2026 NFL Draft rookie salary scale: full pay breakdown
· Yahoo Sports
Fernando Mendoza, selected first overall by the Las Vegas Raiders in the 2026 NFL Draft, is in line for a four-year, $57.3 million contract with a $38.1 million signing bonus, according to Sportico. The first four picks will all sign deals worth more than $50 million.
The NFL's rookie wage scale assigns a set salary to each draft slot, so a player's draft position has a big impact on his earnings. The 2026 salary cap is $301.2 million.
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Taken together, this year's 32 first-round selections are on pace for a combined haul exceeding $900 million, with signing bonuses alone accounting for $542 million of that total, per Sportico. Every player drafted in the first round lands a four-year deal that includes both a fifth-year club option and full guarantees on salary and signing bonus.
The gap between the first and second rounds matters financially. Yahoo Sports reports that dropping from pick No. 32 to No. 33 cuts about $3.2 million from a rookie's contract. Players picked after the first round also lose the fifth-year team option and usually get only partial guarantees.
The financial stakes extend throughout the draft. A player taken at No. 5 overall is slated to earn about $47.8 million over four years, according to Spotrac. By pick No. 10, that figure drops to about $31 million. By pick No. 32, it is about $16.8 million. Players taken in the seventh round, at picks No. 249 through No. 257, receive contracts worth about $4.4 million.
A source told Sportico that signing bonuses for the 2026 class rose about 18.5% compared to last year. This follows a 26% increase in 2025 and a smaller 3.8% rise in 2024.
The way rookies are paid changed with the 2011 collective bargaining agreement. Before that, teams often gave huge contracts to unproven draft picks. For example, Sam Bradford, the first overall pick by the St. Louis Rams in 2010, made $78 million before the new rules started.
Rookies at the bottom of the pay ladder will earn at least $885,000 as a base salary this season, a step up from the $840,000 floor that applied in 2025, according to MarketWatch.