If you’re an NFL player hoping to get paid, you have produce on the field.
That obvious fact is no more relevant than at the quarterback position, where signal-callers who put up big numbers are rewarded with lucrative contracts.
Andy Dalton is a prime example, as the 26-year-old passed for a career-high 4,293 yards and 33 touchdowns last season and was rewarded by the Cincinnati Bengals with a six-year, $115 million contract extension.
With this correlation in mind, the folks at Next Impulse Sports released a handy infographic breaking down each starting NFL quarterback’s “earnings per production” in 2013. The infographic uses each QB’s 2013 earnings — courtesy of Over The Cap — and 2013 stats to calculate how much money they made per touchdown, yard, completion and interception.
The numbers are cool to look at, but earnings per production doesn’t necessarily tell us much about a quarterback’s performance. Matt Schaub, for example, pulled in more than $1 million per touchdown pass thanks to his large contract and subpar stats, while Peyton Manning garnered just over $300,000 per TD despite making $7 million more than Schaub as a result of his record-breaking 2013 output.
Still, it’s pretty interesting to see how the numbers break down, and marvel at the fact that New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady made over $3,000 per passing yard and $36,000 for every pass he completed in 2013. Not bad for a day’s work.
