Record-breaking NFL contracts are reshaping the league’s salary market, with the Highest-Paid NFL Players leading a new era of massive quarterback deals and rising pay across every position.
The gap between NFL quarterback salaries and everyone else’s has never been wider. Entering the 2026 season, every single contract in the league’s top 10 by average annual value belongs to a quarterback — a reflection of just how much teams are now willing to pay to lock down stability at the sport’s most important position, even as the salary cap itself has climbed past $300 million per team.
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The League’s Highest-Paid Player: Patrick Mahomes
Patrick Mahomes sits atop the NFL’s pay scale with a restructured contract carrying an average annual value of $63.09 million, a deal that extends through 2033 and made him the first player in league history to surpass $500 million in total contract value. It’s a fitting position for a three-time Super Bowl MVP whose résumé already places him among the sport’s most accomplished quarterbacks, and his deal remains the benchmark every subsequent quarterback contract gets measured against.
The Top 10 Contracts by Average Annual Value
Using average annual value (AAV) — the standard measure for comparing contracts regardless of signing bonus structure or guaranteed-money timing — here’s how the league’s richest deals stack up entering 2026:
- Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City Chiefs — $63.09 million
- Dak Prescott, Dallas Cowboys — $60 million
- Matthew Stafford, Los Angeles Rams — $55 million (tied)
- Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills — $55 million (tied)
- Joe Burrow, Cincinnati Bengals — $55 million (tied)
- Trevor Lawrence, Jacksonville Jaguars — $55 million (tied)
- Jordan Love, Green Bay Packers — $55 million (tied)
- Brock Purdy, San Francisco 49ers — $53 million (tied)
- Jared Goff, Detroit Lions — $53 million (tied)
- Justin Herbert, Los Angeles Chargers — $52.5 million
Every name on that list is a starting quarterback, and several — Prescott, Burrow, Love and Purdy among them — signed their deals within the past two seasons, underscoring how quickly the position’s market has continued to climb. Dak Prescott’s $60 million average made him the NFL’s first player to cross that threshold when he signed his extension with Dallas, a title he held only briefly before Mahomes’ revised deal pushed the ceiling even higher.
The Highest-Paid Non-Quarterback: Will Anderson Jr.
Outside the quarterback position, the market looks very different. Houston Texans edge rusher Will Anderson Jr. is the highest-paid non-quarterback in the league at $50 million per year, a figure that would rank comfortably inside the top 10 quarterback deals but still trails Mahomes’ AAV by more than $13 million. The gap illustrates just how much of a premium teams place on quarterback play compared to every other position, even star-level pass rushers capable of dictating an entire opposing offense’s game plan.
Highest-Paid Players by Position
Beyond the overall top 10, several positional benchmarks were reset heading into the 2026 season:
Running back: Jahmyr Gibbs of the Detroit Lions became the position’s highest-paid player with a three-year, $67.5 million contract that can reach $75.75 million with incentives, including $51.5 million guaranteed — surpassing the deal Saquon Barkley signed with the Philadelphia Eagles earlier in the same offseason.
Wide receiver: Jaxon Smith-Njigba of the Seattle Seahawks tops the position with a four-year, $168.8 million contract carrying a $42.15 million AAV, a deal that followed a season in which he led the league in both receptions and receiving yards.
Tight end: George Kittle of the San Francisco 49ers holds the position’s top mark, reflecting his continued role as one of the league’s most complete two-way tight ends.
Offensive line: Darnell Wright’s extension includes the most guaranteed money ever given to an offensive lineman, part of a broader trend of teams increasingly prioritizing long-term investment in blindside and interior protection.
Kicker: Brandon Aubrey’s deal made him the highest-paid kicker in NFL history, a notable data point given how rarely kicking contracts make headlines compared to skill-position deals.
Why Quarterback Salaries Keep Climbing So Fast
The quarterback market resets almost every year now, and the pattern behind it is fairly consistent. Once one franchise quarterback signs a deal at a new high-water mark, it typically takes only a year or two before another team feels pressure to keep pace for its own quarterback, particularly if that player has delivered playoff success or is entering a contract year with genuine alternatives on the open market. Mahomes’ extension through 2033 was itself, in part, a response to the deals signed by Prescott and the cluster of quarterbacks now earning $55 million annually — Stafford, Allen, Burrow, Lawrence and Love. As the salary cap continues to grow alongside the league’s media rights revenue, teams have more room to accommodate these deals, which removes one of the traditional brakes on how high quarterback pay can climb.
Average Annual Value vs. Guaranteed Money: An Important Distinction
It’s worth understanding that average annual value, while the standard way to rank and compare contracts, isn’t the only meaningful number in a deal. Guaranteed money — the portion of a contract truly protected regardless of injury or performance — often matters more to a player’s actual financial security, and it doesn’t always track perfectly with AAV rankings. A player with a slightly lower average salary but a much higher guaranteed-money figure may, in practical terms, have secured a stronger deal than a player with a higher AAV but more performance-based or non-guaranteed language built into the back end of the contract. Jahmyr Gibbs’ $51.5 million guaranteed on a $67.5 million deal, for instance, is a notably high guarantee rate compared to many running back contracts, which tend to include less protected money than deals at other positions.
The Bottom Line
Patrick Mahomes’ $63.09 million average annual salary leads a quarterback market that has separated itself dramatically from every other position in the sport, with Dak Prescott and a crowded group of $55 million passers close behind. Outside the quarterback position, Will Anderson Jr.’s $50 million deal stands as the current non-QB ceiling, while new positional benchmarks at running back, wide receiver, tight end, offensive line and kicker show that the broader trend toward record-setting contracts extends well beyond the sport’s most valuable position. With the salary cap continuing to climb, this list is unlikely to stay fixed for long — another quarterback extension or a fresh star payday is rarely more than an offseason away.
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