With the Wednesday morning news that Saints receiver Michael Thomas signed a new five-year, $100 million contract to remain with his original team through the 2024 season, it’s time to see which NFL receivers have the biggest active contracts. The Thomas deal is the first for a receiver to break the $100 million mark in total value, and though NFL contracts frequently have a lot of interesting non-guaranteed language, these nine guys shouldn’t have to borrow any money anytime soon.
T.Y. Hilton | Julio Jones | Stefon Diggs | Jarvis Landry | DeAndre Hopkins | Brandin Cooks | Mike Evans | Odell Beckham, Jr. | Michael Thomas
(All contract information courtesy of OverTheCap.com).
T.Y. Hilton: 5 years, $65 million, $38 million guaranteed
The Colts’ third-round pick in 2012, Hilton has been one of the NFL’s best deep targets for a long time. He signed his contract extension in 2015, and he’s scheduled to be a free agent after the 2020 season. If anything goes south, the Colts can cut Hilton before the 2020 season with no cap penalty at all. If they don’t, he’ll be on the books for $14.542 million.
Julio Jones: 5 years, $71.25 million, $47 million guaranteed
That Jones has the eighth-highest contract on this list tells you the need the Falcons have to get something done with their best player. If Jones isn’t the NFL’s top receiver, he’s on a very short list. He’s already restructured his contract once to give the team more cap space by moving Jones’ $2.8 million of his 2019 number into 2018 as part of a $4.4 million signing bonus. Jones is on the books for $13,466,666 in 2019 and $12,892,668 in 2020, the last year of his current contract, but this is academic. The Falcons need to get Jones extended sooner than later.
Stefon Diggs: 5 years, $72 million, $40.007 million guaranteed
Diggs has improved exponentially through his four-year career, and the VIkings did the smart thing in 2018, rewarding him with an extension before things got fractious. Right now, when you consider the length of his rookie deal, Diggs is under contract through the 2023 season, and the cap hits don’t get any higher than $15 million in any year. With his talent, that’s a bargain for the team.
Jarvis Landry: 5 years, $75.5 million, $47 million guaranteed
After four seasons with the Dolphins in which he established himself as one of the league’s most prolific receivers, Landry secured the bag with the Browns before the start of the 2018 season. But this contract is an interesting one–the cap penalty for releasing Landry is pretty small starting in 2020 ($4.5 million that season, $3 million in 2021, and $1.5 million in 2022), and with Odell Beckham now on Cleveland’s ledger as well, there may be a restructure in order.
DeAndre Hopkins: 5 years, $81 million, $49 million guaranteed
Perhaps the top receiver in the NFL, Hopkins signed his well-deserved extension on August 31, 2017, and he’s done nothing but earn it ever since. Over the last two seasons, only Michael Thomas has more receptions than Hopkins’ 221, only Julio Jones has more receiving yards than Hopkins’ 2,950, and Hopkins is tied with Antonio Brown for the most receiving touchdowns with 24. The Texans’ offense would be lost without him.
Brandin Cooks: 5 years, $81 million, $50.459 million guaranteed
Cooks had outstanding seasons with the Saints and Patriots before the Rams gave him a lucrative extension in July, 2018. He became the epicenter of Sean McVay’s passing offense, and few receivers of his generation have excelled in so many different concepts. Signed through the 2023 season, Cooks has language in his contract that would make a release prohibitive until the 2022 season, and even then, it’d be an $8.2 million cap hit. Expect to see Cooks in Los Angeles for a long time.
Mike Evans: 5 years, $82.5 million, $55 million guaranteed
Is Mike Evans the most underrated receiver in the NFL today? You could make that case based on talent vs. recognition, but Evans is certainly paid like a top receiver. He got his big deal in Marsh of 2018, and he’s already restructured it once, converting $4 million of his salary to a signing bonus in June, 2019. That gave the Bucs $3.2 million in cap room for the 2019 season, and added $800,000 to the remaining years of his contract, which currently runs through 2023.
Odell Beckham, Jr.: 5 years, $90 million, $65 million guaranteed
It is perhaps the ultimate Dave Gettleman move to sign Odell Beckham, Jr. to a five-year, $90 million deal in 2018, insist that he wasn’t signing Beckham to trade him, and then trade him. But now that he’s out of the Giants’ disaster, things get interesting. Beckham and Landry are two of the highest-paid receivers in the league–between them, they’re responsible for over $31 million in cap room in 2019 alone. No doubt they’ll be a productive duo on the field, especially with Baker Mayfield throwing the ball, but how long will it be before one or both prove too expensive? Could be a moot point with the salary cap increasing every year and a new CBA (hopefully) around the corner, but it’s something to watch.
Michael Thomas: 5 years, $100 million, $61 million guaranteed
This is as well-deserved a receiver contract as there can be, because Thomas is already ridiculously good, and it’s likely that he’s going to get even better–though “even better” is up from a pretty high bar. As I recently pointed out, Pro Football Reference has target and catch percentage totals going back to 1992, and in that time, no other receiver has been more efficient turning his targets into catches than Thomas in 2018. Among receivers with at least 100 targets in a season, Thomas’ 85.0% catch rate reigns supreme. He led the league with 125 catches for 1,405 yards and nine touchdowns, and he wasn’t just getting by on easy short completions. Per Pro Football Focus, Thomas was targeted on 12 passes of 20 air yards or more, with eight catches for 288 yards and two touchdowns. In 2016, he ranked fifth all time among receivers targeted at least 100 times with a 76.0% catch rate. No fluke there.
