Highest paid position per team: you may be surprised how few are quarterbacks.

[Craic]

So, I found this interesting. First, the overall numbers.

Position: number of teams that have a player at this position as the highest paid player on the team.

Quarterback: six teams
Defensive line: six teams
Wide Receiver: five teams
Linebacker: four teams
Cornerback: three teams
Offensive line: three teams
Running Back: two teams
Safety: two teams
Tight End: one team

Break it down some more, and it gets even more interesting. Of the top 10 highest paid positions per team, only two teams have their QB as the highest paid. The Broncos and the Giants (granted, they're one and three positionally). Of the other eight, two are left tackles, three are DEs, two are LBs, and one is a RB. Quite the spread through the positions.

The average cap hit of the QB positions this year is 16 million dollars, and the highest cap hit is Eli Manning at 20.9 mill. The second is his brother at 17.5 mill. A couple names here might be surprising: Sam Bradford, Philip Rivers, and Matthew Stafford (the last having a 17.8 million dollar cap hit with a 4 million dollar salary).

As for the Steelers, that's pretty easy. Troy P. at 10.1 mill cap hit and 7.5 mill salary this year. That puts the Steelers tied for 17th place for highest paid player on a team.

Thought I'd share it with you all. Here's the link.

[Count Steeler]

What, no punter?

[silver & black]

What, no punter?

No. Al has passed on.

[steelreserve]

You know a lot of that's bullshit, though, right? Ben's "base salary" is only $2.4M this year, but his cap hit is more like $13.5M, and his contract averages $18M a year. Just like Moonball Joe's deal with the Ravens is $20M a year but they messed with the numbers to keep the cap hit down to $6M this year. This list is basically random and just depends on whose contracts have gone through all kinds of salary cap convolutions that artificially keep the base salary down, and whose haven't, and what year of the deal we happen to be looking at.

Quarterbacks are still the highest-paid by far, and the only teams where someone else is the highest-paid player are teams without a very good quarterback, or the ones with a QB who had a breakout year while still on a rookie deal or a low-mid journeyman deal.

[Craic]

You know a lot of that's bullshit, though, right? Ben's "base salary" is only $2.4M this year, but his cap hit is more like $13.5M, and his contract averages $18M a year. Just like Moonball Joe's deal with the Ravens is $20M a year but they messed with the numbers to keep the cap hit down to $6M this year. This list is basically random and just depends on whose contracts have gone through all kinds of salary cap convolutions that artificially keep the base salary down, and whose haven't, and what year of the deal we happen to be looking at.

Quarterbacks are still the highest-paid by far, and the only teams where someone else is the highest-paid player are teams without a very good quarterback, or the ones with a QB who had a breakout year while still on a rookie deal or a low-mid journeyman deal.

That's why I counted cap hit instead of actual salary, so that signing bonus, roster bonus, etc., are all counted as well. That makes it a lot more accurate, and why I did it that way.

(of course, that doesn't discount the list's use of base salary, but from is shown on the list, I'm using salary cap).

[steelreserve]

That's why I counted cap hit instead of actual salary, so that signing bonus, roster bonus, etc., are all counted as well. That makes it a lot more accurate, and why I did it that way.

(of course, that doesn't discount the list's use of base salary, but from is shown on the list, I'm using salary cap).

Yeah, but even the cap hit gets faked all the time by pushing it into future years. ESPECIALLY with QBs, who have some of the biggest salaries and are also unique in that you can be confident they'll still be playing for you in five or six years, so you can do more with restructuring.

If you look at every single team on the list that does not have a QB as the highest-paid player, 19 out of the 26 either have a starting QB still on a rookie contracts or on a huge megadeal that blows away anyone else's real salary on the team but has been temporarily made cap-friendly with accounting tricks.

Still on Rookie Deals
IND (Luck)
CAR (Newton)
WAS (Griffin)
SF (Kaepernick)
JAX (Gabbert)
BUF (Manuel)
SEA (Wilson)
MIA (Tannehill)
TEN (Locker)
CLE (Weeden)
CIN (Dalton)
MIN (Ponder)
OAK (Pryor)

Actually Top Paid on Team but Not After Accounting Tricks
ARI (Palmer 2Y/$16M)
ATL (Ryan 5Y/$104M)
GB (Rodgers 5Y/$110M)
BAL (Flacco 6Y/$120M)
NE (Brady 5Y/$57M)
PIT (Ben 8Y/$102M)
HOU (Schaub 4Y/$62M)
DAL (Romo 6Y/$108M)


So actually, more like 25 out of 32 teams really do have the QB as the highest paid, or are avoiding it only because of rookie deals. A few (KC, TB for example) have journeyman QBs who aren't good enough to be highly paid, and a few (NYJ) have a QB making high 7 or low 8 figures but one other guy has a balloon year in his deal. Chicago is lucky enough to have a QB who's surprisingly low-paid for his reputation, but will probably get a big deal next season.

Out of all the teams, I'd probably say only CHI, OAK, JAX, MIN, BUF, KC, and TB legitimately are not paying their QB the most, or else avoiding paying the most only because the QB is still on a rookie deal. Chicago because they're getting a below-market price, TB and KC because the QBs are not very good and are paid accordingly, and BUF, OAK and JAX because the QB is on a rookie deal but probably is not going to be good enough to get a huge contract when it's over. You could argue that CLE and TEN could be in the same category, but it's hard to say without a crystal ball. MIA could be in it too because even if Tannehill gets a big contract (which I eventually think they'll give him) it may not be bigger than Wallace's. MIN could fall into either of those two categories (Ponder not good enough to get a huge deal, or gets a sizeable deal but Allen or Peterson still makes more). So basically two-thirds of the league at minimum has a QB as the highest paid, possibly up to three-quarters depending on how things shake out. That's why I say most of that list is just BS accounting tricks.