Buffalo Bills Not Weighed Down By Josh Allen’s Contract

The old axiom stating “a quarterback on a rookie contract is a cheat code” in the NFL is dead.

Miss me with it. I don’t want to hear it.

The goal of every franchise in the NFL is to win championships, plain and simple. All roster decisions, all drafting, all contracts, and everything that factors into building a 53-man roster is with that singular focus. But maybe the conventional thinking needs to go away.

In the 2013-14 season, the Seattle Seahawks marched to the Super Bowl with Russell Wilson at quarterback still on his rookie deal. He was lifted by the Legion of Boom, a defense founded through a few years of incredible drafting by still-GM John Schneider, including the likes of Richard Sherman, Earl Thomas, Kam Chancellor, and Bobby Wagner. It was a seemingly fairy tale run, culminating with an absolute route of the Peyton Manning-led Broncos, 43-8. They had the foundation in place to be a dynasty. Unfortunately, we know what happened at the goal line the next year, but I digress.

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Since that season, only one other quarterback on a rookie contract has won a Super Bowl – Patrick Mahomes, in Super Bowl LIII against the San Francisco 49ers at the conclusion of the 2019-20 season.

Here’s a list of Super Bowl-winning QBs since Wilson won it in 2014, compliments of a tweet by, well, me.

So, yeah. I don’t care about the rookie contract. It’s a great theory – draft a great quarterback on a rookie deal so you have money to spend elsewhere. But for such a good theory, it sure doesn’t seem to work out very often.

For Buffalo, they seem to be in a position similar to recent Super Bowl winners. They paid their star quarterback, who looks to be worth every penny of it. Josh Allen, who signed a then-huge contract extension in 2021 to keep him in Buffalo through 2028, is set to make $43M in 2024, which checks in as only the 10th-highest-paid quarterback in the league in terms of average annual value.

Jared Goff, who got a new four-year contract with the Detroit Lions, will be making $53M this year, which is second in the league behind only Joe Burrow.

Buffalo knew they had a star, locked him up to a long-term deal, and now has an MVP-caliber signal caller on contract for substantially less than what the top-paid quarterbacks in the league are earning. The contract will only continue to look better as other quarterbacks get paid and as the salary cap continues to climb year over year.

It’s a good day in Buffalo.