Wide receivers’ salaries are expected to keep pace with rising NFL salary cap

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When Justin Jefferson decided to become the NFL’s highest-paid non-quarterback, he recalibrated the pricing structure for wide receivers.

It should not take long for that distinction to be erased from memory.

CeeDee Lamb is about to be paid. So is Ja’Marr Chase. Tyreek Hill is now demanding a new deal since Jefferson, AJ Brown, and Amon-Ra St. Brown passed him in AAV in a year eight wideouts signed deals worth more than $20 million per year.

The skyrocketing salaries will keep going high and high as the league’s salary cap rises. The cap rose to $255 million from $30 million. 4 million this season.

Disruptive Sports’ NFL agent Henry Organ concludes that the cap will exceed $300 million in 2026.

“Jefferson’s deal is right in the middle along expectation level,” was Organ’s sentiment seeing as he agreed to a three-year, $19. Big money signing early in free agency was the 5 million deal for Patriots wideout Kendrick Bourne.

Organ noted that the best receptionists will continue to take a similar percentage of the team’s payroll; thus, their contract numbers will go up in parallel with the increase in the cap. Jefferson is now home to 13. literally 3% of Minnesota’s cap number. The five quarterbacks making $50-plus million per season consume about $20% of their team’s cap.

With the escalations in the contracts of the quarterbacks it was but unavoidable that the receivers would also rise in value,’ agent Drew Rosenhaus said in an interview with The Associated Press.

The Vikings made Jefferson sign a four-year, $140 million contract without a clause that would allow him to opt-out in the middle of the 2011 soccer season The contract included $110 million in guaranteed money with $88. $7 million payable upfront, at signing.

Brown agreed a deal with the Eagles on the third of August that was for $96 million over the length of three-years with $84 million in guarantees and a $19. 8 million signing bonus.

Even if St. Brown was for a moment the highest-paid receiver, the Lions decided to offer him a four-year contract extension valued at over $120 million of which $77 million are guarantees.

Hill formerly was the highest-paid receiver after the Dolphins extended him $120 million four-year contract in 2022.

The five-time All-Pro who has delivered on high expectations in Miami has observed that he now ranks fourth on the salary scale.

“I mean at the end of the day, if you feel like for example you are in the top five for something – let’s say you are one of the best deliverymen working at Amazon – you are going to feel like this,” said Hill, who is currently under the representation of Rosenhaus. ‘You are going to go to your boss and tell him hey bro, I broke 100 routes and yet this one is doing 65 routes, the least I expect is to be the top paid person. ’ You feel me? So if you feel like you deserve something, go get it.

Finally, another of Hill’s teammates, Jaylen Waddle recently agreed to sign a new deal with the team that includes a three-year extension worth $84. The contract includes a cash value of 75 million, and of that 76 million is guaranteed. Only in April this year, Brown’s teammate, DeVonta Smith received a three-year, $75 million deal with $ 51 million guaranteed. Smith also does not find himself wondering about the advantages of not having postponed his operation till the market actually exploded.

“You can’t be counting the pockets of others. I’m where I want to be,” Smith said. “This is where I wanted to be. At the end of the day, it’s life changing for me. ”

Lamb did not attend the mandatory minicamp in his quest for a new contract with the Cowboys. Dallas, which already faces salary-cap problems, has QB Dak Prescott in the last year of a four-year, $160m contract and star edge rusher Micah Parsons in line for a massive pay rise this year or next.

Parsons might have an argument to become the league’s highest-paid non-QB, a distinction formerly owned by the San Francisco 49ers’ Nick Bosa before Jefferson’s rise.

Chase is in the same position as Parsons, being signed through the year 2025 but a contract year player. Higgins’ teammate in the Bengals, Tee Higgins, has not yet inked his $21. tag of 8 million for this season so Cincinnati is going to have two wide receivers earning big money if they retain both.

“Quarterback has always been the highest paid and that market has soared,” observed sports agent Leigh Steinberg who has the KC Chiefs Patrick Mahomes among his clients. “Left tackle, edge rushers and shutdown defensive backs are other players who enjoy great bargaining power and significantly higher remunerations. ” “Wide receiver was not that favored of a position until last year there was an explosion in the wide receiver market. . . . Once that dam burst, wide receiver became the favored position with big bargaining power. The market for elite wide receivers will continue to expand. ”

Not only has players’ earnings increased but the yearly guarantee sums are also increasing. Jefferson’s new deal set a record for most guaranteed money for a non-QB, and agents are going to keep pushing for it. Most of the MLB and NBA contracts are reported to be fully guaranteed. Even NFL players, these men who took part in what could be seen as the more violent form of the sport, are only now assimilating it.

“I also believe the NFL contracts are poised to go to full guarantees to many players in the NFL,” said Rosenhaus. “It’s heading in that direction and that’s a good thing,” said the source “It’s about time NFL contracts are treated on the same level as the other major sports that boast of fully guaranteed contracts.

In their article, Steinberg points out that first-round draft picks get fully or partially guaranteed contracts and that talking about ‘signing bonuses’ is probably relevant.

“The only contract that contains large signing bonuses which are guaranteed are those in football, and they are provided at the beginning of a contract,” Steinberg said. “The trend toward guaranteed contracts will again persist, however, if all the money in an NFL contract is guaranteed the signing bonus portion may gradually decrease. ”

However they get it and whenever one is coming, the best players are going to continue to make ‘astronomical’ amount of money.