A List of the Highest Paid Football Players in the NFL

In researching information for this article, the latest data for the presentation of the highest salaries in the NFL is for the 2008 season. It should be noted that this list changes from year to year. Also, the salary cap imposed by the NFL commission increases from year to year. The salary cap is the amount of money an NFL team can spend on salaries for their players per year. The salary cap has progressively increased year by year since its inception back in 1994.

The NFL salary cap, as negotiated by the players Union in the current collective bargaining agreement, is 62.24% of all football related revenue divided by 32 teams. For the 2009 season that figure is 128 million dollars.

The following shows the steady increase in salary cap since 1999:

Salary Cap Per Team for NFL Player Salaries by Year:

2008 $116 million

2007 $109 million

2006 $102 million

2005 $85.5 million

2004 $80.5 million

2003 $75 million

2002 $71 million

2001 $67.5 million

2000 $62.2 million

1999 $58.4 million

As the salary cap increases, so does the salary of players. The real question is how is the money distributed to players. There is a type of salary distribution model that teams use which is not known to the general public. What is known is that the top 20 salaries for 2008 only had a couple of quarterbacks. Yet the highest paid player for 2008 was quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. So who were the highest paid NFL players for 2008. The following table tells it all:

TOP 20 HIGHEST PAID PLAYERS IN 2008

1. QB Ben Roethlisberger, Pittsburgh $ 27,701,920

2. DE Jared Allen, Minnesota $ 21,119,256

3. WR Larry Fitzgerald, Arizona $ 17,103,480

4. QB JaMarcus Russell, Oakland $ 16,872,400

5. RB Michael Turner, Atlanta $ 16,003,840

6. G Chris Snee, N.Y. Giants $ 14,890,000

7. CB Asante Samuel, Philadelphia $ 14,145,000

8. WR Randy Moss, New England $ 14,006,720

9. T Flozell Adams, Dallas $ 14,005,760

10.DT Tommy Kelly, Oakland $ 13,978,480

11. WR Terrell Owens, Dallas $ 13,731,560

12. WR Bernard Berrian, Minnesota $ 13,705,000

13. T Michael Roos, Tennessee $ 13,505,520

14. C Jeff Faine, Tampa Bay $ 13,105,760

15. DE Will Smith, New Orleans $ 12,950,000

16. QB Tony Romo, Dallas $ 12,886,600

17. G Travelle Wharton, Carolina $ 12,850,000

18. DE Antwan Odom, Cincinnati $ 12,800,000

19. CB Terence Newman, Dallas $ 12,611,240

20. RB Marion Barber, Dallas $ 12,522,400

Lets examine the concept of salary in the NFL a little more closely. As previously stated, how teams pay their players and the value they place on them is known by only a few, including the player agent. It is interesting to note that having high salary players does not necessarily mean success to the team.

A case in point. One of the most successful NFL teams over the past ten years has been the New England Patriots. Yet only one player from the Patriots is in the top 20 for 2008. That is wide receiver Randy Moss. Yet Oakland, over the past ten years, which has two players in the top 20, has not seen the success that the Patriots have had. As a matter of fact, they have not even come close.

Also, you can see five players from the Dallas Cowboys in the top 20 list for 2008, yet they have not been in the Super Bowl since 1995 (Super Bowl XXX). It appears that the New England Patriots like to spread their money around to their players, so that one or a few players do not get an enormous salary while the rest of the players make a fraction of that amount. Randy Moss may be an exception to this rule.

This team concept of salary distribution that the Patriots employ falls in line with the team concept they have set for their players when it comes to playing football. The Patriot's organization believe that it requires a team effort to win football games, and not the superior effort of only a few players. Maybe that is one of the reasons the Patriots have been so successful over the past ten years. And lets not forget that the Patriots is one of the best managed teams in the NFL. Part of that management is proper salary distribution. Team owner Robert Kraft and head coach Bill Belichick seem to know what they are doing.

In any case, NFL player salaries continue to increase year by year. Today the lowest rookie makes a bare minimum of $285,000.00 (at least for 2007). In terms of all professional sports, the NFL players are the highest paid. This is why so many college players seek to get into the NFL. But it should also be remembered that the average length of a career for a player in the NFL is only 4 years. So obviously a player needs to make all he can during that short career. The question is are the players worth these very high salaries.

A persons salary is dependent on one major factor. That is how many other people can do the job they are doing? The fewer the number of people that can perform a particular job, the higher the salary. Not to many people can play in the NFL. Also, the players do deserve most of the revenue that is produced simply because, without the players, you would not have any business entity. And since fans are willing to pay the high ticket prices, then I would have to answer the question that yes, the players do deserve the salaries they receive.

