Ranking the 10 Worst NFL Contracts of All Time
Updated September 16, 2026
Updated September 16, 2026
NFL teams hand out massive contracts every offseason, hoping they’ve found the player who can help take them to the next level. Sometimes it works out. Other times, one bad deal can set a franchise back for years, leaving millions of dollars tied up in the wrong player and valuable draft picks wasted.
Deshaun Watson’s contract with the Cleveland Browns is a perfect example of how quickly things can go wrong, but there have been plenty of other expensive mistakes over the years.
So, which deals were the worst? We ranked the 10 worst NFL contracts of all time based on what they cost and how things played out on the field.
Rank | Player | Team | Year | Contract | Guaranteed | What Went Wrong |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Deshaun Watson | Cleveland Browns | 2022 | 5 years, $230M | $230M | Fully guaranteed; Browns also traded three first-round picks to acquire him |
2 | Russell Wilson | Denver Broncos | 2022 | 5 years, $245M | $124M* | Released after two seasons; Denver took $85M in dead-cap charges |
3 | Albert Haynesworth | Washington Redskins | 2009 | 7 years, $100M | $41M | Played just 20 games before Washington moved on |
4 | Kirk Cousins | Atlanta Falcons | 2024 | 4 years, $180M | $100M | Benched during Year 1; released after two seasons |
5 | Carson Wentz | Philadelphia Eagles | 2019 | 4 years, $128M | $107.9M | Benched the next season; traded in 2021 with a massive dead-cap charge |
6 | Brock Osweiler | Houston Texans | 2016 | 4 years, $72M | $37M | Lasted one season; Houston included a second-round pick to dump his contract |
7 | Percy Harvin | Seattle Seahawks | 2013 | 6 years, $67M | $25.5M | Seattle traded three picks for him; dealt away during his second season |
8 | Tua Tagovailoa | Miami Dolphins | 2024 | 4 years, $212.4M | $167M+ | Released after two seasons; Miami was left with roughly $99M in dead cap |
9 | Nnamdi Asomugha | Philadelphia Eagles | 2011 | 5 years, $60M | $25M | Earned $21M over two disappointing seasons before being released |
10 | Javon Walker | Oakland Raiders | 2008 | 6 years, $55M | $16M* | Played only 11 games and caught 15 passes over two seasons |
One quick note before we get into the list: You’ll probably notice that this ranking skews toward quarterbacks and more recent contracts. There’s a reason for that.
Teams are willing to spend big and give up valuable draft picks to find a franchise quarterback, so those mistakes tend to hurt a little more. Contracts have also become more guaranteed in recent years, making it harder for teams to get out of a bad deal without taking a major hit. That’s why you’ll see plenty of quarterbacks and newer contracts on this list.
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Deshaun Watson is the clear No. 1 worst contract on my list. After consistently being one of the NFL’s worst teams for nearly two decades, Cleveland finally looked like it was turning things around. The Browns had built a talented roster, made the playoffs in 2020 and seemed to have found their franchise quarterback in Baker Mayfield, who has since gone on to have plenty of success in Tampa Bay.
Then they went all-in on Watson. Cleveland knew about the more than 20 civil lawsuits alleging sexual misconduct before making the move, but still made one of the biggest commitments in NFL history to get him. The decision was controversial from the start, and Watson was later suspended 11 games for violating the NFL’s personal conduct policy. On top of the damage to Cleveland’s reputation, Watson has struggled to stay healthy or come close to the player he was in Houston.
The Browns have also watched one of the NFL’s better defenses largely go to waste, with their only playoff appearance during the Watson era coming while he was sidelined. Watson is back under center in 2026, but a rough start hasn’t given Browns fans much reason to think things will suddenly get better. Between the money, lost draft picks, lack of production and everything else that came with the move, no other contract on this list comes close for me.
