NFL kickers play one of the sport’s most uniquely valuable positions. A great kicker gives a team a massive advantage, allowing them to score from longer distances and reliably put points on the board, even in tough conditions. On the other hand, a struggling kicker can cost a team from winning games it should.
In the early days of the NFL, the league did not have kicking specialists and other players instead handled kicking duties. Benjamin Agajanian is believed to have been the league’s first kicking specialist in 1945, and now 80 years later, kickers have since become highly skilled, able to hit field goals from 60 yards out or beyond. As such, they’ve become the latest NFL position that can earn multi-millions on an annual basis.
Here’s a look at the paid kickers in the NFL, ranked by annual salary.
Who is the NFL’s highest paid kicker?
Unsurprisingly, Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker is the NFL’s highest-paid kicker. Though his accuracy has dipped as of late, Butker has been with Kansas City since 2017 and helped them win three Super Bowls. He signed his extension in 2024, after he converted a career-high 94.3% of his field goal attempts, made all of his extra points and all 19 of his postseason kicks during the 2023 campaign.
Top 15 highest-paid kickers
After Butker, Eagles kicker Jake Elliott is the second-highest paid kicker in the league. Like Butker, Elliott has similarly seen his accuracy wane over the past couple years, but he has been a long-tenured member of Philadelphia since their first Super Bowl run in 2017.
Chargers kicker Cameron Dicker certainly merits his spot as a top-three highest-paid kicker. Dicker, who re-signed with Los Angeles in 2024, became the most accurate kicker in NFL history earlier this season with a 93.5 career field goal percentage.
While the kickers on the list above are primarily earning in the $4–6 million per year range, the majority of kickers outside the top 15 are earning between $800,000 and $1.3 million. This is for a variety of reasons, often because they are kickers who are either on rookie deals, short-term contracts, or have struggled with consistency and are on a second or third chance.
Three kickers who could jump into this list are the Cowboys’ Brandon Aubrey, Jaguars’ Cam Little and the 49ers’ Eddy Piñeiro. Aubrey’s long kicking has been a key advantage for the Cowboys this season, and he is 18-19 on field goal attempts this year. Little is currently on his rookie contract and did miss some kicks earlier this year, but he is 6-for-6 over the last two weeks, including hitting an NFL record 68-yard field goal, the longest in league history. Meanwhile, Piñeiro has been one of the 49ers’ most important additions, especially after their prior kicking woes. Piñeiro has made all of his field goal attempts this season.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Highest-Paid NFL Kickers: Full Breakdown & Salary Rankings.
