Head Coach - American Football - National Football League

National Football League

At the professional level, coaches may work for millions of dollars a year. The head coach at the pro level has much more time to devote to tactics and playbooks, which are combed over by staff paid even more than at the college level. Head coaching, due to the extensive time on the road and long hours, is a very stressful job. Since the money is good at high levels, many coaches retire in their early fifties.

Many factors are part of NFL coaches' contracts. These involve the NFL's $11 Billion as the highest revenue sport, topping the Major League Baseball's (MLB) $7 Billion, while holding a non-taxpaying exemption that the MLB does not. The unusual distinction of being a tax exempt multi-billion dollar corporation and a tax exempt monopoly that can move teams from one city to another, to Stadiums built through tax-free borrowing by the Cities, which every American taxpayer pays for in public subsidies even in a mixed economy in economic late-2000s recession. The NFL's coaches are the highest paid professional coaches with professional football topping the list in Forbes' highest-paid sports coaches. Bill Belichick is in the #1 spot for the second year in a row with no MLB or National Hockey League coaches making the list.

Another major element of NFL coaches' contracts, negotiated between individual coaches and NFL "teams"/owners, are NFL demanded provisions in the coaches employment contracts, that authorize the employing NFL teams to withhold part of a coach's salary when league operations are suspended, such as lockouts or television contract negotiations.