We’ve safely returned to the familiar game of quarterback contract leapfrog, where each deal just slightly surpasses the one before it, with just a little bit of room inside the minutiae of each for agents to squabble over the superiority of their injury guarantees.
Our detours into what is truly possible from a monetary standpoint, provided by Patrick Mahomes (a massive jump in both length and average annual value) Kirk Cousins (year-by-year fully guaranteed contracts) and Deshaun Watson (a desperate, fully guaranteed super deal) were entertaining to say the least. They were all somewhat circumstantial, though, and driven by certain events not applicable to other quarterbacks in the pool.
So it went for Jalen Hurts, Lamar Jackson and now Justin Herbert, who inked a five-year, $262.5 million deal on Tuesday. The terms were first reported by ESPN. Jackson topped Hurts by $5 million. Herbert topped Jackson by $2.5 million, with more guaranteed in case of injury.