Denver thought Russell Wilson was the missing piece after years of searching for a quarterback following Peyton Manning’s retirement. Wilson was coming off a decade in Seattle that included nine Pro Bowls and a Super Bowl, so there was plenty of reason to be excited. He even gave us the now-infamous “Broncos Country, let’s ride” catchphrase.
Unfortunately, the ride didn’t last very long. What really makes this deal hurt is that Denver gave Wilson a five-year, $245 million extension before he played a single regular-season game for the Broncos, even though he still had two years left on his old contract. Wilson went just 11-19 as Denver’s starter and never made the playoffs before Sean Payton decided to move on.
The good news for Denver is that this mistake didn’t set the franchise back for nearly as long as it could have. Payton drafted Bo Nix in 2024 and immediately got the Broncos back to the playoffs, even with Wilson’s contract still hanging over them. It was an incredibly expensive mistake, but Denver found a way out of it pretty quickly.
Albert Haynesworth was one of the best defensive players in football when Washington signed him to a seven-year, $100 million contract in 2009. He was coming off back-to-back first-team All-Pro seasons with Tennessee, so expectations were understandably high. At his introductory press conference, Haynesworth even said, “You’re not going to remember Albert Haynesworth as a bust.” That didn’t age very well.
His first season was disappointing, but things really fell apart after Mike Shanahan took over in 2010 and switched to a 3-4 defense that Haynesworth didn’t want to play in. He skipped offseason workouts, requested a trade and then spent days trying to pass an infamous conditioning test before he was allowed to practice.
By the end of the season, Haynesworth had been suspended for the final four games for conduct detrimental to the team. Washington went just 10-22 during his two years there and eventually traded him to New England for a fifth-round pick. For the highest-paid defensive player in NFL history at the time, it’s hard to imagine things going much worse.
The Falcons signed Kirk Cousins in 2024 because they thought they were finally done searching for a quarterback. He was coming off a torn Achilles, but had been playing some of the best football of his career before the injury. Atlanta gave him a four-year, $180 million deal with $100 million guaranteed, only to make the whole situation confusing by drafting Michael Penix Jr. No. 8 overall just six weeks later.
At first, it actually looked like Cousins might make it work. He threw for a franchise-record 509 yards and four touchdowns in a Week 5 overtime win over Tampa Bay, and the Falcons eventually got off to a 6-3 start. But things fell apart pretty quickly from there. Cousins threw just one touchdown and nine interceptions over a five-game stretch before getting benched for Penix with Atlanta still fighting for a playoff spot.
Cousins stuck around for another season, but by then, Atlanta had already handed the offense to Penix. If the Falcons believed in Penix enough to take him eighth overall, it’s hard to understand why they had just guaranteed Cousins $100 million in the first place. That’s what makes this deal such a head-scratcher for me.
The Carson Wentz extension didn’t look like a terrible decision when Philadelphia handed it out in 2019. Wentz had played at an MVP level in 2017 before tearing his ACL, helping put the Eagles in position for the Super Bowl run that Nick Foles eventually finished. Wentz was still playing well when Philadelphia gave him a four-year, $128 million extension, and he followed it up with 4,039 yards, 27 touchdowns and just seven interceptions in 2019.
Then everything changed. The Eagles drafted Jalen Hurts in the second round in 2020, and Wentz went on to have easily the worst season of his career. He threw 15 interceptions and took 50 sacks in just 12 games, going 3-8-1 as the starter before losing his job to Hurts late in the season.
Less than two years after giving Wentz the extension, Philadelphia traded him to Indianapolis and took what was then a record $33.8 million dead-cap hit. Fortunately for the Eagles, Hurts turned into their next franchise quarterback and helped them recover quickly. It was an expensive mistake, but drafting Hurts kept it from setting the Eagles back for long.
Houston took a massive gamble on Brock Osweiler in 2016. He had shown some promise while going 5-2 in place of Peyton Manning the year before, but had still made just seven NFL starts when the Texans gave him a four-year, $72 million contract with $37 million guaranteed. Bill O’Brien hadn’t even formally met Osweiler in person before Houston agreed to the deal.
