Last April, the Bears, Commanders, and Patriots selected quarterbacks with the first three picks in the 2024 NFL Draft. This month, those three franchises are spending big on talent around the young signal callers while their cheap rookie contracts allow for other players to make more money.

Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels, and Drake Maye will each have salary cap hits of less than $9 million in 2025, and can’t negotiate contract extensions until the 2026 regular season ends. With the 2025 salary cap set at $279.2 million, that has meant a lot of cash being allocated to non-quarterbacks in Chicago, Washington, and New England.

Capital Expenses

Leading the charge are the Commanders, who in the wake of a surprising run to the NFC championship game have traded multiple draft picks to acquire two veteran offensive players with big contracts: left tackle Laremy Tunsil and receiver Deebo Samuel. 

Tunsil, who played the previous six seasons on the Texans, will make $21.35 million next season. Samuel, who was traded from the 49ers, is set to earn $17.5 million. Tunsill will receive the most total cash of any Commanders player in 2025, and Samuel will be fifth.

The play of Daniels, the NFL’s 2024 Offensive Rookie of the Year, not only helped turn things around for Washington on the field, but off it, too. After finishing dead last in the NFL Players Association’s annual report card for two years in a row, the Commanders rose to 11th overall in this year’s grades.

Game Management

Protecting Williams is clearly the goal for the Bears, who have traded for guards Joe Thuney and Jonah Jackson, and signed center Drew Dalman to a three-year, $42 million contract. Thuney is set to make $16 million next season, while Jackson will earn $17.5 million. Chicago also committed nearly $100 million combined on new deals for free agent defensive linemen Dayo Odeyingbo and Grady Jarrett.

The Patriots were especially busy on the opening day of free agency, signing more than half a dozen players, highlighted by a four-year, $104 million deal for defensive tackle Milton Williams. New England also reportedly offered Buccaneers receiver Chris Godwin at least $20 million more than the $66 million he took to re-sign with Tampa for the next three seasons.

The NFL free agency cycle is in full swing as more than a billion dollars in contracts were agreed to over the weekend, and several more massive deals were agreed to Monday.

While the dollar amounts will get many of the headlines, a deeper look shows a growing trend in the NFL: a pay gap between high-value positions like quarterback, edge rusher, and wide receiver versus the rest of the league.

In 2011, the highest-paid quarterback in terms of average annual value (AAV) was Peyton Manning, who earned $18 million per year. As of 2025, the leader is Dak Prescott, who makes $60 million annually, more than three times as much as Manning did.

The NFL salary cap has risen significantly since 2011, so the salaries must be adjusted against inflation. The salary cap in 2011 was $120.4 million and has increased by an average of 6.3% every year to hit $279.2 million by 2025.

The average annual value percentage, which is calculated by dividing the average annual value of a player’s salary by the salary cap totals during the years of a player’s contract, shows that quarterbacks are paid a larger share of a team’s salary cap. 

(Because AAV% is based on the years of a player’s contract, Joe Burrow, whose five-year deal at $55 million per year runs from 2023–2027, has a higher AAV% than Dak Prescott, whose four-year deal at $60 million per year runs from 2025–2028.)

Burrow has led the NFL in AAV% since 2023 at 24.5%, nearly 10% more than Peyton Manning’s 14.9% from 2011, according to data from Spotrac. In 2025, the top 18 players in AAV% are quarterbacks—compared to 2011, when only four of the top ten players in AAV% were QBs.

Quarterbacks began to dominate about a decade ago, as the last time a non-QB made the top ten in AAV% was 2014. However, the AAV% for quarterbacks has continued to rise since then, showing just how much teams are valuing their signal-callers.

But QBs aren’t the only ones seeing an increased percentage share of team payrolls. Wide receivers have seen an even more drastic bump, as entering 2025, a dozen wideouts are set to be paid at least 10% of the salary cap throughout their contract. In 2011, only one player, Larry Fitzgerald, had an AAV% above 10%.

Edge rushers are another beneficiary, as eight of them will have crossed the 10% mark for AAV% entering 2025 compared to only four in 2011. T.J. Watt leads all edge rushers with an AAV% of 15.3%, 4.3% more than Dwight Freeney, the leader in 2011.

Unsurprisingly, running backs have been negatively affected, even as Saquon Barkley proved to be a vital piece of the Eagles’ Super Bowl run and signed the largest contract for a running back by AAV just last week. In 2011, eight running backs had an AAV% of at least 5%. Only three—Barkley, Christian McCaffrey, and Jonathan Taylor—are past that threshold entering 2025.

