Press
Mahomes, who turns 29 this month, still has the largest contract in NFL history as measured by total value, with the 10-year, $450 million deal he signed in 2020. On an annual basis, however, he’s been surpassed: 10 quarterbacks now have higher per-year averages. As Mahomes seeks a third straight Super Bowl title, and fourth overall, the question is when the Chiefs will give him a raise—although he isn’t agitating for one. “It’s awesome for the game of football,” Mahomes told USA Today in July, commenting on the megadeals for rising stars Jordan Love and Tua Tagovailoa. “I’m doing pretty well myself.” Mahomes can certainly afford to take that magnanimous attitude given he has the best portfolio of traditional endorsements in football, including a deal he picked up with Prime sports drinks in December after his previous beverage sponsor, BioSteel, declared bankruptcy last September. Mahomes also launched Throne Sport Coffee in May as the company’s second-largest shareholder, and he was a producer on the Netflix docuseries Receiver.
#3. $80.5 million
Jordan Love
Age: 25 | Position: Quarterback | Team: Green Bay Packers | On-Field: $79 million • Off-Field: $1.5 million
John Fisher/Getty Images
A first-round draft pick in 2020, Love served as the backup to Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay for three seasons before breaking out in 2023, throwing for 4,159 yards and 32 touchdowns as the Packers’ starting quarterback. Expectations are much higher for his follow-up campaign: A poll of coaches and executives by the Athletic had Love 14th among quarterbacks, up 13 spots from 2023, and the NFL Network’s Top 100, an annual survey of active players, ranked him 34th across all positions. It’s risky to hand a four-year, $220 million contract to a player with 18 career starts, as the Packers did in July, but remember, Rodgers had just seven when Green Bay gave him a five-year extension in 2008. “The nice thing about having a guy in your building for the last four years is you absolutely know who he is,” Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst told reporters in March amid negotiations with Love. “There’s no guarantees about anything going forward. But we know how he’s going to respond and how he’s going to react and how he’s going to work.”
#4. $69.7 million
Joe Burrow
Age: 27 | Position: Quarterback | Team: Cincinnati Bengals | On-Field: $65.7 million • Off-Field: $4 million
Dylan Buell/Getty Images
Burrow signed a five-year, $275 million extension with the Bengals last September and cracks this year’s earnings top 10 primarily because of a $55 million option bonus paid during the offseason. A wrist injury cut short his 2023 season, but Burrow recently told Sports Illustrated that he used the time off to add muscle mass. Off the field, the quarterback with a seemingly endless list of nicknames—including Joe Cool, Joe Brrr and Joe Shiesty—walked in the Vogue World 2024 fashion show alongside his college teammate Justin Jefferson and switched one high-profile sponsorship from Nike to Alo Yoga, helping unveil the company’s first running shoe in August.
#5. $66.6 million
Justin Herbert
Age: 26 | Position: Quarterback | Team: Los Angeles Chargers | On-Field: $56.6 million • Off-Field: $10 million
Alika Jenner/Getty Images
Like Burrow, Justin Herbert inked a massive new contract in 2023 that paid out a hefty option bonus during the 2024 offseason—in his case, a five-year, $262.5 million extension with a $50.6 million bonus. He also has another $45 million in bonus money due for 2025. The young Chargers star threw his 1,500th completion in his 57th career game in November—becoming the fastest player in NFL history to reach the milestone, ahead of Patrick Mahomes and Matthew Stafford, who took 62 games—and his 17,223 passing yards are the most in a player’s first four seasons, beating Peyton Manning’s 16,418. Herbert is also a burgeoning star off the field, appearing in commercials for SoFi, TCL and Dr. Squatch soap.
#6. $65 million
Kirk Cousins
Age: 36 | Position: Quarterback | Team: Atlanta Falcons | On-Field: $62.5 million • Off-Field: $2.5 million
Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images
After six seasons with the Minnesota Vikings that included three Pro Bowl selections, Cousins jumped to the Atlanta Falcons in March with a four-year, $180 million free-agent deal, replacing quarterbacks Desmond Ridder and Taylor Heinicke. Atlanta complicated the situation by selecting University of Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. eighth overall in April’s draft, but Cousins has publicly maintained a conciliatory tone and said his goal remains winning a Super Bowl as he returns from an Achilles tear that ended his 2023 season. Beyond football, Cousins works with 10 brands, including Mercedes-Benz (the naming rights sponsor of the Falcons’ stadium) and Truist bank (whose name adorns the nearby home of MLB’s Braves).
