Bills quarterback Josn Allen got his long-term contract three years ago. It’s not aging well.
The market has spiked dramatically since then, with plenty of lesser quarterbacks landing better and better deals.
After Friday, with Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa agreeing to a four-year extension worth $53.1 million per year and Packers quarterback Jordan Love getting four new years at $55 million per, Allen’s $43 million annual average is becoming more and more glaring.
Those new contracts were struck just a day after Bills G.M. Brandon Beane defended Allen against those who would call him overrated.
“If I was going to use ‘rated,’ I would say underrated before I said overrated,” Beane said.
And, for many, if they were going to use “under,” they also would say “underpaid.”
Yes, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes — at $45 million per year — also has a shockingly low annual average. Last year, however, the Chiefs shifted his long-term deal to surpass the cash flow in the contract signed by Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow. For Allen, that hasn’t happened.
The challenge for the Bills becomes finding a way to enhance the contract of a quarterback who will be expected this year to do even more than in recent seasons, given the departures of receivers Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis. Because Allen’s contract was engineered to have low cap numbers in the first three years ($10.2 million, $16.3 million, and $18.6 million), the spike is coming.
A restructuring this year knocked the number down to $30.3 million. Next year, it’s due to be more than $60 million. If/when Allen gets a new deal, they’ll have to figure out how to structure it in a way that makes the cap charges manageable.
However it goes, each new market-level quarterback contract makes Allen’s look worse. Eventually, the Bills and Allen need to do a new deal.
To his credit, Allen has yet to suggest discontent or impatience. As other players with other teams learn all the time, at some point the wheel needs to start squeaking.