The richest NFL players of 2025, ranked
With a new season underway, we take a look at the richest NFL players of all time
By Cayle Reid
IT’S NO SECRET that NFL players make a lot of money. The highest-paid player in the league, Dak Prescott, currently earns $92 million AUD per year. You don’t need to spend much time on a contract like that to be set for life.
But while the annual salaries of the top NFL players are ludicrous, the richest players aren’t just making their money on the field. The smart, business-savvy ones expand their revenue streams by making shrewd investments, signing sponsorship deals and building their personal brands to ensure they’ll keep bringing in income long after they’ve retired
So, who is the richest NFL player of all time? Scroll on to find out.
All figures are estimates only, have been converted to AUD and are accurate as of September 10, 2025.
Who are the richest NFL players in 2025?
10. Travis Kelce
Net worth: $137 million
A 13-year veteran, Travis Kelce has been making a lot of money for a long time. His current contract nets him around $25 million per year and helps him be the only non-quarterback on this list. If Kelce is brave enough to open a joint checking account with his fiancé, Taylor Swift, he may shoot up to the top of our ranking.
9. Patrick Mahomes
Net worth: $145 million
Kelce’s quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, has been one of the NFL’s highest paid players for half a decade. Back in 2021, he signed a huge, 10-year contract extension worth a total of $721 million. The deal will keep Mahomes with the Kansas City Chiefs until at least 2031, and ensure he remains one of the richest NFL players. His new ambassadorship with Hublot won’t hurt either.
8. Matt Stafford
Net worth: $227 million
Matt Stafford has been breaking salary records throughout his entire 16-year NFL career. In 2009, he became the highest-paid rookie ever shortly after being selected with the first pick in the draft by the Detroit Lions. A few years later, he became the highest-paid player in the league, and his current salary of $64 million has helped him rack up the second-most career earnings of any player in history.
7. Kirk Cousins
Net worth: $243 million
Another guy who has been on big money for most of his career, Kirk Cousins has earned monstrous contracts from the Washington Redskins, Minnesota Vikings and Atlanta Falcons. His current salary is $69 million. But despite all he’s been paid, Cousins has only managed a lone playoff win in his career, compared to four playoff losses.
6. Russell Wilson
Net worth: $250 million
Super Bowl-winning quarterback Russell Wilson signed a comparatively meagre contract with the New York Giants in the offseason. It will pay him an average salary of $16 million, a life-changing sum for an everyman like you or me, but for Wilson that figure barely adds to his career earnings, which total over $450 million.
5. Aaron Rodgers
Net worth: $300 million
Aaron Rodgers has the most career earnings in NFL history, so it’s no surprise to see him crack the top five. The four-time MVP also had his own Netflix documentary and made a fair bit of coin from that, too.
4. Peyton Manning
Net worth: $380 million
The first retired player on this list, Peyton Manning, spent most of his career as one of the NFL’s highest-paid players. He’s also been the beneficiary of numerous lucrative endorsement deals with Nike, Buick, DirecTV, Gatorade, Nationwide and Papa John’s. He became a franchisee of the latter in 2016 and sold multiple restaurants for a profit.
3. Fran Tarkenton
Net worth: $450 million
Fran Tarkenton is a deserved Hall of Famer, don’t get us wrong, but it’s not often that you hear his name brought up in the GOAT discussion. So, how does he have such a massive net worth? It’s because he founded a tech company after retiring and invested early and heavily in Apple. Tarkenton’s investment portfolio includes everything from insurance companies to financial institutions.
2. Tom Brady
Net worth: $455 million
Widely considered the best to ever do it, Tom Brady was well compensated for his skills during his playing career. Endorsements with Under Armour, TAG Heuer and Aston Martin bolstered his coffers, while post-retirement ventures like launching a Brady Brand apparel line and the TB12 fitness company have only made him richer. Brady also recently signed a record-breaking broadcast deal with Fox Sports for a 10-year tenure as an analyst, and owns a stake in English football club Birmingham City.
1. Roger Staubach
Net worth: $910 million
Like Fran Tarkenton, Roger Staubach is a Hall of Famer, but he is absolutely not who you’d expect to top this list – especially after we just sang Brady’s praises. Staubach made his fortune by building and selling The Staubach Company, a commercial real estate firm he started in 1977 and sold to Jones Lang LaSalle for close to $900 million in 2008. While his NFL earnings were comparatively modest, his keen business mind made Staubach one of the wealthiest athletes in history.
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The richest NBA players of 2025, ranked
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