National Football League

The NFL will have $100-million QB sooner than you think

Published Mar. 21, 2022 3:59 p.m. ET

By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports Columnist

One day, in a time far, far away, a future version of this column will be dedicated to talking about the player who just received the NFL’s first $100-million-a-year contract.

It will be a milestone moment, a step into the nine-figure realm, a reward for — you’d imagine — a transcendent athlete who ticks all the boxes of excellence you’d expect for such a ground-breaking sum.

Hopefully, I’ll still be around and will be the one to pen the words. You can never be sure of these things, but — truth be told and without wishing to tempt fate — I like my chances.

Because we might not have long to wait.

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Remember all the "time far, far away" stuff at the beginning? Forget about that, I was just being dramatic. It’s not far away at all.

Getting from Aaron Rodgers’ just-inked annual pay deal of $50 million per to something twice that much looks and feels like one heck of a leap, but that’s only because all those zeroes on the end of $100,000,000 make your head spin if you stare at them for too long (please don’t try).

As you are reminded every time you visit the gas pump, inflation is real. And, as you are reminded with every offseason bout of fiscal muscle-flexing, the NFL — particularly in regard to its quarterbacks — operates amid a warp-speed version of it.

A glance at how the QB market has ballooned over the past few years, combined with the expectation of further salary cap increases, means we need to start wrapping our head around even greater numbers sooner than later.

Of course, when the time comes, the $100-million man might not be a quarterback. On a similar scale of likeliness, the NFL might be about to replace the pigskin with a ping pong ball for all forthcoming games and Marshawn Lynch might be about to make a comeback as the Seattle Seahawks’ placekicker.

Yes, it’s going to be a quarterback.

Signal-callers own the market. In terms of average salary per year, they currently occupy the first 12 spots, according to Spotrac. The last time a non-QB held a top 10 position based on average was when Khalil Mack’s mega-deal with the Chicago Bears sneaked him into ninth in 2018.

In 2012, Drew Brees was given the first $20 million-a-year deal, a reward for his years of elite service with the New Orleans Saints. Over the following seasons, things at the top of the scale crept forward rather tamely. Five years later, the top average earner was Matthew Stafford, then making $27 million with the Detroit Lions.

By the time Atlanta Falcons QB Matt Ryan received the first $30 million-a-year contract, in 2018, there had been 22 deals in the $20 million range handed out, including two to both Brees and Joe Flacco.

Then things sped up some. Only eight contracts in the "30s" were awarded, and only two years elapsed before the Kansas City Chiefs locked up Patrick Mahomes to the tune of $45 million a year.

And only three "40s" deals would be done — Mahomes, Josh Allen and Dak Prescott — before the $50-million benchmark was reached, Rodgers turning his long-standing saga with the Green Bay Packers into so much green that he doesn’t need any discounts, on anything, whether there is a double-check involved or not.

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So here is how it goes presently: Rodgers has set the market, for now, and therefore, a bunch of $40 million-range contracts will start getting backfilled. Cue Deshaun Watson landing five years and $230 million in Cleveland and Stafford securing $160 million over four years with the Super Bowl champion Rams.

That sound you hear? It is the licking of lips among the football agent community. Every negotiator loves a precedent, and you can be sure that those pulling the strings for Lamar Jackson and Kyler Murray will be eyeing the Watson number at a minimum.

Joe Burrow and Justin Herbert are just a year away from being eligible for new deals. If either of those were able to land a Super Bowl ring in the meantime? The Rodgers mark would likely be smashed, and we’d be off and running toward $60 million.

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It is more money than most of us can fathom, and you wonder how anyone could possibly find a way to spend it all. In reality, it boils down to economics. Sure, even the wealthiest of NFL owners might gulp as salaries head north of $50 million and keep on climbing.

But that’s the cost of doing business and the cost of trying to win. Quarterbacks don’t come with any guarantees, but in the ultimate best-case scenario, they hold the key to glory, the pursuit of which is what loosens the purse strings more than anything.

The $100-million day will arrive before you know it. And, when it happens, you’ll look back at Rodgers’ piece of contract history — and it will somehow seem cheap.

Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider Newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.