NFL Players Whose Paychecks Aren’t As Big As You Think
NFL Players Whose Paychecks Aren’t As Big As You Think ·GOBankingRates
Joel Anderson
Updated 9 min read
A huge section of America’s youth harbors dreams of someday playing in the NFL. For those with the actual talent and ability, the NFL dream — that is, the fame and chance to play against the absolute best — comes as soon as they lace up their cleats. But another part of the dream that includes untold riches can take longer to develop.
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In fact, some of the league’s biggest stars are drastically underpaid, still playing on rookie deals that don’t reflect their elite performance. Without a chance for rival teams to bid them up, a young NFL star’s salary can end up coming in well below market value.
That much should be clear in this new GOBankingRates study of some of the league’s most underpaid players. Each of these players earns less than the average cap hit — the portion of the salary that counts against the league’s salary cap — and either led the team in a statistical category last season or were voted to the Pro Bowl.
So, here’s a closer look at which player on your favorite team is due for a big raise once their current contract is up.
Methodology: To measure each NFL team’s most underpaid player, GOBankingRates first found the following for every active player: (1) contract terms; (2) average salary (contract dollar amount divided over the number of years in the contract); (3) guaranteed salary; (4) base salary for 2020; and (5) player’s cap hit for the 2020 season. Once these data points were collected, GOBankingRates found the average cap hit for each team. Then, the study looked at the players earning below the average cap hit and determined which of those players is the most underpaid. The latter was determined by whether or not the player was voted to the Pro Bowl and/or was a statistical leader for the team in the previous season. All contract data was sourced from Spotrac’s NFL active contracts by team and NFL team salary cap tracker data. All stats were sourced via ESPN’s 2019 stat leader data. Pro Bowl rosters were sourced from NFL.com. All data was collected and is up to date as of June 7, 2020.
