Giants' quarterback Daniel Jones, the most expensive starting QB-per-touchdown in the NFL (Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)

Million-dollar touchdowns

How expensive is each NFL quarterback, based on last season's production?

A look at the league's starting quarterbacks' contracts as compared to last season's stats.

9/9/24 3:51PM

The NFL is BACK, and once again, my beloved Falcons have managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, the Bears have found new ways to win despite nonexistent quarterback play, and Daniel Jones was, well, Daniel Jones.

Of course, the only group more excited about the start of the season than fans like myself are the league's quarterbacks, 28 of whom will make at least $10 million dollars this year.

After an offseason filled with record-setting quarterback contracts, I wanted to break down just how expensive these contracts are and give a QB value rating by comparing this year's pay to last season's passing yards and total touchdowns. The table below shows this year's income and last year's stats for the league's starting quarterbacks, as well as backups who are on more expensive deals than their starting QBs.

For the sake of this exercise, I only included quarterbacks with previous starting experience in the NFL (excluding rookie starters, for example). Players who missed part of their last season, like Kyler Murray, who only started eight games last year, have had their stats pro-rated to model their expected production over a 17-game season.

While the Packers' Jordan Love leads the NFL in dollars per passing yard, Daniel Jones, who had three total touchdowns (two passing, one rushing) through six games last year, is in a league of his own on dollars per expected touchdown:

Meanwhile, Brock Purdy, who led the 49ers to the Super Bowl last year, looks like a bargain at $28,093 per touchdown. In fact, eight starting quarterbacks in college football's Southeastern Conference currently earn more from Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals than Purdy makes from his contract with the 49ers:

For Purdy's sake, hopefully he can build on last season's momentum and lock in a more lucrative contract extension. His current contract, which expires after next season, would only pay him $1.1 million in 2025.

The Giants, who took a ~$47.9 million 2024 salary cap hit on Daniel Jones' contract, might look to cut their losses after this season if production doesn't improve quickly.

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Even the BBC, having climbed the rankings from last year to top the 2026 chart — reportedly in part thanks to Similarweb’s decision to combine the “.co.uk” and “.com” versions of the URL, given that the sites redirect to each other depending on the user’s location — showed a 1.9% decline from last year.

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Drake started at the bottom and he’s here, but not quite at the top... of Spotify, at least.

It’s been nearly three weeks since Drake dropped his three surprise albums — “Iceman,” “Habibti,” and “Maid of Honour.” Heading into the month, prediction markets were rating it a near certainty, a 98% chance, that Drake’s sonic onslaught was enough to snag the No. 1 slot on Spotify at least once in June.

But, while he surpassed the late Michael Jackson and took up three slots on the Billboard album chart at once, his newly released songs haven’t quite cracked the popular music-streaming platform’s top charts, and market seem to think the moment has passed.

(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

Spotify’s “Top Songs - Global” chart currently show that Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” which is more than four decades old, Justin Bieber’s “Beauty and a Beat,” which climbed back to the top of Spotify charts following his Coachella set in the spring, Olivia Rodrigo’s new angsty love song “The Cure,” and BTS’s “Swim” are all ahead of Drake’s “STFU Janice” from his “Iceman” album.

While Spotify previously reported last month that Drake’s “Make Them Cry” was the most streamed album in a single day this year, that was later revealed to be a data error.

Prediction markets currently show traders are betting there’s only a 15% chance Drake will have a No. 1 song on Spotify in June.

Meanwhile, Taylor Swift is in the lead at 98% — a day before the release of her new original song “I Knew It, I Knew You,” which she wrote and performed for Disney and Pixar’s upcoming “Toy Story 5” — followed by Olivia Rodrigo, whose highly anticipated album “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love” comes out next Friday.