NFL Quarterbacks on ‘Mid-Tier’ Contracts Thriving This Season

NFL quarterbacks have signed eye-popping contracts in the past few offseasons. Tua Tagovailoa, who has yet to win a playoff game, got a four-year deal worth $53 million annually from the Miami Dolphins in 2024. Two months later, Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys agreed to a record-breaking $60 million per year extension.

It's no mystery why teams are shelling out that kind of money-the adage is that you need a top-tier quarterback to win a Super Bowl. Teams pay up to avoid getting left behind, even if they're not fully confident in their guy. The floor for a quarterback extension, therefore, has risen over the past decade from around 10% of the salary cap to around 15%.

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In the NFL this season, there are 15 quarterbacks earning at least $45 million per year, plus a whole bunch of youngsters or backups making less than Cam Ward's rookie salary of $12.2 million, and only seven in between those two extremes.

Those seven quarterbacks on mid-tier" contracts, making between roughly 5% and 15% of their teams' salary cap, are our focus here. Several teams this season are getting elite quarterback play without having to pay elite money or resort to the draft.

The breakout star of the season has been Indianapolis Colts quarterback Daniel Jones. The former No. 6 overall pick was signed for a discount-one year, $14 million-last offseason after a six-year stint with the New York Giants that resulted in just one playoff appearance. He has led the Colts to a 7-1 record and an NFL-leading 33.8 points per game while ranking second in the league in expected points added (EPA) per play.

Other attempts to resuscitate former top draft picks have been fruitful in recent years, as the Minnesota Vikings finished 14-3 in 2024 with former New York Jets No. 3 overall pick Sam Darnold at the helm. They were not willing to pay the price to keep Darnold this season, however, so the Seattle Seahawks snagged him for three years, $100 million and are currently 5-2. Darnold ranks fourth in EPA per play.

No highly touted prospect has had a bigger fall and rise, however, than Baker Mayfield. The 2018 No. 1 overall pick was dumped by the Cleveland Browns for a fifth-round pick after playing out his four-year rookie contract. After short stints with two other teams, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers took a chance on Mayfield in 2023, and he led them to the playoffs and inked himself a three-year, $100 million extension. The Bucs, currently 6-2, now have their guy. After the first quarter of this season, Mayfield was an MVP candidate, but his salary is less than half of the quarterbacks around the league.

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This has been a huge season for the mid-tier" QB contract, but there have been other recent examples of success. The Tennessee Titans enjoyed back-to-back double-digit win totals in 2020 and 2021 while paying Ryan Tannehill an average annual salary of $29.5 million-14.9% of the cap and just under what the top players at the position were making.

The 2020 Colts made the postseason with 39-year-old Philip Rivers making only $25 million. Oh, and the Bucs won the Super Bowl that same year with Tom Brady taking a pay cut and making $25 million as well.

There have been failures in the mid-tier" contract range, too. The New York Jets are 1-7 this year after taking a two-year, $40 million flyer on Justin Fields, who has already been benched and then unbenched within half a season. Likewise, Geno Smith's second run on a mid-tier" contract hasn't been as successful as his first-after posting a winning record with Seattle each of the past two seasons, he and the Las Vegas Raiders are just 2-5 through seven games.

Notably, the top four teams by odds to win the Super Bowl, according to DraftKings, do have a superstar quarterback and pay him like one: the Kansas City Chiefs, Buffalo Bills, Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers. But employing one of those top-tier signal callers does not seem to be a prerequisite for contention. Four of the seven teams with a quarterback in the mid-tier" salary zone have at least 25-to-1 odds to win it all, versus six out of the 15 teams with a quarterback making more than $45 million annually.

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