Justin Herbert And Joe Burrow Are About To Reset Quarterback Contracts Forever

Getty Image / Cooper Neill

It’s no secret that salaries for NFL quarterbacks have been exploding. As the league’s revenue balloons, it seems to be quarterbacks that are benefitting the most.

It makes sense, as a good quarterback is the hardest thing to find in football. Think about how much the lack of a franchise quarterback has hurt teams like the Browns over the past 20 years.

The data on how much those contracts have exploded is nuts. In 2011, Peyton Manning was the highest-paid quarterback at $23 million. Second, ironically, was Sam Bradford, who was still on his rookie contract before the rookie contract scale was imposed. He was making over $18 million.

This year, 14 quarterbacks are making more than Manning did, and Aaron Rodgers leads the way at over $50,000,000.

And, new extensions are going to be coming for young stars like Joe Burrow and Justin Herbert, presumably this offseason. And, it appears they are going to get PAID.

#Bengals QB Joe Burrow and #Chargers QB Justin Herbert are both eligible for contract extensions and are expected to surpass $50 million per year on their new deal.

Aaron Rodgers is currently at league high $50.3M a year and the young QBs will pass that number, per @JFowlerESPN pic.twitter.com/EB6K79DJeX

— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman)
Twitter

These contracts are going to be huge.

It could be something like ten years, $500 million for each of them. That would put them among the biggest contracts in American sports history.

Some people think these guys deserve that much, or even more!

Burrow deserves 70, maybe 80 million a year.

— Capp Brannigan (@BranniganCapp)
Twitter

Burrow will get $60 million easy

— Max Powers (@MaxPowers44)
Twitter

The downside to these contracts is that it puts a constraint on the rest of the team. It eats up so much of the cap, it makes building a strong roster around them difficult.