Football is a form of entertainment, but it is a form of entertainment Americans can not do without. Even in the Roman period, people had a need to see the gladiators fight in the Colosseums. The Romans had to pay to see their gladiators fight to the death. Sometimes all the seats were free, if a rich person had given money to pay for the show. Other times, you had to pay, and it cost more money for the good seats than for the bad seats, so the poor people had to sit way up top in the Colosseum where it was hard to see. Even the Colosseums had their nosebleed seats. The point is, Romans were willing to pay to see the gladiator form of competition. This willingness to pay to see competition has existed throughout the history of mankind.

Every year, fans watch their teams with the hope that their team will reach the Super Bowl, or in some cases, simply end up with a winning season. And in the end, we really do not care to much about a players salary. As long as we enjoy watching our team play, we will continue to pay high ticket prices.

So to conclude, there are really two basic reasons why NFL players can make millions of dollars per year. First and foremost, fans are willing to pay high ticket prices to see their team play. Secondly, not to many people can play in the NFL. This results in a high demand for their skill. Lets face it, not to many people have the skill of a Tom Brady or a Ben Roethlisberger. So as long as the demand for tickets remains high, players will continue to enjoy a high income.

Information sources for this article:

Sources: payscale.com, usatoday.com, historyforkids.org

Thomas Sullivan, the author of this article, is a web developer and publisher who lives in the Boston, MA area. He is the creator and webmaster for NFL Merchandise [http://new-england-patriots-tickets.top-seo-solutions.com/?page_id=7], an online store for the NFL fan, located at the site New England Patriots [http://new-england-patriots-tickets.top-seo-solutions.com/].

Which Hall Of Fame Players Played For The Most Teams?

When you take a look at football players who have made it into the Pro Football Hall-of-Fame, usually you find a player who has spent the vast majority of his career with one team. This is mainly because when a team gets a player with exceptional ability like that; they usually do all they can to hold onto him. Sometimes, because of diminishing skills or payroll reasons, a player will play his last couple years with another team before retiring. That being said it is rare that a Hall-of-Fame caliber player plays with more than two or three teams during their entire career.

So, that begs the question: What is the most teams that a member of the Pro Football Hall-of-Fame has played for.

The easy answer is: Six.

Three member of the Pro Football Hall-of-Fame have played for six different teams in their career. The back story on these three players is that they all played the majority of their careers in the NFL's startup days (1920's) when teams would go out of business, change names or cities frequently, and just overall not have the stability of the modern NFL, making it more likely that a player would play for multiple teams. Those players are:

Jim Thorpe - 1915-1928

Canton Bulldogs

Cleveland Indians (NFL)

Oorang Indians

Rock Island Independents

New York Giants

Chicago Cardinals

Joe Grunyon - 1919-1927

Canton Bulldogs

Clevenland Indians (NFL)

Oorang Indians

Rock Island Independents

Kansas City Cowboys

New York Giants

Fritz Pollard - 1919-1928

Akron Pros/Indians

Milwaukee Badgers

Hammond Pros

Gilberton Cadamounts

Providence Steam Roller

Chicago Black Hawks

If we look at the more modern era of professional football, the most teams any Hall-of-Fame member has played for is five, and three different players have accomplished this feat.

Warren Moon 1983-2000

While Moon is in the Hall-of-Fame and has played for five different teams, some may count it differently as only four of the teams were in the NFL.

Edmonton Eskimos (CFL)

Houston Oilers

Minnesota Vikings

Seattle Seahawks

Kansas City Chiefs

Tommy MacDonald 1957-1968

Philadelphia Eagles

Dallas Cowboys

Los Angeles Rams

Atlanta Falcons

Cleveland Browns

James Lofton 1978-1993

Green Bay Packers

Los Angeles Raiders

Buffalo Bills

Los Angeles Rams

Philadelphia Eagles

Most often, when we think of Hall-of-Fame players we think of players like Barry Sanders, Terry Bradshaw, Bart Starr, or John Elway who played their entire career with one team. Sometimes we think of players like Joe Montana, O.J. Simpson, Tony Dorsett, or Emmitt Smith who played the majority of their career with one team and then finished it with another. Not too often do we remember the players who played for four or five different teams as Hall-of-Famers.

For great "Hey, I didn't know that" moments regarding football go to http://iqfb.com Get Football Smart!

Youth Football - Using the Dummy Relay Race For Evaluating and Conditioning Youth Football Players

We use a variety of fun games to not only condition our kids but for team building and evaluation purposes as well. Youth Football is a game that values core strength, the strength a player has from just under his hips to just under his chest. This strength is what allows players to control their bodies. Youth Football is all about very short bursts of speed and changes in direction. Those that can burst, stop, change direction and accelerate in very small areas are those that have the natural ability to go very far in the game of football.

