Josh Allen contract details: Salary, years left with the Bills...

Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen has finished in the top three in MVP voting for four straight seasons and led the Bills to their fifth straight playoff appearance last year. He’s without question one of the best quarterbacks in the league right now and at 28 years old, he’s still got some good years ahead of him. The Bills recognized this potential back in 2021 and signed him to a six-year, $258 million contract with an average annual salary of $43 million that in today’s day puts him at just the 14th highest-paid quarterback in the league. Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott, ranks as the highest-paid in 2024 with an annual salary of $60 million. That’s not something that bothers Allen though.

“Listen, everyone is going to have their day,” Allen said back in August. “I’m happy that everyone is getting what they’re worth, right? I think as the game progresses and guys keep getting paid, the market is the market. And I’ve got no problem with where I am at (financially) right now.”

Still, the Bills ended up renegotiating Allen’s contract this offseason to give him a bit of a deserved pay raise, but we’ll get to that.

Josh Allen’s rapidly increasing worth

The Buffalo Bills drafted the 28-year-old as the seventh overall pick in 2018. The Bills traded up from 12th with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to land Allen. So it was in the summer of 2018 that the rookie signed a four-year contract worth a fully guaranteed $21 million, with a $5.3 million annual salary for the duration of the contract.

Of course, quite a bit has happened since then, including two consecutive AFC East titles with Allen at the helm. That $5.3 million has already gone up to an average annual $43 million with the six-year extension Allen signed in 2021. It’s worth noting that when he signed the extension, he was in the fourth year of his rookie deal, which allowed the Bills to exercise an option to tie him to the team for a fifth year.

What does Josh Allen’s current contract look like?

Allen’s current contract came with $100 million fully guaranteed and $150 million guaranteed for the duration of the contract. There was an initial signing bonus of $16.5 million. Allen was reportedly paid an option bonus of $42.5 million in 2022 to go with a further $30 million in incentives. The option bonus itself was used to split Allen’s signing bonus while maintaining control of his cap hit in 2021.

In March, the Bills restructured Allen’s contract to open up cap space. They converted the base salary to “signing bonus” to spread the cap hit over five years (instead of just one). In addition, the Bills actually moved up $30 million in salary from the future of his contract into 2024. So, rather than the $30 million he would have earned this year, Allen will actually earn twice that at $60 million.

Whether he was okay with it or not, in comparison to other quarterbacks like Prescott, Jared Goff, Jordan Love, and Lamar Jackson, Allen really was severely underpaid. Now, Allen will have a four-year total of $155 million to be more on the level of those QBs. Typically, a contract extension would be the answer to a pay raise, but Allen still has five years left on his current contract, so this move made the most sense. It’s exactly what the Kansas City Chiefs did with Patrick Mahomes in 2023.

Allen will be 32 years old when his contract expires in 2029, barring a situation where the Bills choose to either alter the terms or release him. Clearly, the Bills have great faith in Josh Allen. Consider for a moment that his contract was just $5.3 million when he first signed with the team. Today, that figure is significantly higher and is set to continue increasing as the duration of the contract runs its course.