Being great at football pays. To be more specific, being a good NFL quarterback can lead to life-changing financial success. Just take for example the 10 players we have on this list of players with the biggest contracts in NFL history.

Based on Spotrac’s database, here's a rundown of the best-paid stars in the NFL.

10 Dak Prescott, Dallas Cowboys (4 years, $160 million)

Prescott has played for only one team so far in his career in the NFL, and that’s the Cowboys, who selected him in the fourth round of the 2016 NFL Draft as the 135th overall pick. Although the Cowboys have yet to win a Super Bowl or go beyond the divisional round since Prescott took over as starting quarterback for the team, Dallas showed it trusts the former Mississippi State Bulldogs star when it signed him to a monster $160 million deal in 2021 after placing the franchise tag on him two years in a row.

Prescott was coming off a season-ending injury and surgery to repair it when the Cowboys gave him that contract that also has a guaranteed amount of $126 million. According to Spotrac, Prescott’s contract carries a no-trade clause and an annual bonus of $1 million which will be triggered if he played at least 50% of the snaps and the Cowboys win the Super Bowl.

9 Matthew Stafford, Los Angeles Rams (4 years, $160 million)

Stafford spent the majority of his career with the Detroit Lions, who had him as a quarterback from his rookie campaign in 2009 until the 2020 NFL season. In 2017, the Lions signed him to a five-year, $135 million deal, but just before that contract expired, Detroit sent him to the Rams in January 2021 for Jared Goff and a few future picks. It is on the West Coast where Stafford finally reached the top of the NFL when he won the Vince Lombardi Trophy with Los Angeles in 2022.

Happy with the result of the trade that ultimately turned into a Super Bowl win, the Rams inked Stafford to a four-year, $160 million contract extension. The Rams, however, could be having some sort of buyer’s remorse, as Stafford has been largely ineffective ever since. In the 2022 NFL season, Stafford was limited to only nine games due to injuries and went 3-6-0 with just 2,087 passing yards and 10 touchdowns against eight interceptions.

8 Daniel Jones, New York Giants (4 years, $160 million)

On the heels of his best season so far in his NFL career, Jones secured the bag in the 2023 offseason when the Giants signed him to a four-year $160 million contract extension. That meant that Jones would earn an average of $40 million from 2023 until the last year of that deal in 2026.

Jones passed for a career-high 3,205 yards to go with 15 touchdowns and five interceptions in the 2022 NFL season. He got $81 million guaranteed in the first two years of the contract and a total of $92 million guaranteed when he signed the deal. Plus, there’s also $35 million more in terms of incentives. The Giants can part ways with Jones in 2024 in order to create $21.5 million of cap space while incurring $18 million of dead money.

7 Deshaun Watson, Cleveland Browns (5 years, $230 million)

The Browns had long wanted an elite quarterback. They have painfully missed a number of times in trying to find a QB with genuine NFL talent, but they finally got one when they acquired Watson via a trade with the Houston Texans in 2022. The Browns gave up a lot to get Watson. They sent multiple first-round picks to Houston in that transaction and they did so despite being aware of the controversies hounding the signal-caller.

The Browns even signed Watson to a titanic five-year deal worth $230 million – fully guaranteed. Watson served an 11-game suspension in his first year with the Browns in 2022 amid sexual harassment allegations and struggled in the six games he played, which were the first ones for him since 2020. The hope for the Browns is that Watson will start playing like a top-tier quarterback again in the 2023 NFL season. So far in his career, Watson has recorded 15,641 passing yards and 111 touchdowns with 41 receptions on a 67 percent pass completion rate.

6 Kyler Murray, Arizona Cardinals (5 years, $230.5 million)

After all the drama in the 2022 offseason, the Cardinals and Murray finalized a deal that would net the quarterback $230.5 million over the course of five years. Before that, Murray removed everything that’s related to the Cardinals from his social media accounts, sparking rumors about an imminent divorce from Arizona.

In the end, Murray secured the contract which had $160 million in guaranteed money. So far, he’s yet to lead the Cardinals to a playoff win since he was drafted by the team first overall in 2019.

5 Russell Wilson, Denver Broncos (5 years, $242.6 million)

Wilson has always won at the negotiation table. The former Super Bowl champion signed for nearly $90 million extension with the Seattle Seahawks in 2015 and then again with the same team in 2019 for $140 million. Amid controversies in what turned out to be his final year with the Seahawks, Wilson was traded by Seattle to the Broncos along with a 2022 fourth-rounder for Drew Lock, Noah Fant, Shelby Harris, and a bunch of future draft assets.

The Broncos hoped that Wilson would be the answer to their quarterback quandaries, as they never had been stable under center ever since Peyton Manning retired, so they dug deep into their pockets and handed the Wisconsin Badgers product a five-year contract worth $242.6 million. That deal will expire in 2028 when Wilson is 41. The contract immediately blew up in Denver’s face, with Wilson playing horribly in his first season in Mile High City, passing for 3,524 yards and 16 touchdowns against 11 interceptions, while also going just 4-11 as a starter in 2022.

4 Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia Eagles (5 years, $255 million)

After Hurts led the Eagles to the Super Bowl in the 2022 NFL season, Philadelphia showed him the money and signed the dual-threat quarterback to a five-year extension deal worth $255 million. The contract includes a $23 million signing bonus and $179 million of guaranteed money. The Eagles lost to Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII, but it was clear to Philadelphia that Hurts was going to be the future and the right franchise quarterback for the team. In 2022, Hurts went 14-1 as a starter and generated 3,701 passing yards (22 touchdowns, six interceptions) and also rushed for 760 yards and 13 touchdowns on 165 carries.

3 Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills (6 years, $258 million)

Prior to the 2021 NFL season, the Bills locked up Allen for years to come by signing him to a six-year, $258 million extension contract. A total of $150 million of that deal is guaranteed with up to $30 million more to be received via production and winning bonuses.

Clearly, the Bills believe in Allen, who is undeniably one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL today. He has been a consistent performer in the regular season and puts Buffalo in a good position to make the playoffs. Since 2018, when Allen entered the NFL as the Bills’ first-round pick (seventh overall) in that year’s draft, Buffalo has made it to the playoffs four times and reached at least the divisional round three times.

2 Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens (5 Years, $260 million)

At one point, it looked as though Jackson and the Ravens would part ways via trade, as the two sides couldn’t see each other eye to eye on the negotiation table. Jackson wanted a long-term deal in the 2023 offseason but the Ravens used the franchise tag on him for $32.4 million. Eventually, the Ravens changed their mind and gave the 2019 NFL MVP a five-year, $260 million with massive annual cap hits. In 2026 and 2027, Jackson will have a cap hit of $74.65 million.

1 Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City Chiefs (10 years, $450 million)

It’s not crazy to say that most teams in the NFL would pay whatever it takes to have Mahomes as their starting quarterback. Unfortunately for the 31 other teams in the league, Mahomes will be a Chief for life, as he inked a 10-year extension deal with Kansas City in 2020 worth a dizzying $450 million with over $141 million guaranteed.

That’s a mega-contract that is already paying off nicely for the Chiefs, who had already won a Super Bowl with Mahomes before the extension and lifted another just two years after he put ink on paper. Mahomes is still only 27 years old with many prime years ahead of him. Kansas City is lucky to have a generational quarterback like Mahomes who has the potential to become the greatest QB of all time.