Caleb Williams, Bears
Getty
Bears quarterback Caleb Williams
The NFL market is as healthy as ever, and elite quarterbacks benefit from that more than the rest of their contemporaries. Thus, the league’s reported interest in a major change to how it compensates roster personnel is worse news for players like Caleb Williams of the Chicago Bears than anyone else.
Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk wrote Saturday, March 28 about whispers circulating around the league that team owners want individual player salary caps in the next Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).
“There’s another possible wrinkle the league could try to add to the broader labor-management relationship. A cap on the money that any one player can make,” Florio wrote. “It presumably would be similar to the NBA’s approach, with max contracts based on a predetermined formula.”
NFL Could Put Ceiling on Top Salaries, Tie Them to Accolades
Caleb Williams of the Chicago Bears.
GettyChicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams.
The current CBA remains in effect through the 2030 season. However, negotiations between the league and the players association (NFLPA) will begin before that.
This potential change Florio mentioned would not be bad for most players in the league, as run-of-the-mill employees would see a bigger slice of the financial pie split among their ranks under such a system.
It would only meaningfully impact in negative fashion a handful of elite performers at the top of a select group of premier positions, and quarterbacks would be atop that list.
In the NBA, individual players can make a certain percentage of a team’s salary cap in any given year based on how long they have played and the earning of certain accolades, such as making one of the three All-NBA teams, which can elevate the percentage of the overall cap for which one player qualifies.
As such, a so-called “supermax” player in the NBA can currently earn 35 percent of the cap.
Player Salary Caps in NFL Would Impact Every Top QB Deal After 2030
Dak Prescott
GettyDallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott.
The reason such a system would prove bad news for Williams is that he is playing well enough at the most premium position that he should demand top-of-the-market value when he signs his second pro deal.
Williams will become extension-eligible next offseason, though he will still have a year remaining on his rookie contract plus a fifth-year team option, which the Bears can exercise to keep his salary somewhat controlled through 2028.
Dak Prescott of the Dallas Cowboys currently holds the record for the most expensive contract in NFL history at $60 million annually. When Williams inks his next deal a year or two from now, presumably an extension with the Bears, he will likely exceed that amount — just as Prescott did relative to his once more highly-paid predecessors.
A new CBA won’t be in effect by that time, so Williams’ second contract won’t be impacted by any pay structure changes. However, his third and fourth contracts, should he earn them, would be if such a rule came into effect. Williams turns 25 in November and will be in his early 30s when the time comes for contract No. 3.
The 2026 salary cap is just north of $301 million, and Prescott’s $60 million is slightly less than 25 percent of that. However, while the NFL’s structure of any new cap rule may mimic that of the NBA, the actual percentage figures are likely to be quite different given there are 15 players on each NBA roster and 53 players on an NFL roster.
Every top QB in the league, or who eventually joins it, and signs a major deal after 2030 would face a similar impact to their pay scale.