Picture 53 men on an NFL roster. Now, picture fewer than 10 of them truly set for life. That’s not an exaggeration, that’s Cam Newton’s math, and it’s reshaping how we should talk about NFL money.

“If you win, money gonna come,” the former NFL quarterback turned broadcaster said in an interview shared by The Press Insight on Instagram. “But on a real football team, you probably got less than 10 people really getting to that generational bag. Less than 10 out of a 53-man roster.”

“There is starving artists in the NFL that’s like, ‘I’m living paycheck to paycheck and everybody think that I’m in the NFL, I’m rich,” Newton continued. “I’m not rich, bro. I’m making a very comfortable means, but it’s not enough for me to just say, ‘okay, I’m done with football. I can sit back and do nothing for the rest of my life’. And that’s what people have to consider, fans included.”

Now, Newton isn’t talking about broke former players. Instead, his words reflect the reality of active roster players. The NFL’s 2025 rookie minimum payout sat at $840,000, a figure that sounds transformative until you swipe out federal income taxes, a standard 3% agent fee, and the brutal truth that NFL careers can end at any moment.

Newton also lifted the curtain on how leverage works in contract talks and how most players simply don’t have any. And he used his own career as an example for it.

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“I got drafted when I was 21/22-years-old. I left the NFL when I was 32/33. That’s a 10-year span that has to sustain me,” Newton explained. “I’m 36 now, I will be 37 this year. I ain’t going back to the league for what I know. I’m not getting those checks.”

“So I would have had to think already as if I wasn’t [returning] to make decisions to say, ‘Hey, if ya’ll are paying me $10, I want $15,” Newton added. “They say everything is negotiations. ‘We can’t give you $15 because it exceeds our cap.’ Well, cool. What you’re not going to do, another team will with my skillset.”

But this playbook only works if you’re elite. Backup linemen and special teamers don’t usually get bargaining chips. They take the minimum or go home. And when players negotiate bigger deals, the clock never stops.

Even when players reach the biggest stage, the financial system can still flip the script. After the Seattle Seahawks won Super Bowl LX at Levi’s Stadium, quarterback Sam Darnold received a $178,000 winner’s bonus. But because he, along with his teammates, stayed in California for eight days, he ended up owing an estimated $249,000 in state taxes. That’s a net loss of $71,000 for winning the Super Bowl.

Even retired San Francisco 49ers guard Jon Feliciano knows that sting intimately. Despite earning nearly $24 million over his career, he openly reflected that California’s tax structure cost him roughly half of his fortune. “Unfortunately California f—ed me outta half 😢,” he said.

These aren’t edge cases. They’re the financial underbelly of the league that has a projected $303.5 million salary cap in 2026. And as for Cam Newton’s own career earnings, his words reveal that he, too, has faced the brunt of this despite raking in big money on paper.

Cam Newton’s NFL payday and why it wasn’t enough

Newton’s own career puts hard numbers to the argument. Across 11 NFL seasons, he earned north of $139 million, per Spotrac. His peak came in 2015: a five-year, $103 million Carolina Panthers extension, an MVP title, a 15-1 season and a Super Bowl run. But that didn’t last long.

By 2021, injuries had reduced that payday to a one-year, $6 million return to Carolina from the New England Patriots. That drop from peak to final paycheck isn’t a cautionary tale; it’s the league’s standard operating procedure. And that’s even before taxes and sustenance. To make matters worse, Newton has also paid $58,796 in fines during his NFL tenure.

But Cam Newton didn’t wait for the NFL to define his next chapter. He joined ESPN as a commentator during the 2024 season, and that kept the money flowing. Then, in August 2025, ESPN locked him into a new multi-year deal to expand his role on First Take alongside Stephen A. Smith.

He didn’t stop there either. Combined with endorsement deals from Gatorade, Under Armor, and Beats by Dre, his estimated net worth sits at roughly $50 – $75 million as of February 2026.

Cam Newton is now living proof of the very point he has tried to make. The NFL window closes for everyone, and the paychecks stop coming too. The ones who come out ahead are the ones who’ve built a second door before the first one slams shut