While Aaron Rodgers broke the $50MM-per-year barrier in 2023, the Packers quarterback signed an unusually structured deal that tacked on three years to his previous pact. Jalen Hurts‘ $51MM-AAV accord represented a true long-term deal in this price range, moving another quarterback past Patrick Mahomes.
The Chiefs and Mahomes worked on his outlier deal in 2020, and the sides reached an agreement on a 10-year extension worth $450MM. At the time, Mahomes’ AAV stood $10MM north of the NFL’s second-highest average salary. The field caught up with the superstar passer quick. Hurts’ deal bumps Mahomes down to fifth among QB AAV, and the Joe Burrow and Justin Herbert extensions will almost definitely drop the two-time MVP out of the top five.
It would be unusual for a team to renegotiate with a player with this many years of control remaining on his contract, and the Chiefs are not committing to doing so. Then again, the franchise’s previous pre-Mahomes Super Bowl berth occurred in 1969. The team should not be expected to enter into a contract squabble with the three-time Super Bowl starter. Brett Veach said Thursday the team would reassess where its QB stands after the Bengals and Chargers lock up their passers.
“We have a special relationship with [Mahomes] and his agent. We’re in constant communication,” Veach said. “It’s one of those things — and I think coach [Andy Reid] hinted on this in his last press conference — where as soon as one guy gets done, it’s kind of the blueprint and the model. And a few years later, it’s jumped and exceeded.
“But I think that this organization and the relationship we have with Pat will always be working to make sure that we’re doing right by everybody. There will be a couple more contracts that still have to get done — Burrow and Herbert — and once they do, I think you kind of look at everything and assess where you are and what you can do and take it from there.”
After Rodgers signed his third contract (worth $22MM on average) back in 2013, the quarterback market did not move much for the next four years. By 2017, Derek Carr had only raised the AAV bar to $25MM. Kirk Cousins‘ fully guaranteed pact in 2018 ($28MM per) opened the floodgates, and the position’s importance obviously gives the game’s reliable starters considerable leverage. The QB market spiked from $35MM (Russell Wilson‘s third-contract AAV from an April 2019 agreement) to $50MM over a three-year span, and…