How high will soaring quarterback salaries go, and who is paying the price for them?

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Aaron Rodgers has done more than enrich himself by agreeing to a four-year, $200 million contract extension with the Green Bay Packers. He has continued to separate the elite NFL quarterbacks from all other players when it comes to salary. 

Once the deal is signed, Rodgers will rank first in the NFL with a record-breaking, annual average salary of $50 million. And the next 10 players with the highest annual average salary?

All quarterbacks. 

And the gap is growing. 

The non-quarterback with the highest average salary is T.J. Watt, outside linebacker with Pittsburgh Steelers, at $28 million a year. The $22 million gap between Rodgers’ average annual salary and Watt’s salary is the largest ever between the NFL’s top-paid quarterback and league’s top-paid non-quarterback , according to Mike Ginnitti, managing editor at Spotrac, a website that tracks player salaries in various leagues.

“This is one position skyrocketing to the top of the financial world in its sport and it is leaving everything else in its dust," Ginnitti said. 

Eleven NFL quarterbacks are now making at least $30 million a year, according to Spotrac and Overthecap.com. 

Leigh Steinberg, the longtime agent, said the increasingly lucrative contracts for quarterbacks is creating a two-tiered salary system.

"For every $50 million quarterback contract, it means there has to be a large group of players playing for the minimum,'' said Steinberg, whose current clients include Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and whose past clients include Hall of Fame quarterbacks Troy Aikman and Steve Young. "So with the backups, more undrafted free agents make it, more low-round draft picks make it, more veterans at the veteran minimum make it.

"While the top of the market in quarterbacks soar higher and higher, it means it’s sort of a product of that income inequality in the country is going to have an impact on team's rosters."

Ginnitti said the most recent spike in quarterback salaries can be tracked to 2010, when the NFL adopted the rookie wage scale. It sets a base salary for the four-year contract awarded to all drafted players, and the team has the option for a fifth year.

“The best value in all of sports became drafting a quarterback and getting him for five years on a rookie contract,’’ Ginnitti said. 

But once that deal expires, it's time to pay up.

For example, Mahomes was playing on a four-year, $16.4 million contract in 2020 when he led the Chiefs to their first Super Bowl title in 50 years.

The Chiefs rewarded Mahomes in 2021 with a 10-year, $450 million contact. Likewise, the Buffalo Bills signed quarterback Josh Allen to six-year extension worth $258 million after he emerged as an elite quarterback while playing under his rookie contract. 

It’s the cost of doing business for teams searching for a franchise quarterback. 

“Once you’ve identified him, the last thing you want to do is let him out the door,’’ said Mark Dominik, who was general manager for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from 2009 to 2013. “I think the right players with unbelievable skill sets have hit the market at the right time and that's why these guys' salaries have exploded."

Perfect timing for Rodgers. 

While Mahomes and Allen continued to shine after their monster deals, it was Rodgers who won the MVP each of the past two seasons. That gave him even more leverage before he secured the highest average annual salary in NFL history. 

Dominik said it could be a few years before another quarterback eclipses Rodgers’ salary record, but he suggested it’s all but inevitable thanks in part to league rules combined with quarterback talent. 

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“It’s not the rules to protect the quarterback,’’ he said. “It’s the rules that allow receivers to just run free. It’s the rules that defensive players have to be careful where they hit a player, at the right time and at the right moment, and don’t hit him in the head.  

“I think because the game continues to move towards scoring and the rules continue to adjust that way, the guys who can throw it are going to get paid for it.’’

But Dominik said he doesn't think the rising salaries for quarterbacks are sustainable.

“This could continue to push a little bit more each year,'' he said. "And then I think what you’re going to see is maybe either the league, the NFL office, is going to try to figure out how do you actually figure out how to create a cap on quarterbacks."

Dan Fouts, the Hall of Fame quarterback for the San Diego Chargers, said he thinks the quarterback salary explosion stems from the work of his former head coach, Don Coryell. Fouts was at the center of “Air Coryell," the innovative and high-scoring offense he ran with the Chargers from 1978 to 1986. 

“You can blame Don Coryell, and I’m serious,’’ Fouts said. “You can look back at his years with us and how everything has accelerated. TV, contracts, money for TV announcers and salaries. 

“I think there’s a directed correlation between the way the game is perceived now and the popularity of the game due to television and the driving force behind that is how exciting the game is and there’s nothing more exciting than a good passing game.’’ 

Fouts financial reward. In 1983, the Chargers gave him a six-year contract that reportedly could have been worth about $6 million. 

It actually was worth $4.6 million, Fouts told Paste BN Sports. 

“And I was worth every penny of it,’’ he said. 

The big paydays followed. 

Aikman signing an eight-year, $50 million deal with the Dallas Cowboys in 1993. 

Drew Bledsoe signing a 10-year, $103 million deal with the New England Patriots in 2001. 

Today, 13 NFL quarterbacks have signed deals worth more than $100 million, according to Spotrac and Overthecap. 

By contrast, Fran Tarkenton, the Hall of Fame quarterback, said he never made more than $180,000 a season during an NFL career that spanned from 1961 to 1978. 

“The Aaron Rodgerses of the world, they bring in the fans and the eyeballs to television, so I don’t find any problem with him making $200 million over four years,’’ Tarkenton said. “(But) I’m doing better in business than Aaron Rodgers is doing in his four-year contract. 

“Just so you know."