Every single position in the NFL plays a significant role in each and every play in every game. This means that everyone should have at the very minimum a stable income. Some players do obviously make more than others due to talent and specific skills for their position. Players like Tom Brady, Deebo Samuel, Saquon Barkley, and Trey McBride. All these players and much more have their own unique talents and skill sets they use to be their best. Basically what im trying to say is that you can make a lot of money when you’re drafted into the NFL.
So since the NFL is debated as one of the most physical sports as of our times. With you just playing one of the most physical sports, you’re bound to get injured. Many players have gotten career ending injuries and had to retire early due to those injuries. Now with it being a very heavy injury prone sport you’re thinking that you must be getting paid at the very least decent money right, and you’d be right. Now with that I bring you the incomes for every single position in the NFL.
Offensive Positions
Starting off with one of the most known offensive positions, we have the quarterback. With them being popular and having to be very talented, according to the website Overthecap these players make about $9.784 million. Quarterbacks have the highest APY (Average per year) due to their large contracts, meaning that the more talented quarterbacks would be making closer to $50-60 million. Players like Patchrick Mahomes, Brock Purdy and Trevor Lawrence are in the higher part of the higher APY since their contracts are that high. The main goal for a quarterback is to throw the football to open players that followed their routes. Once he throws the ball the player either catches it or doesn’t. If they do catch the football the player just needs to run to the opponents endzone to score a touchdown. The quarterback also tells the offensive players, besides the offensive line, which routes to start running.
Right after the quarterback, we got the running back. Coming from Overthecap, running backs make about $7.25 million yearly. With running backs making $7.25 million on average the more talented players make closer to $20 million dollars. While of course $7.25 million isn’t anywhere close to a bad income either. If you’re a running back you’ll definitely need to be fast physically and mentally, along with being strong since you’re bound to get hit a lot along with everyone else in the NFL. Running backs don’t always have to run the ball, they can also block depending on the routes and plays that are going to be played.
After the running backs we have the body guards for the running backs, aka the fullbacks. With the fullbacks being the guardians of the running backs, Overthecap shows that they’re making about $4.2 million a year. For someone whose main job is to protect the running back they also protect the quarterback as well and make good money at the same time. As for the more polished players they’d be making have an APY of $12 million. The fullbacks’ job is to protect the running back and quarterback as well as being a part of the offensive line. While they can go run and catch the ball their main area of expertise is protecting the running back and quarterback.
Moving on to the wide receivers, they make about $11.125 million, according to my source Overthecap, being the middle area of the income. Obviously that isn’t where your APY will stay at with many of the better players making closer to $28 million and the top players making around $40 million dollars. Wide receivers are the players closest to the out of bounds line to run up and around the field in front of them to open up and catch the football to score points. Along with all other offensive players besides the offensive line, the wide receivers follow routes to open up and catch the ball.
Continuing on we have the tight ends. With them making about $9.116 million on average, which was gathered from the website Overthecap, and the top players like George Kittle make closer to $20 million APY. The tight ends jobs are to both defend and attack, since depending on the current play they’re doing one or the other. Their body build needs to be bulky and able to catch since their a more both sided position, meaning they defend and attack in different plays. Being a tight end means you’re always multitasking, making it a very complicated position to play since they’re swapping tactics every other play.
Lastly for the offense, we have the offensive line. Since the offensive line makes relatively the same APY’s I’m going to group all 5 positions together. That being said, according to the website Overthecap, the offensive line makes about $11.75 million on average. As for the more talented players, they make closer to $25-28 million APY. The offensive line are those five players that line up right in front of the quarterback to block the incoming opposing defence. Of course the defensive line can still catch and run the ball but it is very highly uncommon to do.
