Tens of millions of fans all over the world love to watch NFL football. Watching their favorite team go to battle each week during the fall and into the winter has become a fundamental part of life for many Americans. Even when things don't go their way the fans all come back the following week, ready to experience the full range of emotions the human mind can offer; there's just something about football that elicits them all.
But in the last 15 or so years, there has been a massive spike in interest in the game beyond the game— the financial side. More and more fans are so passionate about their teams that they don't just want to see what's happening on the field. They want to understand how the team came together and what might change next in order to further their team's fortunes. In simpler terms there's been a greater desire to understand the money— which players get paid the most, how much they are allowed to be paid, and how those pieces all fit into the puzzle that is roster configuration.
Or, at a simpler level, these fans just want to know how much professional athletes make. Perhaps they harbor dreams of one day making millions as a professional athlete. Or they just want to debate whether the player in question is overpaid, underpaid, both, or neither. No matter the reason it's an undeniable trend that fans care more than ever about how much professional athletes are taking home every year.
It's a layered topic. Superstar players, and in particular quarterbacks, take home significantly more than role players and end-of-bench guys. Not to mention how much star contracts outpace those of the coaching staff and other personnel. Then there are the nuances of a rookie minimum contract vs. a veteran minimum contract, how much rookies are permitted to make as determined by the Collective Bargaining Agreement and salaries for players on the practice squad.
All that can be a bit complicated to digest. To help sift through that context, here you'll find everything you need to know about NFL player salaries. It will help you further understand the game in the way you want. As they say, money talks, and in the NFL the money does almost all the talking.
Here's everything to know about player salaries and earnings in the 2025 NFL season.
Average NFL Player Salary
The first thing to understand about player salaries in the NFL is that the pool of players is enormous. Significantly larger than in any other American professional sport.
Game day rosters consist of 53 players for each team. Then there are 17 practice squad slots available to be used for players who would not count against the weekly roster. Then there are groups of players who are injured for the season and are put on the injured reserve list; those players are paid according to their contracts but are not permitted to play (some will return over the course of the year, forcing teams to adjust their 53-man roster accordingly).
All in, hundreds of players cycle in and out of each individual team every year. And they've all gotta be paid. Which leads to a very strong disparity in how much those end-of-roster players make and how much the superstars make. Such a dramatic difference has a big effect on average salary.
There is no listed average salary for an NFL player. However, we can make a strong guess based on two simple facts: how much money teams have to spend, and how many players are in the NFL.
For simplicity's sake, we'll only count active NFL players since every team has a different number of players on the IR and on their practice squads. We'll also assume each team has a full 53-man roster of active players; this is true 99% of the time, but occasionally teams leave a spot empty for their own devices.
There are 1,696 active NFL players—32 rosters made up of 53 players each. The salary cap for the 2025 season is $279 million, which makes for a grand total of $8.92 billion for teams to spend on players in total. If we divide that number by the amount of players on the roster, we'd get a rough idea of the average NFL salary. Which means, for the 2025 season, the average NFL salary is about $5.2 million.
The number isn't 100% accurate. Not every team uses every dollar of its salary cap every year and there are way more players making less than $5 million this year than the other way around. But it's a good estimate given the available information.
NFL Rookie Salary
Becoming an NFL player is a privilege that thousands of college players work extremely hard to earn. But as unproven commodities in the professional realm, there are guidelines to how much they can earn on their first contracts. These guidelines are dictated by the NFL's collective bargaining agreement with the Players Association. In other words, it's not a free market for players taken in the annual NFL draft.
However, it's important to understand that there are two types of rookies to enter the NFL: drafted and undrafted rookies.
Drafted rookies are one of the 250 or so players selected by teams in the draft, held each year in April. Those players have their earnings determined by the CBA ahead of time. Taking the 2025 NFL draft as an example, it doesn't matter who exactly was picked first—as per the CBA, that slot is allocated a four-year contract worth $48 million with a rookie salary of $8.9 million. The second pick is also allocated a specific amount of money but is less than the first pick. It's the same with the third pick, the fourth, so on and so forth. This is called the rookie salary scale in football terms.
To give you an idea of the broad range of salary for drafted players, here is a look at the total worth of the contracts players taken in the first 10 picks of the 2025 NFL draft.
In contrast, the designated rookie salary for the last 10 picks of the draft is the same: $865,369.
Millions of dollars are lost and earned during the pre-draft process as players jockey for position and attempt to be selected as high as possible.
Then there are undrafted players. These players did not get picked in the draft and thus are effectively free agents that teams are permitted to pursue upon completion of the draft. Their salaries are not dictated by the terms of the CBA but since they were not considered talented enough to be drafted outright their wages are always significantly lower than their drafted peers. However, the CBA does rule that teams cannot go below a certain number when offering contracts to undrafted rookies. This is called the rookie minimum wage.
In 2025, the rookie minimum wage as determined by the CBA is $840,000.
As you can see there is a vast difference between a highly-drafted rookie and an under-the-radar prospect. It's a lot of money being thrown around no matter what, but 2025 No. 1 pick Cam Ward is living a lot differently than No. 257 pick Kobee Minor.
NFL Referee Salary
The players aren't the only people in the NFL getting paid, however.
NFL referees are nearly as prevalent as players in the eyes of fans given their place on the field every Sunday. Referees have to make sure the game runs smoothly while also calling out any rulebook infractions they can find. They also deal with angry coaches, players, and fans whenever they get something wrong—or even when they get something right.
How much are they paid for that privilege? You can find out here.
NFL Cheerleader Salary
Cheerleaders have long been a subject of fascination in American society. They've also long been fixtures at NFL games for most of the league's history. In the modern NFL not every team has cheerleaders, but most do, and the best ones are celebrated with Pro Bowl nominations just like the players. It's a very high-profile job and a very competitive one as well.
What are the perks of being an NFL cheerleader? How much are they paid to cheer during the 17-week regular season and playoffs? You can find out here.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as The Complete Guide to NFL Player Salaries and Earnings.
