With just three years in the NFL, Colin Kaepernick has signed a 6-year contract extension worth more than $110 million with a record $61 million guaranteed. While some feel that makes the 26-year-old overpaid, it actually shows how the NFL has gotten better at rewarding young players who perform well.
Prior to the onset of the NFL's newest Collective Bargaining Agreement, and prior to ever playing a down in the NFL, Sam Bradford was the top pick in the NFL draft and signed a huge 6-year, $78 million contract with the St. Louis Rams that included $50 million guaranteed.
While the new CBA severely limits how much players can make with their first contracts, they also can reach their second contract earlier. That means, in the case of Kaepernick, his earnings started off slow, but now he is on an earnings track that looks much more like the successful quarterbacks drafted in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
