The NFL is rapidly closing in on its first $30 million man, something that 49ers management and quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo assured Thursday when they signed the former second-round pick to the largest per-year contract (five years at $27.5 million per) in league history.
The news, first reported by NFL Network, places a passer with just seven career starts at the top of the league’s current salary structure, ahead of Matthew Stafford, Derek Carr, Joe Flacco and Andrew Luck. All at once it depicts the hilarious game of contractual Jenga being played by agents with high-profile quarterback clients, who are simply hoping to top the next-best contract by at least a million dollars, and the boon market for signal-callers, which shows no signs of slowing down as the salary cap continues to rise.