Unfortunately the typical 40 yard dash or pushup contest doesn't measure for this skill set, but there are games you can play that will help reveal those that do and do not have core strength. One of the kids and my favorite "games" (game for the kids, an evaluation and conditioning tool for me) is the Dummy Delay race. This is one that once you run it, the kids will beg for it all season. It's a game that will get all the kids shouting encouragement for each other and have the parents howling with laughter from their seats.

Getting Started

You start by dividing your team into "teams" of 4-5 kids. You may want to have each coach be the "head coach" of a single team to bring some competitive fire to the game. Put a pylon down to mark where each team lines up in single file line behind their team captain or coach. Next put a pylon directly in front of the teams cone at about 15 yards for 9-10 year old kids, you can go longer for older kids and shorter for the younger kids. Just make sure all the teams are lined up side by side and have the same distance to run to their cones. Now have the captain of each team start it off by grasping a tall blocking dummy, this is usually done by holding it the long way close to the chest in bear hug type fashion. The goal of the game is to run with the dummy around the pylon and back to your teammate, it is a relay. When the player gets back to the starting pylon he hands the dummy off to the next player. We usually have the 4 losing teams do 5 pushups to make it interesting.

How It Works

What you will find is the kids that have core strength, the athletes, will have little problem holding the dummy and running around the pylon. On the other hand those that have poor core strength will wobble when they try to run with the dummy and will rarely be able to run it a straight line, they will look like a listing ship. The results of this game may really surprise you. We have often had nice looking big kids we thought were real athletes, struggle with this, looks can deceive. On the other hand we have had small wiry kids that didn't look like they were very athletic at all just crush this drill and go on to play significant roles for our teams at "skill" positions. This game really separates the kids that can play from those that can't, a huge time saver we all need in that first week of football practice.

Conditioning

If you do this game using a quick enough pace and with small enough team sizes it can even help you with your conditioning. Think about it, the distance covered is 30 yards, about 7 seconds worth of a short burst, then the 4 other players do their 7 seconds and time to do 5 pushups means a total "rest" of 40 seconds. Sounds like the interval many football plays are run in real games, a 6-7 second burst followed by a 40-50 second interval to get the ball set and in and out of the huddle, imagine that.

The Real Fun Part

Once we have had ample time to evaluate the players, we like to add a twist to this game for purely fun reasons. Pair teams against each other by having just 1 pylon for both teams. The goal is to run around the pylon and back to your next relay player, but now contact is allowed. So when the competing players go around the pylons they can run into each other using the dummy against their chest as a big cushion. The squeals of laughter will be heard in the next county on this one, I promise and your parents will think you are some kind of cool coaching genius.

We usually do this game at our first practice of the season. In the end you will know who your players are and have a bunch of enthusiastic, motivated and satisfied kids and parents.

Dave Cisar-

Dave is a Nike "Coach of the Year" Designate and speaks nationwide at Coaches Clinics. His book "Winning Youth Football a Step by Step Plan" was endorsed by Tom Osborne and Dave Rimington. His personal teams using this system to date have won 94% of their games in 5 Different Leagues.

To Sign up for his free tips and drills newsletter or to view 325 free youth football coaching tips go to: Football Plays

A Video Taste of Dave's teams:
Youth Football Plays

Developing Mental Toughness in Youth Football Players

As a youth football player I was one of those odd kids that loved to go to football practice. We all have some of those type of kids on our teams every year, but in todays world of unlimted choices and instant gratification, we see less and less of these kids these days. As a youth football player, I dreaded those first few weeks of torture and deprivation, but knew in the end that we would eventually get into learning the game and actually playing. Other youth players on my teams often never got to that point, they didn't know there was an end result that was worth waiting for, some would sour on the game or quit during those first miserable 2 weeks.

As time went on, I ended up playing High School, then College Football. The physical portion of the game became less important than the mental toughness needed to perform well. Being perfect with technique and assignment as well as the "mental toughness" of the individual was more important than just dominating physically at these upper levels. As a player moves up the ladder of competition, the disparities in talent are less and less pronounced and the mental portion of the game becomes more important.

At the youth level, the higher the level of competition the greater the importance of mental toughness is to the success of your team. If you have a stud player or two that has carried your team all season, when you get to the upper levels of competition, the other teams are going to have two to three studs as good or better than yours. You can rarely get by on talent alone when you play at the highest levels of youth football especially when you got to the playoffs or travel out of town to play. Your team has to be prepared to play in dogfights where they may have to play from behind or be matched up against far superior teams.

