These Are the Highest Paid NFL Players from Every State

Sometimes fans forget that even though NFL players rep their team and most likely live in the city where they play, they aren't always from that city or even state. If the players are good enough to make it to the NFL, they typically take whatever team they will get the most playing time with or the most money from. And they are often traded and relocated a lot throughout their career on the field.

The team at Homes.com recently looked at the highest paid NFL players from every state... as in, the highest paid player born in every state. To determine the highest-paid NFL player from every state, they organized currently active professional football players by their birthplace using Pro Football Reference (a site that does that, apparently). They then collected the data on each player's 2019-2020 cap hit (teams have a certain salary cap they must stay under each year) from Spotrac as the most accurate indication of their total pay and narrowed down the highest paid NFL player from each state.

Here are some fun facts: Did you know Seattle’s quarterback, Russell Wilson, is actually from Ohio and has an annual salary of over $26 million? That makes him the highest-paid NFL player from Ohio. And Denver’s Joe Flacco, with an annual salary over $18 million, originated from the state of New Jersey? That salary makes him the highest paid player from New Jersey. People don’t often remember that even though they now play for other teams, they still have some hometown pride.

Homes.com said they wanted to show the players’ earnings in more detail, and according to the 2019 cap hit, the highest-paid NFL player in the United States is Matthew Stafford, a native of Tampa, FL. He makes over $29 million (woah!) and now plays for the Detroit Lions, nowhere near his hometown of Tampa, Florida, and with much different weather. He said goodbye to lots of sunshine and hello to lots of snow.

Some other interesting insights from the data they collected showed that NFL players who are natives of Alabama, California, Washington, D.C., Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, Ohio, and Washington have some of the highest salaries in the league (Phillip Rivers of the Los Angeles Chargers, Derek Carr of the Oakland Raiders, Andrew Luck of the Indianapolis Colts, Matthew Stafford, Marcus Mariota, Eli Manning of the New York Giants, Russell Wilson, and Alex Smith of the Washington Redskins, respectively).

Some of the lowest salaries that were found were to players from West Virginia, Utah, North Dakota, New Hampshire, and Idaho (Ryan Switzer of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Tyler Larsen of the Carolina Panthers, Brent Qvale of the New York Jets, Ryan Griffin of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Josh Hill of the New Orleans Saints, respectively). Even with these considered low salaries from the NFL, these players still make $600,000 or more every year, which is better than most Americans make in a year or even a few years. That's a win in and of itself. They probably aren’t struggling much.

When looking at what the players do with all this money, Homes.com took a look at their multimillion dollar mansions that some of these players call home. They looked at Cam Newton’s three bedroom, three bathroom, $2 million condo in Charlotte, NC. And Eli Manning’s 7,000 sq ft, $8.5 million home in Quogue, NY. A lot of people wouldn’t mind living in either of these homes.

It doesn’t seem like these players have any trouble spending their millions of dollars, but if they ever did need help, I’m sure a few fans wouldn’t mind pocketing a million or two.