Welcome to the Friday edition of the Pick Six newsletter!

With all 32 NFL teams officially on vacation for the next few weeks, I've taken that as a sign that I should also go on vacation. This is my way of telling you that I won't be around next week, but don't worry, things won't be completely falling apart around here because we have Cody Benjamin and Tyler Sullivan ready to take over. 

Pete Prisco won't be writing the newsletter next week, but we are going to take one final look at his top 100 list today. We're also going to reveal the player who's on the verge of becoming the first $400 million earner in NFL history. 

As always, here's your daily reminder to tell all your friends to sign up for the newsletter. To get them signed up, all you have to do is click here. Let's get to the rundown. 

Earlier this week, Pete Prisco ranked the 100 best players in the NFL, and when his list came out, we took a close look at how things broke down at each offensive position. Today, we're going to flip things around and take a look at Prisco's defensive rankings. 

We're going to start this process by taking a look at his top 10 EDGE rushers. These are the guys who are paid the big bucks to rush the quarterback. The number to the right of each player is their overall ranking on Prisco's list. 

1. Browns DE Myles Garrett (2)
2. Cowboys LB Micah Parsons (10)
3. Steelers OLB T.J. Watt (11)
4. Lions DE Aidan Hutchinson (15)
5. Bengals DE Trey Hendrickson (26)
6. Raiders DE Maxx Crosby (28)
7. 49ers DE Nick Bosa (35)
8. Texans DE Danielle Hunter (48)
9. Rams OLB Jared Verse (54)
10. Texans DE Will Anderson Jr. (56)

One interesting note here is that three of the top five pass-rushers all play in the same division with Watt, Hendrickson and Garrett all in the AFC North. The Texans were the only team to land two players on this list with both Hunter and Anderson cracking Prisco's ranking of top 10 pass-rushers. 

If you didn't check out Prisco's top 100 list earlier this week, you can see it here. 

This will be the final time we'll be breaking down Prisco's top 100 list this week, and we're going to close things out by taking a look at the top 10 corners and safeties. We're going to lump the two positions together so we can get a good idea of which players in the secondary have been impressing Prisco the most. 

1. Broncos CB Patrick Surtain II (9)
2. Texans CB Derek Stingley Jr. (23)
3. Jets CB Sauce Gardner (24)
4. Ravens S Kyle Hamilton (36)
5. Chiefs CB Trent McDuffie (46)
6. Lions S Kerby Joseph (60)
7. Packers S Xavier McKinney (61)
8. Patriots CB Christian Gonzalez (62)
9. Lions CB Brian Branch (65)
10. Ravens CB Marlon Humphrey (68)

One interesting thing about this list is that Prisco only has one corner in his top 20 and that's Surtain. Also, there is only one safety in the top 50 and that's Hamilton. The Ravens landed two players on this list, but that didn't seem to help them last year as they gave up the second-most passing yards in the NFL. 

Although we only listed the top 10 corners/safeties here, a total of 20 of them cracked Prisco's top 100 list. If you want to know who else made the cut, you can see Prisco's full list here.  

It pays well to be a quarterback in the NFL, and if you need proof, just look at the career earnings of Matthew Stafford and Aaron Rodgers. The two quarterbacks are in a race to become the first player in NFL history to earn $400 million. 

Both quarterbacks could hit that number during the 2025 season. Let's take a look at where their career earnings currently stand (via Over the Cap): 

• Rodgers: $381.7 million
• Stafford: $364 million

Although Rodgers is much closer to hitting $400 million, there's a good chance Stafford will actually end up hitting the number first. Rodgers and Stafford both signed new deals this offseason, and that's a big reason why the Rams quarterback will likely hit the $400 million mark before Rodgers. 

• Stafford's deal. The Rams signal-caller signed a two-year, $84 million deal this offseason that will pay him $44 million for the 2025 season. According to NFL Media, Stafford has already been paid $4 million of that total and the final $40 million is fully guaranteed, so he'll be closing out the 2025 season with $404 million in career earnings. 
• Rodgers' deal. The four-time MVP signed a one-year deal with the Steelers that's worth up to $19.5 million. If Rodgers hits every incentive in his contract, his career earnings will cross the $400 million mark to $401.2 million, which will leave him short of Stafford. 

