Author: Catherine Donohue
Topic: NFL Coaching Salaries and Career Decisions
Committee: Sports
Is the money worth leaving your cozy coordinator position for a tenuous shot as an NFL head coach?
When it comes to blockbuster contracts for head coaches and players, the billion-dollar NFL enterprise expertly asks the question: How much money can you pay? Year after year, a new “highest-paid player in history” is crowned, and multi-year contracts guarantee millions. Coaches – even head coaches – sign contracts for millions of dollars but rarely extend longer than two or three years with guaranteed press conferences and criticism. Without salary caps on any coaching or coordinator position, is it that much bigger of a check to write from coordinator to head coaching salary to keep the team together?
Every season, hot coordinator candidates flock to interviews to try their hands at an open head coach position instead of continuing their success with their organization. In a big (but highly anticipated) move this year, the Detroit Lions lost both their coordinators shortly after the 2024 NFL season. Brought in and up through the organization by remaining head coach Dan Campbell, both offensive coordinator Ben Johnson and defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn have announced their departure from Detroit to head coaching jobs at the Chicago Bears and the New York Jets, respectively. Despite a rough start under Campbell, both coordinators achieved massive success and popularity in Detroit; however, this didn’t keep the coaches in Detroit shortly after the end of the Lions’ playoff run this past season.
Though coordinator salaries number in the millions — the highest-paid coordinator clocked in at $6 million in 2024 — head coaches have been outearning their counterparts for years. The highest-paid NFL head coach, Andy Reid of the Kansas City Chiefs, signed his most recent contract for $20 million a year. Sean Payton, the second-highest-paid HC, makes about $18 million a year, with the rest of the 2024 season’s coaches following Sean McVay and Mike Tomlin’s $16 million/year.
In interviews, Johnson discussed his desire to lead a team to compete, explaining his draw to Bears quarterback Caleb Williams and staying in the NFC North division. Something he didn’t mention in his press conferences: the Bears signed Johnson’s contract to the tune of $13 million a year. For comparison: In 2021, his former HC Campbell signed a 6-year extension for $4 million a year. With Johnson’s new $13 million/year, he suddenly became the seventh-highest-paid NFL coach in the league, ahead of his first head coaching year. For Johnson, the paycheck might’ve made the gig. But if that’s the case, what’s to stop teams like the Lions from shelling out to keep a successful coaching staff together?
As it turns out, aside from the big publicized contracts announced every season, NFL teams, owners, and coaches aren’t required to report coaching or coordinator salaries. For coordinators and position coaches without the big checks, trying to negotiate contracts with teams and owners, this lack of transparency becomes a power disadvantage — it’s hard to negotiate a contract for what your skill set deserves when there’s no pay transparency for any comparative positions. Many of these position coaches don’t have agents — they’re negotiating their own contracts. For these “middle management” NFL team positions, secretive conferences are coordinated amongst themselves to each write down their yearly salaries. Here, out of the public eye, the data is compiled and shared anonymously — with two pieces of paper from each coach turned in by hand — for the less famous coordinators and position coaches to know how much money the others are making to better negotiate their contracts.
For most of these coordinators, the average salary hovers around $1 million, depending on the team’s market and a variety of other factors, such as coaching tree, years of experience, and more. These private numbers are hard to find, even as coordinators or position coaches, given the secrecy on behalf of both teams and the league. If you’re not signing a blockbuster contract, the odds are that you’re negotiating on your own with little to no insight into market prices.
So, when it comes to getting contracts signed, head coaching positions might just be the move. But when it comes to getting paid, for a majority of the league, the pay grade of a couple of million isn’t worth the tenuous move and added scrutiny and stress. Instead, coordinators becoming head coaches reveals something rare about the billion-dollar NFL business – the paycheck isn’t everything, but it makes a world of difference.