Shortly after the close of the 2017 season, the San Francisco 49ers locked quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo up to a long term extension worth $137.5 million. At the time, the deal set records for some guaranteed money and yearly salary only to be broken a few months later by Kirk Cousins (guarantees) and later Matt Ryan (just about anything involving money).
Well, there’s still one thing Jimmy Garoppolo is No. 1 at for 2018, and that’s his salary cap hit. Among all starting quarterbacks, Garoppolo will have the highest cap hit for 2018 at $37 million and it’s not even close.
It’s a pretty steep drop-off behind him for second place. Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford clocks in a cap hit of $26.5 million and Oakland Raiders quarterback Derek Carr is only $1.5 million behind Stafford. It’s pretty steady, but Garoppolo is clearly making the biggest salary cap hit for an NFL team.
This number could change once the Green Bay Packers hand Aaron Rodgers a new contract. He currently sits at roughly $22.5 million and some extra cash could come his way in 2018 once they get the contracts figured out.
The 49ers probably figured they’d get the big money out early. Garoppolo’s cap hit in 2019 will be $20 million, and will hover around $26.5 million the final three years of his five-year deal.
Sure that’s still pretty huge, but the good news is the dead money in case of disaster. His dead money won’t be near as bad by 2020 if he channels his inner Brock Osweiler. The 49ers definitely had the money to make this deal, but they managed the numbers quite effectively in case something goes wrong.
But this is Jimmy G, so I wouldn’t even worry about that.