That means Stafford will become the first player in NFL history to crack the $400 million mark. There's only one other active quarterback who has even earned $300 million and that's Russell Wilson, who's at $313.3 million, but it's unlikely he'll be getting anymore big-money deals, so he almost certainly won't be hitting $400 million. Patrick Mahomes might eventually top the number -- mainly because he signed a 10-year, $503 million deal in July 2020 -- but to date, Mahomes has only earned $181.9 million in his career. 

If there's one thing the NFL gives us every year, it's a breakout player no one saw coming because he struggled so much early in his career. Trey Hendrickson is a solid example of this. Hendrickson was drafted by the Saints in 2017 and his first three years in the NFL were pretty quiet, but then he had a breakout season in 2020 where he recorded 13.5 sacks. 

Early career struggles can be caused by anything from injuries to a player not quite understanding their role. With that in mind, we decided to take a look at a few players who could break out this year after going through some struggles earlier in their career. 

• Ravens RB Keaton Mitchell. "Keaton Mitchell tore his ACL two years ago, in Week 15 of 2023. That knee-ligament injury kept him off the field until Week 10 of last season, and he could hardly get going when activated. Heck, he only received 15 carries in Year 2. Now, all the juice that made him my No. 3 RB in the 2023 class should be completely restored. Remember how dynamic Mitchell was in that rookie campaign? If you don't, here's a reminder -- he averaged 8.4 -- yes, 8.4 -- yards per carry on 47 attempts before his injury. He was lightning in a bottle."
• Colts WR Adonai Mitchell. "Anthony Richardson was one of, if not the least-accurate quarterback in football in 2024. Mitchell was targeted 51 times, and with only four drops, caught just 23 passes. What does that say? There were a lot of footballs over the head or skipping at the feet of the rookie receiver last season. ... there's no way Mitchell is held back as drastically as he was in 2024."

You can check out our full list of possible breakout candidates here. 

If you read Thursday's newsletter, you may have noticed that we unveiled our All-Quarter Century team for the New England Patriots. Well, we also created an All-Quarter Century team for the Dallas Cowboys, so we're going to unveil that today. 

The Cowboys haven't reached a Super Bowl this century, but they have had plenty of stars. We put Garrett Podell in charge of deciding which of those stars should be honored on Dallas' All-Quarter Century team. 

Here's a look at a few of the players who made Podell's list: 

QB: Tony Romo
RB: Ezekiel Elliott
RB: DeMarco Murray
WR: Dez Bryant
WR: Terrell Owens
TE: Jason Witten

Our Cowboys All-Quarter Century Team features a total of 53 players, and if you want to see the full roster, you can do that here. 

While not the busiest time in the NFL, there's still a lot happening, so I went ahead and put together a roundup for you. 

• Adrian Peterson gets into fist fight over poker game. The former NFL running back is apparently playing poker now and things aren't going so well. Peterson was at an event this week and got into a fist fight with a fellow poker player. If you want to see video of the incident, we've got that here. 
• Shedeur Sanders has been cited for speeding twice. On Thursday, we mentioned that Sanders was cited for speeding this week after going 101 mph in a 60 mph zone. As it turns out, that's actually the SECOND time this month that Sanders has been cited. He was also pulled over on June 5 for going 91 mph in a 65 mph zone. The Browns will surely be hoping he makes better decisions on the field than he's been making off the field so far. 
• Cowboys cheerleaders are getting a substantial raise. The Cowboys cheerleaders are getting a 400% pay raise this year, one of the members of the squad recently revealed in a Netflix series. The cheerleaders' pay per game got bumped from $200 to $400 in 2019, and if it hasn't changed since then, that means they'll now be getting roughly $1,600 per game in 2025. 
• Darren Waller's bizarre reason for retiring from NFL. The former NFL tight end decided to retire at the age of 31 after a game in 2023 where the Giants essentially had him playing fullback for several plays. "I sit down on the sideline after a drive where we ran it like three times, and I'm like, 'What the f--- am I doing with my life? I'm out here playing fullback. I don't even wanna do this shit anymore.'" Waller said. He had a pretty interesting interview this week with WKBW, and you can check out his full comments here.