The Buffalo Bills celebrated over the weekend after signing star QB Josh Allen to a historically rich contract extension, and there exists more than one valid reason for their jubilation.
First and foremost, Allen is the NFL’s reigning Most Valuable Player and is coming off an elite season in 2024. He is now locked into Buffalo for the next six years heading into his age-29 season, which represents most of the rest of what has historically been the prime of professional quarterbacks.
Secondly, despite inking Allen to a $330 million deal with a league record $250 million in guaranteed money, the Bills saved on the Allen contract — and they saved significantly.
Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen.
© Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
Bill Barnwell of ESPN on Monday, March 10, outlined exactly how Buffalo kept as much as $90 million in its coffers that Allen could have — and perhaps should have — demanded.
Allen has clearly taken a smaller salary than his performance and the quarterback market would suggest.
Allen’s $55 million average ties him for the league’s second-largest figure with Joe Burrow, Jordan Love and Trevor Lawrence. The difference is that those players signed their contracts in smaller cap environments. Burrow’s deal came in 2023, when the cap was at $224.8 million. Love and Lawrence signed in 2024, with the cap then up to $255.4 million. The cap is now at $279.2 million in 2025, meaning it has risen by nearly 24% between the time Burrow signed his pact and Allen inked his.
Put another way, that $55 million represents 19.7% of the current cap. That figure ranks 13th among active quarterbacks on multiyear veteran deals in terms of extension average annual value. It’s closer to Derek Carr (who signed for 16.7% of the cap as a free agent) than [Dak] Prescott (23.5%). Allen could have credibly asked for $70 million a year on a new deal.
At $70 million annually, Allen would be making $15 million more per season over a six-year run, which equals $90 million total.
Barnwell explained that part of Allen’s motivation for accepting so much less than he could have demanded is likely tied to the Bills’ decision to completely discard the four years the QB had remaining on his most recent deal and entirely redo his contract — a move that Barnwell described as essentially “unprecedented” in the modern NFL.
