Andy Reid racked up 207 wins on the sidelines for the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs during his first 20 years as an NFL head coach but was criticized as someone who “couldn’t win the big game” due to his 1-6 record in conference championship games and Super Bowls.
Those days are over.
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Big Red has won three of the past five Super Bowls with Patrick Mahomes, his co-star in State Farm ads, under center. Reid racked up another win this spring with a five-year contract extension worth roughly $100 million. The deal made him the highest-paid coach in the NFL and across all North American sports leagues.
Reid is the only NFL coach to win 100 games with two franchises, and he has made the playoffs 19 times in 25 seasons. He is one of five coaches to win at least three Super Bowls, and his 289 career wins, including postseason, are fourth all-time.
NFL coaches are earning more than ever, and wins on the field are a straight line to higher paydays. Rounding out the top five by average annual value (AAV) are Sean Payton ($18 million), Mike Tomlin ($16 million), Jim Harbaugh ($16 million) and Sean McVay ($15 million). Payton, Tomlin and McVay also coached Super Bowl winners, and Harbaugh landed a five-year deal with the Los Angeles Chargers after his national championship at Michigan last season. Harbaugh, who also coached the San Francisco 49ers for four years, has the highest career winning percentage of any current NFL coach.
Sportico identified 10 current NFL coaches who currently earn at least $9 million a year, based on conversations with a half-dozen people familiar with NFL coaching contracts. The earnings figures are base pay before any incentives and are the AAV of recent extensions for Tomlin and Dan Campbell, who has energized the Detroit Lions fanbase and parlayed an NFC title game appearance into a new $11 million-a-year pact.
Reid replaced Bill Belichick atop the NFL pay charts. The former Patriots boss is the only coach ever to earn more on an annual basis. Belichick earned an estimated $25 million annually before he parted ways with New England after the 2023 season.
Belichick and fellow septuagenarian Pete Carroll, who made $15 million a year, were staples on NFL sidelines for decades with a combined 47 seasons as head coaches before both were shown the door in January. Reid, 66, is now the NFL’s oldest head coach.
Teams are increasingly turning to younger coaches to steer their teams, with 17 head coaches 45 or younger to start the 2024 season, including new hires Mike Macdonald (37), Jerod Mayo (38), Brian Callahan (40), Dave Canales (43) and Antonio Pierce (45), who had his interim tag removed. Last year’s new coaching class featured Shane Steichen (now 39), DeMeco Ryans (40) and Jonathan Gannon (41). McVay is in his eighth season and is still the third-youngest coach at 38.
Young coaches getting their first jobs often come at a lower price tag, but not always. Macdonald and Ryans were both in heavy demand and secured deals more in line with coaches signing their second contracts. Macdonald’s deal with the Seattle Seahawks is worth $9 million a year, while Ryans received a six-year contract with an AAV of $8 million.
Head coach pay is up, but the salaries are still a fraction of what stars make. Dak Prescott is the NFL’s top earner by AAV at $60 million and 75 players will make at least $20 million this season, per Spotrac. Macdonald’s $9 million-a-year deal is matched or exceeded by 255 players.
The NFL is the richest sports league in the world with league revenue north of $20 billion, the average team worth $5.93 billion and operating profits of $143 million per club, according to Sportico’s calculations. But owners show little patience with the faces of their franchises when the on-field losses pile up. There are only 12 coaches in their current positions for three full seasons and just three coaches there for at least eight years after the departures of Belichick and Carroll.
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