There are usually a lot of bad contracts in the NFC East, so it's fun ranking the top 10 each year and watching fans get all riled up about it. So, you know, let's do this.
10) Andrew Thomas, OT, Giants: After being named Second-Team All-Pro in 2022, Thomas signed a five-year contract worth $117.5 million. Since then he has missed 18 games. There's a common sentiment that Thomas is still a great player when healthy, but PFF has him down for 8 sacks allowed in the 16 games he has played over the last two seasons.
9) Jevon Holland, S, Giants: Holland signed with the Giants this offseason on a three-year deal worth $45 million. Over his four-year career in Miami, Holland had 301 tackles, 5 sacks, 25 pass breakups, 5 forced fumbles, and 5 INTs. He's roughly averaging 75 tackles, 1 sack, 6 pass breakups, a forced fumble, and an INT per season.
Holland is not a game-changing player. But you know who is? Xavier McKinney, who was a first-team All-Pro in 2024 in Green Bay. McKinney is only making $1.75 million more per season than Holland, and he had 3 more INTs in 2024 than Holland has had in his entire career. The Giants let McKinney walk in free agency with no fight last offseason.
8) Daron Payne, iDL, Commanders: Payne had a monster season in 2022, when he had 11.5 sacks. The following offseason he scored a four-year deal worth $90 million, and his production has dropped off sharply. He has 8 sacks in 2023 and 2024 combined, and hasn't been the same run defender either.
The overworked Payne has never played fewer than 742 snaps in a season, and has averaged 835 snaps per season over his seven-year career. That's probably catching up with him.
7) Marshon Lattimore, CB, Commanders: The Commanders traded 3rd-, 4th- and 6th-round picks to the Saints for Lattimore and a 5th-round pick at the trade deadline last season. He missed the first four games after the trade with a hamstring, played in two, missed two more, and then returned to the field for the playoffs.
Maybe Lattimore was dealing with the effects of his hamstring injury and he'll be better in 2025, but holy hell he looked cooked in the playoffs. He couldn't cover without hanging onto receivers for dear life, and he had a bunch of missed tackles.
The Commanders will pay Lattimore $18 million in 2025.
6) Deebo Samuel, WR, Commanders: Samuel was a legitimate star player in 2021. He had 77 catches for 1405 yards (a lofty 18.2 YPC), and 6 TDs as a receiver, and added 365 yards and 8 TDs on 59 carries (6.2 YPC) on the ground as a runner. He was named First-Team All-Pro, and he asked to be traded the following offseason, but instead signed a contract extension to stay in San Francisco.
In 2022 and 2023, Samuel was still an effective runner out of the backfield, averaging 5.8 yards per carry over those two seasons, but his numbers as a receiver were way down.
In 2024, Samuel had perhaps the worst season of his career, with just 670 receiving yards (45 yards per game), and a yards per carry average of 3.2. He also yelled at kicker Jake Moody and took a swing at long snapper Taybor Pepper after Moody missed three field goals in a game.
Samuel has not been a difference maker over the last three seasons, and the Commanders are going to pay him $17.5 million in 2025. For some reason, the Commanders' trade of a fifth-round pick for Samuel was widely lauded as a steal, but the reality is that the Niners were thrilled to be able to offload that bad contract, and getting anything at all for him in return was a win for them.
5) Javon Kinlaw, iDL, Commanders: In one of the biggest surprises of Day 1 of free agency, league-wide, Kinlaw somehow scored a three-year deal worth $45 million. Kinlaw spent his first four years with the 49ers, and last year with the Jets. He has 9.5 career sacks, although 8 of those came in the last two seasons. Kinlaw has a hulking frame, but has been an atrocious run defender throughout his five-year career.
Kinlaw got overpaid on a one-year "prove it" deal worth $8 million with the Jets last year. He proved nothing, and the Commanders were like, "Hey, why don't you come play here for $45 million?"
4) Terence Steele, OT, Cowboys: Steele signed a five-year deal worth $82.5 million during the 2023 offseason after a very good 2022 season. He has since been a below-average starter, allowing 17 sacks over the last two seasons, per PFF.
3) Bryce Huff, EDGE, Eagles: The Eagles signed Huff last offseason to a hefty three-year, $51.1 million contract ($17+ million per season) after he collected 10 sacks with the Jets in limited playing time as a situational pass rusher in 2023. It was a gamble, as Huff was thought of as one-dimensional, in that he could rush the passer but might not be a three-down player because he struggled against the run.
In his first year in Philly, Huff didn't do much of anything. The film showed almost immediately in a Week 2 loss to the Falcons that he was an unplayable player, as he was ineffective as a pass rusher, woeful as a run defender, and frankly didn't play hard. He finished the season with 13 tackles, 2.5 sacks, and one forced fumble, while missing five games with a wrist injury.
By the time the playoffs came, Huff had no role at all. He played one snap against the Packers in the Wild Card Round, zero snaps against the Rams in the Divisional Round, 12 garbage time snaps in the blowout of the Commanders in the NFC Championship Game, and he was inactive in the Super Bowl against the Chiefs while making way for a one-armed Brandon Graham.
2) Daniel Jones, QB, formerly of the Giants: Jones is no longer in the NFC East, of course, but he will still count for $22.2 million on the Giants' cap in 2025. But hey, he's not No. 1 on this list anymore! 🎉🍾
1) Dak Prescott, QB, Cowboys: The Cowboys have botched Prescott's contract situation for more than a half decade, going all the way back to 2019.
If you'll recall, when Prescott was eligible for a contract extension after the 2018 season, nothing got done and the Cowboys had the benefit of having a starting quarterback continuing to play on his crappy rookie deal for a fourth season in 2019. They franchised tagged him in 2020, before finalizing a four-year deal worth $160 million, with $126 million in guarantees, including a $66 million signing bonus in 2021.
Prescott was having an outstanding season in 2020, the year prior to his deal, when he suffered a serious leg injury and was lost for the year. The Cowboys' season subsequently went down the toilet, hammering home his value. Because the Cowboys had already tagged Prescott, a second tag would have been extremely cost-prohibitive, which gave Prescott all the leverage in negotiations. There was reason to believe that he might get more than the $40 million per year he received, so in that sense, that was something of a minor win for the Cowboys to at least keep it at that number.
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However, the benefits of that deal to Prescott were in the details, and they were significant. To begin, his deal also included a clause in which the Cowboys can't franchise tag him. But more importantly, it was only a four-year deal, which meant that as the salary cap increased and quarterbacks pushed the market even higher over the next few years, the Cowboys and Prescott would be right back at the negotiation table in no time, when Prescott would be in a position to score yet another top-of-the-market quarterback contract.
Last offseason, Prescott was set to play on the final year of his deal. For some dumbass reason, Jerry Jones said that he wanted to "see more cards played" before getting a deal done with him. Predictably, that didn't work out, as the Lions' Jared Goff got a new deal worth $53 million per season, followed by the Jaguars' Trevor Lawrence getting a new deal worth $55 million (!) per season.
OOPS!
Just before the start of the 2024 season, Prescott signed for $240 million over four years, or $60 million per season. That made him the highest-paid player in NFL history, a title he still holds.
Prescott is obviously far from the best player in the NFL. He's a borderline top 10 quarterback, and certainly other teams around the league would rather have him than their current quarterbacks, but he is also coming off arguably the worst season of his career, with career lows in QB Rating (86.0), QBR (45.3), and a 3-5 record before he was shut down for the season with a hamstring injury. He also turns 32 in July.
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