Highest Paid NFL Player

The NFL draft is a mean business in sports, and clubs are ready to pay through their nose to get the best players available. Often, we come across news about some jaw dropping contracts that are signed by clubs and players. Please note that the ranking of the NFL players with the highest salaries are bound to change every year owing to the fact that new contracts are signed every year and in cases of injuries, resignations and firings, the contracts either expires of gets modified.

NFL and Player Contracts

All the players of NFL belong to a National Football League Players Association, which is a Union of the players and deals in all the salaries, compensations, moneys or money's worth that are contractually paid to the players. The Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) is an agreement that governs all such proceeding, and is largely centric to what is known as general and basic salaries and salary caps. NFL players are segregated into three categories as per their rights to bargain contracts with clubs.

• FY: This category consists of all players who have been drafted but have not played at all in their first year. These players have only two rights, namely, the right to renegotiate with the team which they have been drafted, or simply refuse to play. These players cannot negotiate with other teams.
• Restricted Free Agents: The Restricted Free Agents are players who have played for full 3 seasons. They have a limited right to negotiate with other teams.
• Unrestricted Free Agents: The Unrestricted Free Agents are players who have played more than 4 full seasons in the league and have full rights to negotiate with other teams/clubs.

The experience of the players largely affect their paycheck. Here's a table showing the minimum salary in a league year.

Years of experience	2006	2007	2007	2009	2010	2011	2012
0	$275,000	$285,000	$295,000	$310,000	$325,000	$340,000	$355,000
1	$350,000	$360,000	$370,000	$385,000	$400,000	$415,000	$430,000
2	$425,000	$435,000	$445,000	$460,000	$475,000	$490,000	$505,000
3	$500,000	$510,000	$520,000	$535,000	$550,000	$565,000	$580,000
4 - 6	$585,000	$595,000	$605,000	$620,000	$635,000	$650,000	$665,000
7 - 9	$710,000	$720,000	$730,000	$745,000	$760,000	$775,000	$790,000
10 +	$810,000	$820,000	$830,000	$845,000	$860,000	$875,000	$890,000

Contract values are of course, higher than standard cap values.

Highest Paid NFL Player

Here are some of the highest earning NFL players their salaries and contracts, from the recent past. It must be noted that, the NFL contracts do change from time to time, on almost a yearly basis, due to reasons such as injuries, new contracts and resignations or firings. Here are some of the most notable players:

• One of the highest earning NFL players of all time is Carson Palmer who signed a contract worth about $119,750,000 ($13,305,555 per year), spanning 9 years from 2006 to 2014, without guarantee. This contract is acknowledged to be one of the largest contract signed in the history of American football.
• Another notable contract that is also one of the highest is of Donovan McNabb who was drafted in Philadelphia Eagles. The contract probably made him the richest NFL player in the history of American football, with $115,000,00) (without guarantee) worth of compensation, amounting to $9,583,333 per annum, ranging for 12 years between 2002 and 2013.
• Ben Roethlisberger of Pittsburgh Steelers signed a contract that ranged from 2008 to 2015, and amounted to $102,000,000, that is $12,750,000 annually for 8 years.
• Brett Favre had also joined the high paycheck club when he signed up with Green Bay Packers and got a contract of $100,000,000 spanning 10 years, from 2001 to 2010. Unfortunately, he was unconditionally released by the New York Jets in 2008 after the season.
• Washington Redskins signed up Albert Haynesworth for a 7 year contract from 2009-2016, valued to $100,000,000, again a jaw dropping paycheck.
• Eli Manning is the highest earning NFL player, 2009 to 2010 season, drawing up to a cool, $39.9 million. He is followed by Terrell Suggs at $38.3 million and Julius Peppers at $36 million.
• The 2010 beginning season also saw some awesome contracts being signed. The highest paid NFL player of 2010-11 season is of course Peyton Manning with total earnings at $30.8 million becoming the highest paid quarter backs, DeAngelo Hall at $18.5 million among the corner backs, Tyson Jackson is the highest paid DE at $18.1 million and Vince Wilfork, is the highest paid NT.

As mentioned above the player contracts vary, and every year successive contracts have rising prices.