Harrison Butker. UNIQUE NICOLE/AFP through Getty Photographs
Three months after his controversial graduation speech, Harrison Butker is now the highest-paid kicker within the NFL.
Butker, 29, signed a brand new four-year, $26.5 million contract extension with the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs on Monday, August 5, in response to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
The contract comes with $17.75 million assured and retains Butker, who had one yr remaining on his present deal, in Kansas Metropolis via the tip of the 2028 season.
Butker — who represented and negotiated the deal himself, in response to Schefter — celebrated the information on social media.
The Kansas Metropolis Chiefs have stayed busy since successful the 2024 Tremendous Bowl — and so they’re already getting again to work. Simply three months after securing their second consecutive NFL championship, a number of staff members, together with quarterback Patrick Mahomes, returned to the Chiefs facility for organized staff actions (OTAs) earlier than the 2024/2025 NFL season. “The work […]
“There’s no place I’d quite be than with the Chiefs,” he wrote through X, “excited to finalize a 4 yr extension. To the Heights!”
The contract places Butker forward of the Philadelphia Eagles’ Jake Moody and the Baltimore Ravens’ Justin Tucker, who each make a median of $6 million yearly on their present offers.
Butker’s extension comes roughly three months after his graduation speech at Benedictine School in Atchison, Kansas ruffled feathers.
Throughout his deal with, Butker referred to as on girls to embrace the position of “homemaker” and equated Delight Month to “lethal sin,” amongst different controversial and hateful feedback.
After the speech, a web-based petition to dismiss Butker from the Chiefs obtained greater than 238,000 signatures.
Weeks after the speech, at a charity gala on Might 24, Butker broke his silence on the tidal wave of animosity that had come his means.
“On the outset, many individuals expressed a surprising degree of hate, however as the times went on — even those that disagreed with my viewpoints — shared their help for my freedom of faith,” Butker stated. “In my seven years of being within the NFL, I’ve change into accustomed to the constructive and damaging feedback, however the majority of them revolve round my efficiency on the sphere.”
He continued, “The extra I talked about what I worth most, which is my Catholic religion, the extra polarizing I’ve change into,” he stated. “It’s a call I’ve consciously made and one I don’t remorse in any respect. If now we have fact and charity, we must always belief the Lord’s windfall and let the Holy Ghost do the remainder of the work.”
Kansas Metropolis Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker has sung his household’s praises via the years. “Rising up my mother was my largest supporter, guiding me to be the person I wanted to change into,” Harrison wrote in a Might 2020 Mom’s Day tribute shared through X by the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs. “Now, I’m so blessed to have […]
Butker’s teammates commented on the speech given by their kicker, with Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes calling Butker “an excellent individual.”
“We’re not at all times going to agree and there’s sure issues that he stated that I don’t agree with,” Mahomes, 28, stated, “however I perceive the individual [who] he’s and [that] he’s making an attempt to do no matter he can to steer folks in the correct route.”
Chiefs tight finish Travis Kelce stated, “When it comes right down to his views and what he stated on the graduation speech, , these are his. I can’t say I agree with nearly all of it — or simply about any of it — exterior of simply him loving his household or his children. I don’t suppose I ought to decide him by his views, particularly his spiritual views of how he goes about life.”
The Chiefs open the common season and their pursuit of a historic third straight Tremendous Bowl on September 5.