It’s the two-year anniversary of Alex Smith signing his contract extension with the Kansas City Chiefs. It was on August 31, 2014 that he signed a four-year, $68 million extension.
So I thought it would be fun to check out where Alex Smith stacks up in quarterback contracts around the league.
I went to Over The Cap and sorted the quarterback contracts by average per year. I know there are differences like guaranteed money and length of contract and it’s not a perfect comparison but average per year over the life of the contract I think is the fairest way to compare the deals.
Alex’s $17 million per year on his extension ranks 21st in the NFL. Here they are in order starting with the highest paid, according to Over The Cap’s list:
Andrew Luck, Joe Flacco, Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson, Ben Roethlisberger, Eli Manning, Philip Rivers, Cam Newton, Matt Ryan, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Kirk Cousins, Ryan Tannehill, Colin Kaepernick, Jay Cutler, Brock Osweiler, Tyrod Taylor, Tony Romo, Matt Stafford, Sam Bradford, Alex Smith, Carson Palmer, Andy Dalton.
There are some obvious outliers. Kirk Cousins is on the franchise tag. Colin Kaepernick could be cut this week. Sam Bradford’s deal is only two years. Dak Prescott’s about to put Tony Romo out of a job (I kid, I kid). The rookies aren’t included, namely Blake Bortles, Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota.
Despite that, this gives you a pretty good idea of where the quarterback market is and how the Chiefs judged it pretty well. I would argue that Alex is better than the 21st quarterback.