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What is an average NFL kicker’s salary and who is the highest paid in the league in 2024?

Football has long since moved away from its roots as a primarily kicking game, often making the position an overlooked art on modern NFL rosters.

Jeffrey MayJeff_DiarioAS
Reem Abdalazem
0
ootball has long since moved away from its roots as a primarily kicking game, often making the position an overlooked art on modern NFL rosters.
DAVID EULITTAFP

The name of the game stems from the fact that the players are on foot, i.e., not on a horse, rather than touching the ball with their feet. The same holds for rugby football, association football, Australian football, Gaelic football, and any other variant of the game that features the name.

It is true that when Americans were first introduced to rugby, they immediately began changing the rules, gently at first, and then with more enthusiasm, so that the kicking element has gradually been eroded in the American version, separating it from its rugby roots to the point where it is now seen as an almost anachronistic part of the game.

Originally, kicking a goal was the only way to score, and the touchdown, known in rugby as a “try,” gave the offensive team the right to “try” and score a point by kicking the ball through the uprights. Realizing that the touchdown was the more difficult of the two elements in the game, points were then attached to it while still leaving the original kicking try, now known as the “point after touchdown,” intact.

The drop kick has been rarely used in recent decades due to the reformation of the shape of the ball to allow for more streamlined forward passes, although it is still a legal play. A movement is underway to remove the kickoff from the game altogether, leaving only the punt and field goal as the remaining elements connecting the NFL to its past.

Who is the highest-paid NFL kicker?

It’s no surprise that Harrison Butker of the Kansas City Chiefs has the highest salary among his fellow kickers.

The KC kicker has been an important part of the team’s success in their last two seasons and he’ll need to be on target in 2024 if the Chiefs want to threapeat.

With a league minimum salary of $750,000 this year, the NFL’s punters, often the least-sung of the kickers, can have a decent wage. But the highest-rated members of this lowest-rated profession can have a salary that is both surprising in how much it is and simultaneously shocking for how low it is.

2024 NFL kicker salary rankings

  1. Harrison Butker, Kansas City Chiefs: $6.4 million (4 years, $25.6)
  2. Justin Tucker, Baltimore Ravens and Jake Elliot, Philadelphia Eagles: $6 million  
  3. Matt Gay, Indianapolis Colts: $5.62 million (4 years, $22.5 million)
  4. Cameron Dicker, Los Angeles Chargers: $5.51 million (4 years, $22.04 million)
  5. Graham Gano, New York Giants: $5.5 million (3 years, $16.5 million)
  6. Jason Myers, Seattle Seahawks: $5.27 million (5 years, $21.1 million)
  7. Ka'imi Fairbairn, Houston Texans and Dustin Hopkins, Cleveland Browns: $5.3 million
  8. Jason Myers, Seattle Seahawks: $5.27 million (5 years, $21.1 million)
  9. Tyler Bass, Buffalo Bills: $5.1 million (4 years, $20.4 million)
  10. Chris Boswell, Pittsburgh Steelers: $5 million (4 years, $20 million)

As in all NFL contracts, the total dollar amount is less significant than the guaranteed or yearly average income. But it is important to remember that these are simply the tip of the iceberg. There are 32 placekickers and 32 punters around the league, plus guys on the practice squads, many of whom earn the league minimum, bringing the average salary for an NFL kicker to $860,000.

It is a shockingly low amount of money for someone who determines the outcome of most games on most weeks. But it is a decent payday if you can get it for a football player who will walk away at the end of their career with their health relatively intact.

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