Many youth coaches that are now in their playoffs or traveling to National Tournaments are looking for edges, physical, emotional and mental edges. Traveling out of state to play games against unfamiliar teams can be very challenging mentally for your football team. Maybe you are from a primarily white suburban area and you are matched up with an all-black inner-city team or you play a team that outweighs your offensive line by over 60 pounds per player, it happens all the time in playoff and tournament games. If your kids don't have a lot of mental maturity, it's going to be very difficult for them to succeed in these type situations. Often when faced with this type of challenges, many youth players develop mysterious illnesses or injuries. In boxing terms we call this "looking for a soft place to land". Many of you youth coaches that have not gone to these tournaments would be surprised at how poorly some teams perform. Teams that have been bullies in their own leagues face adversity or a quality match-ups for the first time and fold like a cheap deck of cards. I'm speaking of teams that come in with amazing records, but get smacked in the mouth for the first time and crumble. But there are techniques you can use when coaching youth football, to prepare your team for these inevitable challenges.

I've found there is no last minute magic bullet or speech that can help your kids over this type of hump. There are some pre-game tips listed here on the blog that can help lessen some of the stress, see "Beating the Bully Team" entry. But helping your kids develop some mental toughness throughout the season is what's needed to tame this ghost. We try and create pressure situations during practice all year that will show our kids they can perform well under lots of pressure.

Some of the tactics we use:

20 Perfect Offensive Football Plays in a row. We run our offensive plays out on air. Our backs and pullers run everything out 20 yards, our linemen take their first two steps and freeze, then on a whistle sprint 20 yards to a designated spot for the next play. Needless to say the kids get pretty winded as I'm calling out both the plays and cadence to keep the pace very fast. Each play must be executed flawlessly for it to "count" and we don't quit until we get 20 perfect plays in a row. Perfect means the alignment and stances of all the players is perfect, each linemen has led and finished with his correct foot, each back has performed his responsibilities either blocking, faking or running perfectly and that we have 100% effort from everyone on the play. This includes the back-ups running with the group at full attention and effort. If one player breaks down, we start over again at 1.

The kids need to understand that this is an 11 player game and if one player fails his responsibility, our football plays will fail and then our team will fail. The kids need to be trained that every detail is important and non-negotiable. Peer pressure is a very important tool in youth football, the kids will police themselves in this drill, they don't want to have to run endless 20 yard sprints.

After a few start and stops, eventually the kids will embrace this drill as a challenge and look forward to it. Kids on our team actually ask for this drill, they like to see how many perfect plays they can do in a row, they want to set new records. After you've run this drill for 20 minutes in 90 degree heat there is no greater pressure than to be on play number 18, the kids don't want to start over again at 1. To add even more pressure to the situation, call a pass play on the 20th play. You never know when a game can come down to a very last second pass play that you have to make under huge pressure.

Another great way to build mental maturity is to Scrimmage against teams that are out of your league. There are multiple youth football leagues in our area and we try and develop relationships with teams in all of them. Set up mid-season scrimmages against teams that are the exact opposite of your team or the teams you typically face. If you are an inner-city team, scrimmage a rural or suburban team. If your league is a run dominated league, play a spread passing team. If your team is good but small, scrimmage a huge team or even a team that is an age bracket or classification higher. Doing this shows your kids you can play against anyone, the more extreme the differences, the better it is for your football team.

We also like to create pressure situations for our kids during practice. We will often wrap practice up by practicing field goals. In our youth football league the extra point kick is worth 2 points, the run or pass is just 1 point, hence the kicks are very important. If you play a team that can't kick extra points and your team can and you score a touchdown, you in essence have a 2 score lead if you can make your extra point kick. We put our field goal team on the practice field then put all the other kids on the team opposite them, they jump up and down, yell, scream etc to distract the kicker. After a few kicks we then tell the kicker if he makes the next kick, we get 10 minutes of "game time", if he misses we will run plays out 20 yards for the next 10 minutes. Obviously he's under a lot of pressure here, we may even add a player or two behind the line of scrimmage near the holder spot and have them yell at the kicker as well.

We do the same with some of our pass catching drills. We will line up our offensive formation right in front of where the parents are that have come to watch our football practice. We let the kids and parents know that if we complete the next pass, practice is over, if we don't complete it, we get 10 more minutes of team offense with 20 yard football plays being run out. Again we are creating pressure situations with positive and negative team consequences based on the results and effort of the team. We may even place 4-5 players at the catching point of this pass, having the kids yelling and waving their arms to distract the reciever to train him to handle pressure.

