From breakout TV star to breakout star on the field, Oakland Raiders tight end Darren Waller is now breaking the bank.
The fifth-year pro, who spent the previous four years struggling to get on the field but has emerged as one of the top tight ends in football early this season, signed a multiyear extension with the Raiders, the club announced Wednesday night.
According to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, the contract will run through the 2023 season, eating up what would have been a restricted free agent year in 2020 and then paying Waller about $9 million per season for the three seasons after that.
The Baltimore Ravens drafted Waller in the sixth round out of Georgia Tech in 2015, but he struggled to get playing time and served a pair of suspensions for violating the league’s substance-abuse policy — the second spanning all of the 2017 season.
After opening the 2018 season on the Ravens’ practice squad, Waller was signed by the Raiders and played in four games last season, catching six balls for 75 yards.
This summer, he was one of the stars of HBO’s “Hard Knocks,” with the show spending several segments talking about Waller’s past troubles with substance abuse. He reached two years sober during camp.
Through five games this season, Waller has 37 catches for 359 yards — both far and away his best marks in any season. Among NFL tight ends, he currently ranks second in receptions and sixth in receiving yards.
He entered this season with 18 catches for 178 yards and two touchdowns in 22 career games (four starts).
“I’m gonna give you all I got,” Waller told Raider Nation in a video the team posted to Twitter on Wednesday night.