#7. $52 million
Travis Kelce
Age: 34 | Position: Tight end | Team: Kansas City Chiefs | On-Field: $17 million • Off-Field: $35 million
David Eulitt/Getty Images
Kelce’s fame reached a new level after he started dating billionaire pop star Taylor Swift last year, helping him earn $2.4 million from jersey sales, video games and other group licensing income over the 12 months that ended in February—the fourth-best total in the league, according to an annual NFL Players Association filing with the U.S. Department of Labor. Kelce will now serve as the host of Prime Video’s Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity?, a 20-episode game show premiering in October, and is acting in the Ryan Murphy-produced FX series Grotesquerie. Meanwhile, Kelce will reportedly appear in the forthcoming action-comedy film Loose Cannons as well as a sequel to Adam Sandler’s 1996 hit Happy Gilmore, and Kelce and his brother Jason, who retired from the Eagles in March, invested in Ohio-based brewery Garage Beer in June. Among more traditional partnerships, Kelce has new deals with A SHOC energy drinks (which includes equity) and General Mills plus an expanded role with Pepsi. Kelce’s on-field earnings might seem almost like an afterthought against all that, but the nine-time Pro Bowler signed a two-year, $34.3 million extension with the Chiefs in April. “I’m not a guy that sits out; I’m not a guy that holds out,” Kelce said on his podcast later that week. “For them to want to be able to get this done for me, knowing how much blood, sweat and tears I put into this thing for them, I’m extremely grateful.”
#8. $49 million
Russell Wilson
Age: 35 | Position: Quarterback | Team: Pittsburgh Steelers | On-Field: $39 million • Off-Field: $10 million
Joe Sargent/Getty Images
The Broncos released Wilson in March after two disappointing seasons in Denver but still had to pay him the $39 million he was guaranteed under his old contract—less the $1.2 million the Steelers will pay him on his new veteran’s-minimum contract. Despite a calf injury that limited him during training camp, the nine-time Pro Bowler prevailed in a quarterback competition with Justin Fields and heads into the 2024 season as Pittsburgh’s starter and one of four team captains. Off the field, Wilson has partnerships with more than a dozen brands, including Bose, Essentia water and Gulfstream jets, and he cofounded a fashion business, the House of LR&C, with his wife, singer Ciara.
#9. $47.2 million
Aaron Rodgers
Age: 40 | Position: Quarterback | Team: New York Jets | On-Field: $38.2 million • Off-Field: $9 million
Michael Owens/Getty Images
Rodgers’ first season with the New York Jets lasted just four snaps as he tore his Achilles tendon in last September’s opener against the Buffalo Bills, but he raced back to practice 77 days after surgery, months faster than any pro athlete had ever recovered from a similar procedure. As he prepared for the 2024 season, in which he could become the ninth NFL quarterback with at least 60,000 career passing yards, Rodgers agreed to a reworked contract with New York for two years and a fully guaranteed $75 million, cutting his pay for 2024 and 2025 by about $35 million total. Even so, the deal will push Rodgers’ career on-field earnings to $418 million, crushing Tom Brady’s old NFL record of $333 million. Rodgers is also still making an estimated $9 million annually off the field, working with brands including ZenWtr and Amberjack dress shoes—two deals that came with equity.
#10. $47 million
Deshaun Watson
Age: 28 | Position: Quarterback | Team: Cleveland Browns | On-Field: $46 million • Off-Field: $1 million
Kirk Irwin/AP
Watson, who turns 29 this month, is entering Year 3 of a five-year, $230 million contract that is fully guaranteed, but he agreed to restructure the deal in August to lower his cap hit for the Browns this season. Last year, he had a 5-1 record in his six starts for Cleveland, but a shoulder fracture forced him onto the injured reserve list in November. Away from the NFL, Watson is an investor in fast-food chain Lefty’s Famous Cheesesteaks and appeared at the opening of the company’s first Ohio restaurant in the spring. Weeks later, he went on a much-publicized tour of Saudi Arabia, apparently as a goodwill ambassador. Watson had not been particularly active off the field since 2021, when more than 20 women accused him of sexual harassment or assault. (Watson has denied the allegations and did not face criminal charges; the NFL fined him $5 million and suspended him for 11 games in 2022.)
METHODOLOGY
The Forbes ranking of the NFL’s highest-paid players reflects on-field earnings—including both base salaries and bonuses—paid in 2024 or in connection with the 2024 season, for contracts signed as of September 4, 2024. Incentives that are based on 2024 individual or team performance are not included. On-field figures are rounded to the nearest $100,000.
The off-field earnings estimates are determined through conversations with industry insiders and are rounded to the nearest $500,000. The figures reflect annual cash from endorsements, licensing, appearances and memorabilia, as well as cash returns from any businesses in which the athlete has a significant interest. Investment income such as interest payments or dividends is not included, but Forbes does account for payouts from equity stakes athletes have sold. Forbes does not deduct for taxes or agents’ fees.