When doing team offensive reps on air in practice I often require that we get a play off every 20 seconds. I will call the cadence to set the pace and tempo. Getting everyone into position and running a perfect play every 20 seconds creates pressure, but also shows the kids they can run lots of plays quickly in time sensitive situations. Since we are always a no-huddle team, we are always in hurry-up mode.

While my teams over the last 7 years have rarely trailed in many games, we have had a number where we did and had to make a comeback. We often scored right before the half in time sensitive situations. This season my age 7-9 kids scored on the last play of the first half in 3 separate games and in the last minute of the half in 5 of 9 games. We all know that scoring right before the half is a back breaker in youth football. We did this by running a lot of plays in a small amount of time, our kids just didn't panic when the clock was winding down, they fully expected to score.

We have played out of league and out of state tournament games against much larger and more athletic competition. Our teams mental maturity is what helped us compete in these games. Don't neglect developing mental maturity with your kids especially if you expect to play in a big game or travel out of town to play in one of the many youth football tournaments out there.

For 150 free youth football practice tips from Dave or to sign up for his free newsletter: Football Plays

Dave Cisar-

Dave has a passion for developing youth coaches so they can in turn develop teams that are competitive. His teams have won over 94% of their games in 5 different leagues. He is a Nike "Coach of the Year" designate and his book has been endorsed by Tom Osborne.

Clips of his 2006 team in action: Youth Football Plays

Copyright 2007 Cisar Management and winningyouthfootball.com

Best Football Players

Great Compilation Of The Best Football Players Today



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yzqbqg5gL0&hl=en

Four Remarkable Ways To Change Players In Fantasy Football

Fantasy Football is a game that belongs to a billion-dollar industry called fantasy sports wherein players, aptly called team owners, can acquire or draft an entire team of real-life professional football players. Arranged into leagues that mimic real ones, Fantasy Football participants gain score points through statistical capabilities or performances of the real world players which are included in the fantasy rosters of the respective owners.

In essence, the way to win in Fantasy Football is to always have high quality players. Since the performance of the real world players can change in between real world matches, you need to make regular updates or changes to the players in your fantasy roster to keep up with the fantasy games. This makes the changing of players a very important aspect of Fantasy Football.

The basic way for you to change the players in your roster is to add new players. To do this you just go the players' page in your league's website, there you will find the list of players to choose from. Commonly, for each player that you acquire, a corresponding member of your team should be dropped too.

All in all, after acquiring a new player and dropping an old one, your roster will be changed. But there are other ways of changing players in Football Fantasy and here they are.

Activating Bench Players To Active Status

One of the most overlooked ways of changing players in an existing lineup is by simply changing the status of a certain player from bench to active or vice versa. You can access this function online by simply going to your team's webpage. There you will find a menu that permits you to change the status of each of the players on your roster. Always remember to save the changes before you exit the page.

Trading Players

This can be the easiest way of changing the player composition of a Fantasy Football team. For one, this method of changing players on a team is allowed even if the season has already started. And more importantly, this method has very few restrictions; so the process and the agreements that lead to the trading of players is entirely left to the preferences of the two teams that decide to trade.

However, there is one important regulation that all the teams that decide to trade their players should keep in mind and this is ensuring that the trades are not done disproportionately. This happens when one team decides to trade off players that have high quality standings with another team that has had a losing streak. The goal of this tradeoff is obviously to help the lackluster team win more games to the detriment of other participants in Fantasy Football. To address this kind of trading, which is considered cheating; most Fantasy Football leagues disallow trading after about two-thirds of the season has been played.

Allocating For Free Agents

Free agents are players who aren't on the roster of any Fantasy Football team. If your league provides for a waiver system, then a free agent is a player who has been cleared or released from such waiver. Utilizing these free agents is another way to change the players on your roster.

You can acquire free agents on a first-come-first-served basis. You can also opt to bid for any free agent; in this case, all the teams that want to acquire a particular free agent should bid on this free agent and the highest bidder wins the right to acquire the player. There is also a scenario where the worst performing teams during the last season get the first rights to choose any player who is a free agent.

Draft Auction

Fantasy Football gives team owners a certain amount of fantasy cash so that they can bid on professional football players to fill in the spots on their respective rosters. In this system, Fantasy Football team owners take turns in bidding for players.

No matter what method you decide to use in changing your players, always remember that you need to beat a deadline which is about fifteen minutes before the start of the first game during the week; after which, your changes will not be valid. After this deadline, your player lineup is locked for the entire week of matches.

Regine Hehn owns and operates http://www.fun-fantasy-football.com Fun With Fantasy Football