NFL
These are the biggest salaries in the NFL playoffs: Players with the largest paychecks in the postseason
Only six of the NFL’s 10 top earners, in terms of average salary per season, will be involved in the postseason.
Football’s top stars will do battle to be crowned Super Bowl champion when the 2025 NFL playoffs get underway with the Wild Card round on Saturday (January 11). That, in theory at least, should also mean the league’s biggest earners will go head to head in the 13 remaining games this season.
NFL contracts are complicated beasts, with different ways to rank who earns the most. Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, for instance, has the most lucrative contract in NFL history at $450 million over 10 years, although that works out at ‘only’ $45 million per season, which isn’t enough for a place in the top 10.
The NFL’s top 10 earners in the 2024 season
We’ve taken a salary-per-season approach, which means the top 10 highest earners, who are all quarterbacks, are as follows:
- Dak Prescott (QB, Dallas Cowboys) - $60 million
- Jordan Love (QB, Green Bay Packers) - $55 million
- Trevor Lawrence (QB, Jacksonville Jaguars) - $55 million
- Joe Burrow (QB, Cincinnati Bengals) - $55 million
- Tua Tagovailoa (QB, Miami Dolphins) $53.1 million
- Jared Goff (QB, Detroit Lions), $53 million
- Justin Herbert (QB, Los Angeles Chargers), $52.5 million
- Lamar Jackson (QB, Baltimore Ravens), $52 million
- Jalen Hurts (QB, Philadelphia Eagles), $51 million
- Kyler Murray (QB, Arizona Cardinals), $46.1 million
That earlier theory, the one about the highest earners being the best performing, immediately breaks down when we look at the list.
Big NFL earners not playing in the 2025 NFL playoffs
Top earner Dak Prescott won’t feature in the postseason after the Dallas Cowboys finished 11th in the NFC with a 7-10 record. The quarterback only played eight games due to injury, so he’s not entirely to blame.
Similarly, Trevor Lawrence’s Jaguars (4-13), Joe Burrows’ Cincinnati Bengals (9-8) and Kyler Murray’s Arizona Cardinals (8-9) also failed to make the playoffs.
That means only six of the top 10 earners in the NFL, based on their annual salary, will be playing in the upcoming games.
To make up a new top 10 of highest-earning players who will actually be involved in this year’s NFL playoffs, we have to look past Deshaun Watson of the Cleveland Browns ($46 million) and the Atlanta Falcons’ Kirk Cousins ($45 million) to get to Mahomes (also $45 million, as mentioned), Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills ($43 million) and the LA Rams’ Matthew Stafford ($40 million. Again, every name mentioned so far is a quarterback.
The NFL’s top earning non-quarterback
The non-quarterback who currently has the biggest annual salary in the NFL is Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson, who makes an average of $35 million per season. That makes him the tenth highest earner of the players taking part in the NFL players, and the 18th in the NFL overall (bumped up one place following Daniel Jones’ release from the New York Giants).
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