Who’s Made the Most Money Playing for the Detroit Lions?

This is an updated version of a post made in 2024. That version of the article can be read here.

NFL free agency is underway as teams look to spend top dollar on proven talents to instantly upgrade their rosters, including the Detroit Lions.

However, in recent years, the Lions have wisely built their roster through the NFL Draft. Five of the top seven highest-paid players on the Lions' roster were drafted by the organization. Several of those players have already earned enough to appear on the list below.

Get our free mobile app

Big-time players make big-time money, and the players in the gallery below have made more cash than anyone else in franchise history.

Of course, with inflation and the league's absurd payroll spike over the years, there aren't many players from before 2000 on this list. Props to the few who got the bag before getting a bag was a thing.

First things first, all of these numbers come from Spotrac and Over the Cap. It's worth noting that NFL contracts aren't technically completely public. As such, these numbers may not be perfectly accurate, though they are as close as you're likely to find without your own sources inside the Detroit Lions building.

Since Spotrac no longer displays career earnings freely on their website and omitted a couple of players in previous versions of this list, I'll be defaulting to Over the Cap's numbers when available. It's worth noting that Over the Cap also doesn't list all of the players on this list on their career earnings page.

It might also be worth noting that this isn't a ranking of the greatest Lions ever. Some guys were overpaid. Some guys were busts. Those guys are on the list because of what they reportedly made while playing for the franchise.

Some guys didn't get paid enough. Whether it's because of the era they played in or front office negligence, if they weren't one of the top-25 highest-earners in franchise history, they aren't on the list.

With all of that out of the way, here are the 25 Detroit Lions who have made the most money playing for the Motor City franchise.