Jump to:
- Interesting Findings
- Methodology
- The Quarterbacks With The Highest Wage Per Hour and Per Minute
- Quarterbacks With The Highest Annual Salary
Some professional quarterbacks live in million-dollar mansions and drive $500,000+ sports cars, but not every professional quarterback makes six-figure salaries and lives a high roller lifestyle. If you’re Jimmy Garoppolo, you’re cashing in $27,645,113 per hour, but if you’re Dak Prescott, you’re earning *only* $65,620 an hour.
On average, each professional football player gets 11 minutes of playtime per game. The team at All Home Connections wanted to see how much that amounts to per hour for first-string professional quarterbacks in the 2018 football season.
But we didn’t stop there. We wanted to see how much the highest-paid quarterbacks get paid per minute too.
So, how much money do professional quarterbacks make to throw around a piece of leather? (Spoiler alert: be prepared to get a little jealous.)
Interesting findings
- Aaron Rodgers has the highest yearly salary of any first-string quarterback. At $66,900,000 a year, Rodgers earns an hourly wage of $8,762,304. To break it down further, that shakes out to be $146,038 per minute of playtime. The first-string quarterback with the lowest-paid salary is Dak Prescott, who makes a mere $630,000 a year.
- In 2018, America’s median household income was $61,937. In the same year, the median pay for a starting quarterback was $15,750,000—That’s a little over 250 times as much as American’s median income.
- Jimmy Garoppolo had the highest hourly rate of any big-name quarterback. In 2018, he took 197 snaps and had an estimated playtime of 1 hour, 31 minutes and 3 seconds. That amounts to a yearly salary of $41,950,000, meanwhile his hourly wage shakes out to be $27,645,113. It would take someone who makes $80,000 a year over 345 years to make what Garoppolo makes in a single hour.
- Dak Prescott had the lowest per hour of playtime rate, and he still makes $65,620 per hour. (Pssst: that’s higher than 50% of what American households make in an entire year.) Washington, DC has the highest minimum wage in the country, and its minimum wage is only $14.00 per hour.
- If you look closely, you’ll notice that Tom Brady made some of the lowest earnings atop our list—even though he’s one of the most well-known professional quarterbacks. Brady could have earned at least $60 million more, but because he stayed loyal to the Patriots, he signed contracts with them year after year with lower base salaries (but higher signing bonuses and more upfront money).
- 1939 was the first year professional football started streaming in peoples’ homes. Back then, they only had two cameras and eight crewmembers working the first game. Now, the regular season is available on five channels, and nearly 119,648 people work both behind the scenes and on the field.
Methodology
To get our numbers, we calculated the estimated total time played for every professional first-string quarterback for each professional football team in the 2018 season.
We calculated their number of total snaps in the regular season and playoff games and multiplied that by their offense’s average seconds per play. We then divided this by their 2018 earnings to find out how much they made per hour of playtime.
Note: Joe Flacco of the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49er’s Jimmy Garoppolo were both injured early in the season. Despite being-first string quarterbacks, they didn’t end up playing the most on their team during the 2018 season.
