Cam Newton's deal raises guaranteed-money bar for great QBs to come

David Steele

Cam Newton's deal raises guaranteed-money bar for great QBs to come image

The size of Cam Newton's contract extension with the Panthers — reportedly $103.8 million over five years, $60 million guaranteed, an average of just under $20.8 million per season — is not shocking. As it turned out, the early report that it would be fully guaranteed, something the NFL is against, was too good to be true.

But Newton did knock Aaron Rodgers off the top of the guaranteed money heap — the Packers gave Rodgers $54 million guaranteed in 2013 — and came close to an under-appreciated record held by Matthew Stafford.

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A former No. 1 overall pick like Newton, Stafford received $41.5 million guaranteed from the Lions. It made up a whopping 78.3 percent of the total of his four-year, $53 million extension, according to overthecap.com, a site run by Sporting News contributor Jason Fitzgerald.

Newton's $60 million guaranteed, according to some quick math, makes up 57.8 percent of the contract total.

Other than Stafford, since the new labor agreement went into effect in 2011, not even the NFL’s marquee names have gotten anywhere close to that percentage.

Carolina drafted Newton in 2011, and the quarterbacks of that class have signed deals light on guarantees and heavy on make-goods. They include incentives or, in the unusual case of the 49ers’ Colin Kaepernick, decelerators. Kaepernick’s $114 million contract signed last summer is just 11.4 percent guaranteed, at $12.9 million. 

The Bengals’ Andy Dalton, who signed earlier in the offseason, has $17.7 percent of his $96 million deal guaranteed.

Ryan Tannehill, the first of the 2012 quarterback draft class to sign, has 27.9 percent of his $77 million deal with the Dolphins guaranteed.

They're all minuscule next to Stafford’s package and less weighty than Rodgers’ guarantee, which still is just under half of the reported total at 49.1 percent.

But Rodgers has won a Super Bowl and an MVP award. The Ravens' Joe Flacco, a Super Bowl MVP, had 24 percent of his $120 million deal guaranteed.

Newton and the Panthers have broached uncharted territory. Yet it’s territory that could, in various ways, be overrun later this offseason by either the Colts’ Andrew Luck or the Seahawks’ Russell Wilson … or both.

As Newton saw others set the market for him, he now alters the market for that pair. Now, for guaranteed money promised to the NFL's best passers, the sky is the limit.

David Steele

David Steele Photo

David Steele writes about the NFL for Sporting News, which he joined in 2011 as a columnist. He has previously written for AOL FanHouse, the Baltimore Sun, San Francisco Chronicle and Newsday. He co-authored Olympic champion Tommie Smith's autobiography, Silent Gesture.