The Yankees’ worst fears were confirmed late Monday as ace pitcher Gerrit Cole will undergo Tommy John surgery, taking him out of action for the entire 2025 season, and perhaps a significant chunk of 2026, too.

Cole, the 2023 American League Cy Young Award winner, experienced discomfort in his right elbow following his second spring training start on Thursday. Follow-up tests confirmed the need for the surgery, which will be performed on Tuesday. 

“This isn’t the news any athlete wants to hear, but it’s the necessary next step for my career,” Cole said in an Instagram post. “I have a lot left to give, and I’m fully committed to the work ahead.”

This marks the second straight spring with a significant injury for the 34-year-old, as he was out until June last year with elbow inflammation and edema. After returning, he soon returned to form and helped lead the Yankees to a World Series that drew resurgent viewership. Cole’s latest injury, however, is far more significant and adds to a recent spate of injuries for New York that also includes designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton, infielder DJ LeMahieu, and last year’s AL Rookie of the Year Luis Gil, who will be out at least three months.

Cole is in the sixth season of a nine-year, $324 million contract, still the 12th largest player deal in MLB history. His offseason, however, had some off-field turbulence, as he initially exercised an opt-out in his Yankees contract, but he quickly reversed course and reached an agreement with the Yankees to honor the terms of the original deal. That pact has four seasons and $144 million left on it. 

The Yankees have insurance on Cole’s contract and will be able to recoup some money against that $144 million owed. When he returns to the mound, he will be nearing his 36th birthday and facing an uphill battle to regain his prior form. 

In the meantime, the Yankees will now elevate $218 million free-agent acquisition Max Fried, a key part of the team’s offseason reconstruction after losing out on retaining Juan Soto, to staff ace. The team currently has a luxury-tax payroll of nearly $294 million, fourth-highest in the league. Internal options to take Cole’s spot in the rotation include rookie Will Warren and non-roster spring training invitees Carlos Carrasco and Allan Winans. Free-agent pitchers still available include Patrick Corbin, Lance Lynn, and Spencer Turnbull.

None of those options, however, are remotely as talented as Cole, and a pitching staff that was seen as a key base of MLB’s second-best bet for the 2025 championship is now looking like more of a liability.

Timing is often everything in sports media dealmaking, and a key question has arisen of whether ESPN has had a major technical breakdown at perhaps the worst possible moment.

UFC 313 suffered a significant streaming breakdown on ESPN+ Saturday night, with the pay-per-view event marred by widespread buffering and purchasing issues. Immediately after the event, UFC president Dana White did not mince words with his frustration with the situation.

“Yeah, there were problems buying [the pay-per-view] on ESPN+,” White said. “I don’t know what happened with their platform tonight, but yeah, there are a lot of pissed-off people.”

Roughly 36 hours later, tensions had calmed somewhat, according to industry sources—in part due to some proactive steps made by ESPN. The event is being replayed for free to any ESPN+ subscriber, not just the pay-per-view buyers, and the network issued an apology statement.

Because many of the issues were resolved before the main event between light heavyweights Alex Pereira and Magomed Ankalaev, though, ESPN did not issue refunds. 

“Unfortunately, we experienced a technical issue that impacted purchases of the UFC PPV on ESPN+ shortly after 10 p.m. ET [Saturday],” ESPN said in its statement. “Our teams identified and resolved the issue, restoring full functionality ahead of the main event. We apologize for the inconvenience and are taking steps to ensure a better experience in the future.”

Bigger Negotiations

The issues arose less than six weeks before the April 15 expiration of the exclusive negotiating window in UFC’s current rights deal with ESPN, which is up after this year. After that date next month, UFC will be free to strike agreements with other suitors.  

The agreement with ESPN is worth about $450 million per year, and includes about 30 fight nights and a dozen pay-per-view events annually. Multiple suitors are said to be interested in the rights, however, and UFC reportedly wants to more than double the current rights fees. It’s also worth noting that fellow TKO Group Holdings property WWE made its own industry-shaking splash by moving Raw to Netflix at the beginning of the year.

While discussing TKO’s new boxing venture last week with Front Office Sports, White also mentioned the recent split between Major League Baseball and ESPN, comments that may ultimately carry some parallels to UFC.

“Not only did they not come to terms, but ESPN tried to cut a lesser deal than they had. It’s fascinating times,” White said. “It’s time for everybody, even the major [sports properties], to get creative.”