CHIEFS SIGN K HARRISON BUTKER TO FOUR-YEAR, $25.6 MILLION DEAL, MAKING HIM THE HIGHEST PAID KICKER IN NFL HISTORY
The defending Super Bowl champions have signed standout kicker Harrison Butker to a massive contract extension, as first reported by ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Monday.
Butker’s new deal, negotiated by the player himself, is a four-year, $25.6 million deal that includes up to $17.75 million in total guarantees, tying the most guaranteed money for a kicker in NFL history.
The new contract pays the 29-year-old $6.4 million in annual average salary and makes him the stand-alone highest paid kicker in league history on annual average salary, ahead of Baltimore Ravens’ kicker Justin Tucker ($6 million) and Eagles’ Jake Elliott ($6 million). Colts’ Matt Gay ($5.62 million) and Giants’ Graham Gano ($5.5 million) round out the top 5 highest earners at the position.
Butker had one year remaining on the five-year, $20.3 million deal he signed in 2019 which was scheduled to pay him $3.945 million this season. With four more years added to his tenure with the Chiefs, Butker is now tied to Kansas City through the 2028 campaign.
After a stellar season last year, one of the best of his career, Butker gets rightly rewarded. The Decatur, Georgia-born kicker was 33-for-35 on field goals in the regular season in 2023 and a perfect 38-for-38 on extra points. He was also among the NFL leaders in touchback percentage.
One of the most clutch placekickers in recent NFL history, Butker not only holds the NFL record for the longest field goal in a Super Bowl – a 57-yarder against the San Francisco 49ers this year – but also has the most field goals in Super Bowl history with 9.
The former Georgia Tech alumnus has established himself as one of the best placekickers in the league and played a pivotal role during the regular season and the playoffs in guiding the Chiefs to 3 Super Bowl championships over the last five years. Butker has made 197 of 221 field goal attempts during his career and boasts a career field goal percentage of 89.1, which is second all-time behind Tucker at 90.2.
Butker reacted to the news of his extension with a post on X. “There’s no place I’d rather be than with the Chiefs,” wrote the former Panthers’ seventh-round pick. “Excited to finalize a 4-year extension. To the heights!”
Chiefs General Manager Brett Veach said last week that they had intentions of signing Butker and a few others, including C Creed Humphrey, G Trey Smith and LB Nick Bolton to contract extensions. The Chiefs are still in talks with all three players as training camp continues with both sides working towards long-term resolutions.
“Every single one of these guys we would want nothing more than to extend and re-sign,” said Veach. “They’re beyond, ‘they have to prove something.’ They all want close to or top of market deals. They all deserve it. You have to systematically work through it.”
“It’s a goal to talk to all three, and we’d love nothing more than to get all three done. There’ll be an effort from us to get all three done. But from a player’s perspective, it has to make sense to them. They’ve earned that. They won’t be lacking a market. They’ll get good money.”
The Chiefs enter 2024 with the rare opportunity of trying to win the Super Bowl for a third consecutive time. And the signing of Harrison Butker to a new deal helps them move towards that goal. Veach said last week regarding the eighth-year kicker: “Come playoff time, there’s no one I’d want kicking for me more than Harrison Butker.”
Kansas City kick off the new season in a month’s time, on Thursday, Sept. 5, at Arrowhead Stadium against last year’s no.1 seed in the AFC, the Baltimore Ravens, on NBC.
-Maher Abucheri
Twitter: @pabloikonyero
Photo: Tennessee Titans. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.