Patrick Mahomes’ salary tops the NFL. How his $63.1 million compares to salaries in past years
WASHINGTON —
Each NFL season welcomes new faces to the league, players joining new teams and even star players renegotiating their contracts.
For the 2026 season, there is a new player taking the title of highest-paid player — Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes. His reworked contract is valued at more than half a billion dollars, according to data from Spotrac.
The eight-year, $504.7 million contract is the first NFL deal valued at more than half a billion dollars. It gives Mahomes an average annual value of $63.1 million, the highest in the league.
Before Mahomes reworked his contract, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott had the highest average annual value at $60 million.
Mahomes’ average annual value is more than four times that of this season’s No. 1 rookie pick, Fernando Mendoza. Mendoza’s rookie contract is valued at $57.27 million, giving him an average annual value of $14.3 million.
The pay gap between the No. 1 draft pick in the draft and the league’s highest-paid player was not always this large, according to the Get the Facts Data Team’s analysis of Spotrac contract data dating back to 1983.
In 1983, the Denver Broncos awarded John Elway a five-year, $5 million contract, making his average annual value $1 million. In today’s dollars, that would be worth $3.4 million. Elway became the highest-paid player in the league that year.
Prior to 2011, NFL teams decided how much to pay their top rookie picks and the length of their contracts. The St. Louis Rams awarded their 2010 No. 1 pick, Sam Bradford, a massive six-year, $78 million contract.
The 2011 collective bargaining agreement introduced a standard four-year rookie contract with set salary values. Teams could no longer negotiate contract length or value for their top picks. Bradford was the last No. 1 pick to sign a massive contract.
The rookie wage scale widened the gap between the league’s highest-paid player and the No. 1 pick. By the early 2020s, the gap continued to grow.
In 2020, the Cincinnati Bengals drafted Joe Burrow No. 1, giving him an average annual value of $9 million. Mahomes was also the league’s highest-paid player that year, with an average annual value of $45 million, five times that of Burrow.