The NFL quarterback market has seen players getting shorter deals, and that’s the new trend. Joe Burrow, Trevor Lawrence, Justin Herbert, and Lamar Jackson signed five-year contracts. But Tua Tagovailoa, Jordan Love, and Dak Prescott reached four-year extensions. Good for the Buffalo Bills, they signed him to a six-year extension back in 2021, which created a hugely team-friendly environment for years to come.
Eventually, what seemed a strong yearly average of $43 million became obsolete, and now it’s $17 million behind the top of the market. In the offseason, the Bills made a short-term move to fix that, pushing money from the future to compensate Allen better this season.
He is making $60 million in 2024, but is slated to make only $14.5 million in 2025. It’s an inflection point, and Allen obviously won’t play under that figure next season. Soon, parties will have to sit again and negotiate a new contract.
How much
The question is not if, but when and for how much Josh Allen will sign a new extension with the Bills. It has to be before Week 1 in 2025, and probably before training camp too.
Josh Allen still has $129.554 million and four years to play under his old deal, an average of $32.388 million. That gives the Bills some leverage to find a new deal, but also some flexibility to structure the extension in a team-friendlier way.
On Saturday, The Athletic Football Show released a special episode talking about the quarterback market, and host Robert Mays talked about interesting topics with Brad Spielberger, a former PFF cap analyst and current Director of Football Administration at Grand Central Sports Management.