The quarterbacks with the highest wage per hour & per minute
| Quarterback | Team | Earnings per hour of playtime | Earnings per minute of playtime |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jimmy Garoppolo | San Francisco 49ers | $27,645,113.05 | $460,751.88 |
| Aaron Rodgers | Green Bay Packers | $8,762,304.48 | $146,038.41 |
| Alex Smith | Washington Redskins | $7,731,497.96 | $128,858.30 |
| Matt Ryan | Atlanta Falcons | $3,655,041.81 | $60,917.36 |
| Ryan Tannehill | Miami Dolphins | $3,611,060.16 | $60,184.34 |
| Sam Darnold | New York Jets | $3,289,070.95 | $54,817.85 |
| Blake Bortles | Jacksonville Jaguars | $3,288,292.86 | $54,804.88 |
| Baker Mayfield | Cleveland Browns | $3,287,375.02 | $54,789.58 |
| Kirk Cousins | Minnesota Vikings | $3,249,107.62 | $54,151.79 |
| Drew Brees | New Orleans Saints | $2,936,278.23 | $48,937.97 |
| Andy Dalton | Cincinnati Bengals | $2,910,598.56 | $48,509.98 |
| Derek Carr | Oakland Raiders | $2,707,083.54 | $45,118.06 |
| Joe Flacco | Baltimore Ravens | $2,508,176.25 | $41,802.94 |
| Josh Allen | Buffalo Bills | $2,475,269.02 | $41,254.48 |
| Case Keenum | Denver Broncos | $2,259,723.08 | $37,662.05 |
| Cam Newton | Carolina Panthers | $2,131,224.21 | $35,520.40 |
| Eli Manning | New York Giants | $2,083,438.83 | $34,723.98 |
| Ben Roethlisberger | Pittsburgh Steelers | $2,040,318.29 | $34,005.30 |
| Andrew Luck | Indianapolis Colts | $1,974,261.48 | $32,904.36 |
| Matthew Stafford | Detroit Lions | $1,968,754.47 | $32,812.57 |
| Josh Rosen | Arizona Cardinals | $1,880,607.53 | $31,343.46 |
| Russell Wilson | Seattle Seahawks | $1,705,983.78 | $28,433.06 |
| Philip Rivers | Los Angeles Chargers | $1,611,122.71 | $26,852.05 |
| Tom Brady | New England Patriots | $1,487,544.30 | $24,792.40 |
| Mitchell Trubisky | Chicago Bears | $802,112.49 | $13,368.54 |
| Jameis Winston | Tampa Bay Buccaneers | $727,456.88 | $12,124.28 |
| Marcus Mariota | Tennessee Titans | $588,025.96 | $9,800.43 |
| Carson Wentz | Philadelphia Eagles | $486,430.31 | $8,107.17 |
| Jared Goff | Los Angeles Rams | $314,145.85 | $5,235.76 |
| Patrick Mahomes | Kansas City Chiefs | $135,353.34 | $2,255.89 |
| Deshaun Watson | Houston Texans | $123,704.56 | $2,061.74 |
| Dak Prescott | Dallas Cowboys | $65,620.84 | $1,093.68 |
The quarterbacks with the highest annual salary
| Quarterback | Team | Earnings per year |
|---|---|---|
| Aaron Rodgers | Green Bay Packers | $66,900,000 |
| Jimmy Garoppolo | San Francisco 49ers | $41,950,000 |
| Alex Smith | Washington Redskins | $40,000,000 |
| Matt Ryan | Atlanta Falcons | $29,250,000 |
| Drew Brees | New Orleans Saints | $27,000,000 |
| Kirk Cousins | Minnesota Vikings | $26,000,000 |
| Derek Carr | Oakland Raiders | $22,500,000 |
| Baker Mayfield | Cleveland Browns | $22,329,440 |
| Sam Darnold | New York Jets | $20,558,338 |
| Blake Bortles | Jacksonville Jaguars | $20,000,000 |
| Case Keenum | Denver Broncos | $18,023,476 |
| Andrew Luck | Indianapolis Colts | $18,000,000 |
| Ryan Tannehill | Miami Dolphins | $17,500,000 |
| Ben Roethlisberger | Pittsburgh Steelers | $17,000,000 |
| Matthew Stafford | Detroit Lions | $16,500,000 |
| Eli Manning | New York Giants | $16,000,000 |
| Russell Wilson | Seattle Seahawks | $15,500,000 |
| Cam Newton | Carolina Panthers | $15,000,000 |
| Philip Rivers | Los Angeles Chargers | $15,000,000 |
| Tom Brady | New England Patriots | $15,000,000 |
| Josh Allen | Buffalo Bills | $13,965,846 |
| Andy Dalton | Cincinnati Bengals | $13,900,000 |
| Joe Flacco | Baltimore Ravens | $12,000,000 |
| Josh Rosen | Arizona Cardinals | $11,358,368 |
| Mitchell Trubisky | Chicago Bears | $6,597,656 |
| Jameis Winston | Tampa Bay Buccaneers | $3,767,580 |
| Marcus Mariota | Tennessee Titans | $3,736,905 |
| Jared Goff | Los Angeles Rams | $2,989,788 |
| Carson Wentz | Philadelphia Eagles | $2,875,122 |
| Patrick Mahomes | Kansas City Chiefs | $1,211,635 |
| Deshaun Watson | Houston Texans | $1,094,740 |
| Dak Prescott | Dallas Cowboys | $630,000 |
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