Highest-Paid Tight Ends in the NFL: Full Breakdown

The Falcons have officially locked up tight end Kyle Pitts for the next three years.

After placing the franchise tag on Pitts earlier this offseason, the Falcons are signing Pitts to a three-year, $54 million contract extension with $36 million guaranteed, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter. The deal makes Pitts the third highest-paid tight end in the league, and ensures the Falcons keep one of their top playmakers in Atlanta.

With Pitts cashing in and becoming the latest tight end to receive a new multiyear deal, here’s a look at the highest-paid tight ends in the league.

Who is the highest-paid tight end in the NFL?

The highest-paid tight end in the NFL in terms of total contract value and average annual salary is 49ers star George Kittle, who has been one of the best tight ends in the league over the past decade. Kittle received his latest extension worth $19.1 million per year and $76.4 million overall after a 2024 season which saw him record over 1,100 receiving yards. He has dealt with injuries over the past year, including a torn Achilles he is currently working his way back from.

The highest-paid tight end in terms of total guaranteed money is Cardinals’ Trey McBride, who led all tight ends in receiving yards in 2025. McBride’s deal includes $43 million in guarantees.

Top 10 highest-paid tight ends in the NFL

Here are the 10 highest-paid tight ends in the NFL, via Over the Cap.

Who could be the next highest-paid tight end?

With the NFL currently experiencing a tight end boom—just look at rounds 2 and 3 from this year’s draft—the tight end market could significantly grow in the next few years. Outside of Kittle, McBride and Pitts, no tight end is making $13.5 million or more in average annual salary. That is slated to change with the tight ends coming up for contracts in the upcoming years.

Next offseason, tight ends such as Dalton Kincaid, Sam LaPorta and Tucker Kraft will be due for extensions. All three should certainly surpass Likely’s current contract, and could potentially challenge Pitts’s—especially if any or all of them put together big seasons in 2025.

The next tight end most likely to break the market is Brock Bowers, who will become extension eligible next offseason. Bowers did deal with an injury in 2025, but he proved when healthy as a rookie that he is one of the best tight ends in the league, and could potentially be worthy of becoming the highest-paid player at the position when he signs his second contract.

How tight end salaries have changed over time

Mike Ditka, the first rookie tight end in NFL history to surpass 1,000 receiving yards in a season, recalled in a 2019 interview on Huddle Up With Gus that his first contract in the NFL was for $12,000 with a $6,000 signing bonus when he was drafted in 1961.

By the time Hall of Fame tight end Shannon Sharpe was playing in the NFL 30 years later, he was earning over $1 million per year when he signed his third contract. Per Over the Cap, his third contract, signed in 1993, was worth $1.22 million per year. His largest contract included an average annual salary of $3.45 million.

Fourteen years ago in 2012, Rob Gronkowski signed an extension with the same total value as Pitts’s deal—$54 million—but the deal was over six years and worth $9 million per year, half of what Pitts is making. Two years later, Jimmy Graham took the crown of highest-paid tight end in the league on a deal worth $10 million per year. Now, over a decade later, the highest-paid tight ends are making nearly double that.

How tight end salaries compare to other positions

The highest-paid tight ends are making a similar amount to the highest-paid running backs and off-ball linebackers, though both positions have at least one player already making over $20 million.

They are making significantly less than the premium positions—making over three times less than the highest-paid quarterbacks, Patrick Mahomes and Dak Prescott, who are each making $60 million or more, and two times less than the highest-paid receivers, who are now making $40 million or more.

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Eva Geitheim is an NFL writer at Sports Illustrated. Prior to joining SI in December 2024, she wrote for Newsweek, Gymnastics Now and Dodgers Nation. A Bay Area native, she has a bachelor’s in communications from UCLA. When not writing, she can be found baking or rewatching Gilmore Girls.

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