Highest-Paid NFL Quarterbacks: Top 10 Salaries For The 2018 Football Season

Quarterback is the most important position in football, so naturally, they are the NFL’s highest-paid players. That doesn’t necessarily mean the best signal callers will make the most money in the upcoming season.

Tom Brady is the reigning NFL MVP and considered by many to be the greatest football player of all time, but his 2018 salary doesn’t rank among the top-10 quarterbacks. The same goes for Aaron Rodgers, who is this year’s MVP favorite and looking to sign a new contract.

Let’s take a look at the 10 highest-paid quarterbacks for the 2018 NFL season. The salaries are based on figures at Spotrac.com.

1) Jimmy Garoppolo, $42.6 Million

The San Francisco 49ers saw enough in five starts to make their quarterback the NFL’s highest-paid player for the 2018 season. After ending last year with five straight wins, Garoppolo was rewarded with a five-year, $137.5 million contract. He’ll make more than $61 million in 2018 and 2019. Garoppolo has a cap hit of $37 million in 2018, but the contract will actually pay him north of $40 million this year, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

2) Matthew Stafford, $26.5 Million

It was less than a year ago that the Detroit Lions gave their quarterback a $135 million contract. Stafford only has a $9.5 million base salary this season, but he’ll also get part of his $50 million signing bonus and $6.5 million roster bonus. Stafford has been Detroit’s starter for a decade, and he’s the franchise leader in just about every important passing category.

3) Derek Carr, $25 Million

The Oakland Raiders sure hope Carr does a better job earning his contract this season. After signing a five-year, $125 million deal last summer, the quarterback went 6-9 as a starter with a career-high 13 interceptions and an 86.4 passer rating. Carr received $40 million guaranteed and is set to make nearly $70 million from 2017-2019.

4) Joe Flacco, $24.75 Million

Flacco is still reaping the benefits of his terrific playoff run in the 2012 season that ended with the Baltimore Ravens winning the Super Bowl. The quarterback signed a three-year contract extension in the 2016 offseason just three years after landing a $120.6 million deal. Flacco has averaged an 82.2 passer rating in the last five seasons.

5) Andrew Luck $24.4 Million

It made sense when the Indianapolis Colts locked Luck into a record-setting six-year, $140 million deal in the summer of 2016. The quarterback, however, has missed 26 of 48 games over the last three seasons after reaching the Pro Bowl in the first three years of his career. Luck’s deal gave him $87 million in injury guarantees, and he’s healthy for the 2018 season.

6) Kirk Cousins, $24 Million

When Kirk Cousins signed with the Minnesota Vikings this past offseason, he didn’t go the traditional route of agreeing to a nine-figure contract with partial guarantees. The quarterback left some money on the table over the length of the deal by signing a fully guaranteed three-year, $84 million contract. Having been franchised by the Washington Redskins in each of the previous two years, Cousins will end the 2020 season with more than $130 million in career earnings.

7) Drew Brees, $24 Million

Even though Brees was a free agent after the 2017 season, there was never much speculation that he would leave the New Orleans Saints. The quarterback signed a two-year, $50 million dollar contract with $27 million guaranteed. He remains one of the league’s best signal callers at 39 years old and has posted a passer rating of 101.0 or better in each of the last three seasons.

8) Russell Wilson, $23.786 Million

The Seattle Seahawks will have to give Wilson a new contract soon since he’s set to become a free agent after the 2019 season. Since the quarterback signed a four-year, $87.6 million deal in the summer of 2015, he’s averaged nearly 30 touchdowns and 10 interceptions per season.

9) Ben Roethlisberger, $23.2 Million

Roethlisberger is three years into the five-year, $99 million contract he signed in 2015. The quarterback earned $35 million in the first year of the deal, and he’s led the Pittsburgh Steelers to the playoffs in every season since then. The two-time Super Bowl winner has made the Pro Bowl in each of the last four years.

10) Eli Manning, $22.2 Million

Just a few months after he was benched in the middle of a disastrous season, Manning is the New York Giants’ starting quarterback and set to earn more than $22 million. Assuming Manning stays with New York through the end of next season, he will have been paid more than $250 million by the Giants during his career. New York decided not to select Manning's eventual successor with the No.2 overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft.