There are enough brewing contract situations across the league to think that a few guys from the 2020 and ’21 draft classes won’t be with their teams. Minnesota Vikings star Justin Jefferson skipped last year’s offseason program, so it’s hard to imagine he’ll be there this year without an extension. There are a of guys from the ’21 class—Ja’Marr Chase, Micah Parsons, Patrick Surtain II—that have a case for getting paid early.
Then, you have the quarterbacks.
I don’t think Tua Tagovailoa, Jordan Love or Dak Prescott are going to skip because it’s harder to do that at their position. But it’s also not going to be easy for their teams to do new contracts, given where the quarterback market has gone over the past year.
A year ago today, if you take out the Aaron Rodgers anomaly contract in Green Bay, no quarterback had made it over the $50-million-per-year threshold. And from there, things quickly changed. The Philadelphia Eagles’ Jalen Hurts got $51 million per year on April 17. The Baltimore Ravens’ Lamar Jackson got $52 million per year on April 27. The Los Angeles Chargers’ Justin Herbert got $52.5 million per year on July 25. And the Cincinnati Bengals’ Joe Burrow got $55 million per year on Sept. 7.
That’s a 13% jump over the $48.5 million per year Russell Wilson signed for in September 2022, and an 8% jump just from Hurts to Burrow over five months.
It also makes, at least on paper, less likely that you’ll see the game of contractual leapfrog that you did a decade ago, when Andrew Luck moved the market in 2016, then Derek Carr leapfrogged him in ’17, only to be jumped by Jimmy Garoppolo in ’18, who was bested by Matthew Stafford later that year, who then was topped by Matt Ryan.
So let’s say, then, the Dolphins, Packers or Cowboys are unwilling to simply go to $56 million per year with their quarterbacks? Then, what? And then, where are the implications for someone such as San Francisco’s Brock Purdy, who could be in the same boat in a year, when he’s eligible for a second contract for the first time?
To be clear, I’m not saying those guys won’t be playing for their respective teams come September. But if there’s a team that surprises and takes a quarterback a little earlier than you might’ve thought, such a decision could be born of this dynamic.
Which, for now at least, is just something for all of you to file away.