It didn’t take long for that gamble to backfire. Osweiler threw 15 touchdowns and 16 interceptions during the regular season and eventually got benched for Tom Savage. Houston still went 9-7 and won the AFC South, but Osweiler was gone after one year.
The Texans wanted out so badly that they sent Cleveland a second-round pick to help get the contract off their books. Cleveland then cut Osweiler before he played a regular-season game for them, and he ended up right back in Denver. When you have to give away a second-round pick to get rid of a quarterback after one season, you know things went pretty badly.
Seattle went all-in on Percy Harvin in 2013, sending Minnesota three draft picks and giving the 24-year-old playmaker a six-year, $67 million contract. The upside was obvious, but Seattle barely got to see it. Harvin underwent hip surgery before his first season and ended up playing just six regular-season games in nearly two years.
There was one pretty big exception. Harvin returned for Super Bowl XLVIII and took the opening kickoff of the second half 87 yards for a touchdown, helping Seattle finish off a 43-8 win over Denver. It’s hard to call his entire time with the Seahawks a failure when he delivered a moment like that on the biggest stage.
Still, the relationship fell apart quickly in 2014. Harvin had just 133 receiving yards through five games, and reports of multiple altercations with teammates surfaced after Seattle abruptly traded him to the Jets. That included an altercation with Golden Tate before the Super Bowl. Seattle paid a massive price for Harvin and got almost no regular-season production in return, but at least he gave them one unforgettable Super Bowl moment.
Tua Tagovailoa’s extension made plenty of sense at the time. He was coming off a 2023 season in which he led the NFL with 4,624 passing yards, made his first Pro Bowl and finally stayed healthy for all 17 games. Still, his injury history was hard to ignore when Miami gave him a four-year, $212.4 million extension with $167.2 million guaranteed.
Unfortunately, those concerns came back almost immediately. Tua suffered another concussion early in 2024 and played just 11 games that season. Then his play fell off in 2025, when he threw 15 interceptions in 14 starts before Miami benched him for seventh-round rookie Quinn Ewers.
Less than two years after handing Tua the extension, Miami decided it was better to take a record-setting $99.2 million cap hit and move on. By then, the Dolphins had also moved on from GM Chris Grier and fired head coach Mike McDaniel after missing the playoffs for a second straight season. Going from a $212.4 million franchise quarterback to a complete reset that quickly made this an incredibly expensive mistake.
Philadelphia thought it had landed one of the best cornerbacks in football when it signed Nnamdi Asomugha to a five-year, $60 million deal in 2011. He was coming off three straight Pro Bowls in Oakland and had become so dominant that quarterbacks rarely even threw his way. Adding him to a secondary with Asante Samuel and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie only added to the hype around Philadelphia’s infamous “Dream Team.”
Unfortunately, Asomugha never looked like the same player in Philadelphia. The Eagles asked him to play more zone and move around the secondary instead of primarily locking down receivers in man coverage, and the fit never really worked. Meanwhile, Philadelphia went just 12-20 and missed the playoffs both seasons.
After a 4-12 season in 2012 that also ended Andy Reid’s 14-year run as head coach, Philadelphia released Asomugha. He played just three more NFL games before his career was over. One of the biggest signings of the “Dream Team” era ended up becoming one of its biggest disappointments.
Oakland was hoping Javon Walker could get back to being the Pro Bowl receiver he had been earlier in his career when it gave him a six-year, $55 million contract in 2008. But he was already coming off an injury-plagued season in Denver, and even Walker later admitted he was surprised by how much the Raiders offered him.
The warning signs only continued from there. Walker briefly considered walking away from football before the season and even offered to return his $11 million signing bonus. He ultimately stayed, but injuries limited him to eight games and 15 catches in 2008. A year later, he appeared in three games and didn’t catch a single pass.
Oakland finally released Walker in 2010, ending a deal that produced 196 yards and one touchdown for $14 million. That works out to roughly $933,000 for every catch he made as a Raider.
