Philadelphia Eagles QB Jalen Hurts has played in just three career playoff games, two of which were this year, and none of which were decided by fewer than 15 points. Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes has played in five AFC Championship Games and two Super Bowls, already throwing more postseason passes than Steve Young or Kurt Warner did during their entire Hall of Fame careers.
This gap in experience between the two starting quarterbacks in Super Bowl LVII is reflected in their paychecks. Hurts is in the third year of his rookie deal, and making less than $2 million this season—about $40 million under market value for a star quarterback. On the flip side, Mahomes is in the first year of his 10-year, $450 million contract.
Just three years ago, the Chiefs won the Super Bowl with Mahomes still on his rookie contract. Since then, more teams have deliberately built teams around young quarterbacks who don’t eat up a big slice of the salary-cap pie. The majority of the starting quarterbacks for this season’s 14 playoff teams were still on rookie deals.
The rookie wage scale, introduced in 2011, bases an incoming player’s pay rate on when they’re selected in the draft. Hurts, a second-round pick, costs even less than a young first-round quarterback would. 
team traded for Pro Bowl wide receiver A.J. Brown and edge rusher Haason Reddick. The latter surpassed high expectations with 16 sacks and a league-leading five forced fumbles this season. Reddick’s deal was structured in a way to limit the team’s cap hit in 2022, but the acquisition was still enabled by the absence of a mega quarterback contract.
The Eagles spend just 3.4% of their total active roster payroll on the signal caller position, including the backup quarterbacks, per Spotrac. Meanwhile, the Chiefs spend more than 20% of theirs on Mahomes alone.
After signing Mahomes to a huge extension, the team had to make big cost-saving moves to make its cap math work. One of those was trading away star wide receiver Tyreek Hill to the Dolphins, who gave him a new $120 million deal
In the post-Hill era, just 16.5% of the Chiefs’ total active roster cap hit goes towards backs, receivers and tight ends, which ranks 26th in the NFL. Kansas City struck gold by drafting now-starting running back Isaiah Pacheco in the seventh round of the 2022 draft. Perhaps more crucially, Mahomes’ only expensive target is Travis Kelce, who is second all-time in NFL postseason receiving touchdowns, catches and yards, and yet is not even one of the three highest-paid tight ends in the league.
