Report: Quenton Nelson agrees to record-breaking contract extension on Saturday
Former Notre Dame star Quenton Nelson agreed to a record-breaking contract extension with the Indianapolis Colts on Saturday night, according to Adam Schefter of ESPN. The gifted offensive lineman signed a four-year extension averaging $20 million per year, including $60 million guaranteed.
The deal makes him the highest paid guard in NFL history. The Indianapolis Colts finished the deal on Saturday night. It’s a well-deserved contract for a player who is likely to find himself in the Pro Football Hall of Fame once it comes time to hang his cleats up. Nelson has been unbelievably dominant from the jump of his NFL career and it’s exactly what many people expected out of him coming out of Notre Dame.
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He dealt with a right ankle injury for a good chunk of the 2021 season, forcing him to miss four games. Nelson was placed on injured reserve on Oct. 2 after he suffered a high ankle sprain early in the second quarter of the Colts-Titans matchup on Sept. 26. Nelson has been named a four-time Pro Bowler thus far in his prolific NFL career. Last year was the only season he wasn’t named an All-Pro selection and that was because he missed so much time with the injury.
Quenton Nelson career
Nelson has long been one of the best offensive linemen in the game at every level of football he’s played on. When he was coming out of Notre Dame, PFF graded him as the best guard prospect in the PFF era.
His 95.1 grade in 2017 was good enough for second out of the 1,403 prospects that PFF has charted. The man is in a league of his own.
Check out the graphic below from PFF.
In 2017, he was named second team AP All-American at Notre Dame. In 2015, he was the critical piece of a Notre Dame offensive line that helped Notre Dame average over 5 yards per carry (eighth-best mark in FBS). In 2015, Notre Dame ran for 457 yards against UMass, the mark was the single-best rushing yardage total by Notre Dame in 23 years. There’s no question that having a dominant force like Nelson on the offensive line made that happen.
As a high school prospect, Nelson was selected as a U.S. Army All-American coming out of Red Bank Catholic (Red Bank, New Jersey). He was rated as a top 100 overall prospect in the country by most recruiting services. The six-foot-5, 330-pounder was also named second team All-USA by USA Today.