Defensive Positions
Moving onto the defensive positions. We’re starting off with the interior defensive linemen or IDL for short. The average IDL makes about $10 million, which came from the website Overthecap. More of the better players on the other hand are making closer to $25-30 million a year, which is a crazy amount of money. There are two positions that make the IDL whole and those two positions are the nose tackles and the defensive tackles. On average there are about 2-5 IDL’s on each NFL team’s roster but of course teams can draft as many players they want to. It just ends up depending on what the team’s final roster would turn out to be.
Next we have the edge rushers. With them being a part of the defensive line just not a part of the IDL’s, they average an APY of $11.3 million, which also came from the website Overthecap. Making a bigger jump than the IDL’s when it comes to top players, the top edge rusher players make closer to $30-45 million. As for what the edge rusher’s job is, they’re like the assassins of the defensive side. Since their main objective is to get around all the offensive blockers and take down the quarterback, it only makes sense to call them assassins. As they use their quickness and explosive acceleration to track down the opposing teams quarterback.
Going onto the next defensive position we have the linebacks. The linerbacks, on average, make $8.1 million, the website Overthecap provided this information, and besides the edge rushers, don’t surpass over $30 million APY surprisingly. The linerbacks’ job is to stop incoming rushing plays and push past the offensive line to sack the quarterback. Think of the linebackers as the reinforcements for the interior defensive linemen since they’re usually set up right behind them. The linebackers are relied on a lot because they’re the players that instruct the other defensive positions on what to do most of the time.
Moving forward we have the safeties. The safety position makes $6.75 million, which was pulled from the website Overthecap, on their average income. But the more skilled players will be making closer to $20 million APY. The safeties’ jobs are to control and defend behind the other defensive players if a ball ends up going deep. Those safety players have to have the ability to read the field and incoming passes and shut those down. Being considered the last line of defense they’d obviously have to be strong and fast to take down any receivers.
Finally the last defensive position, we have the cornerbacks. The cornerbacks are averaging an APY of $10.75 million, Overthecap has provided information on the APY, and those more skill-polished players will be making closer to $30 million. Those cornerbacks are placed more outward to track down those wide receivers and make sure they aren’t catching those long balls. Cornerbacks are lined up on the very outer edge of the defensive line, for the fact that they have to stay marking the wide receivers. Now with that being said the defensive positions are done.
Special Positions
Going onto the special positions, we have the kickers. The kickers make about $1.85 million on average, which is all according to the website Overthecap. But for the star kickers they’re making at the max of $6 million. The kickers’ job is to make field goals, or at least try to, by kicking the football into a field post however many yards out, the only limit is that it has to be under 120 yards and inside the field. The only main attribute for the kickers are their strong kicks to be able to make those field goals.
After the kicker, there’s the punters. The punters make an APY of $2.36 million, the website Overthecap has given the information for this, and the highest money making punters are making closer to $4 million. Not a significant jump in the higher APY but it’s definitely better than something. The punters’ job is to kick the ball after their team has gone through 4 downs and gives a turn over. The punter can also kick off the ball sometimes but that’s usually the kicker’s job.
Lastly, on the special positions we have the long snapper. The long snapper positions are making an average of $1.2 million, which is the lowest amount of money, on average, that any of the positions in the NFL are making. For the higher players on the other hand they’re making just 400k more than the average APY, at only $1.6 million. The long snapper’s jobs are to give an accurate pass to the punter some yards ahead of them. Typically 7 yards out, maybe more. Now that’s all the positions and average income of each and every NFL position. The website Overthecap.com has provided significant information for this Article
Sources
Overthecap.com: I used Overthecap to calculate the median of each NFL position on a broad spectrum so as to not give anything close to false information. This was also useful to check retired players so I could add some of their incomes to my calculations. To check for the APY/income of all the NFL players click the blue button labeled “Contracts” and it’ll show you everything that includes money for the NFL players.
“How Much Money Does an NFL Player Make a Year?” by Jim Woodruff: This is the article that I used to compare my calculations to, to see if I needed to add more income when I calculated. This was extremely helpful because it also gave me the spark to actually know where and how to get all my information.