Jake Funk Net Worth 2026 — NFL Career Earnings, Investments, and Life After Football
Jake Funk’s financial story is one of persistence over pedigree. The NFL running back has amassed verified career cash earnings exceeding $1.55 million, with his total net worth — shaped by professional contracts, endorsement partnerships, and a growing real estate career — estimated at approximately $2 million as of 2026.
His journey from a seventh-round draft selection to Super Bowl champion and now real estate professional offers a grounded look at how athletes with modest beginnings can build lasting financial foundations through adaptability and disciplined planning.
Most fans remember Funk for his college highlight reels or his championship ring with the Rams. What often escapes public attention is the financial architecture he has been constructing behind the scenes — one that extends well beyond the football field. His narrative carries weight not because of headline-grabbing contract figures, but because of the resourcefulness required to sustain a professional career across seven organizations and multiple career transitions.
NFL Running Back Career
Funk’s professional journey began on draft night in 2021, when the Los Angeles Rams selected him in the seventh round with the 233rd overall pick. That selection came after a college career defined as much by injury rehabilitation as by on-field dominance — a fact that had pushed him down draft boards despite eye-catching production in his final collegiate season. The Rams saw enough in his speed and versatility to offer him a four-year rookie contract valued at $3,588,228, including a $108,228 signing bonus.
During his rookie campaign, Funk carved out a niche on special teams and as a depth option in the backfield. A hamstring injury sidelined him from Weeks 7 through 15, limiting his early-season contributions. He recovered in time to be part of the Rams’ postseason push, and on February 13, 2022, he earned a Super Bowl ring when Los Angeles defeated the Cincinnati Bengals 23-20 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. For a seventh-round rookie still less than a year into his professional career, the championship represented both validation and a springboard.
The years that followed, however, painted a more sobering picture. Funk moved through six additional organizations between 2022 and 2024 — the New Orleans Saints, Indianapolis Colts, Miami Dolphins, Baltimore Ravens, Detroit Lions, and Jacksonville Jaguars. Most of these stops involved practice squad contracts with limited guarantees and fleeting job security. The Colts gave him his most extended look outside Los Angeles, with practice squad stints spanning parts of two seasons and a futures contract in 2022. But releases followed roster cutdowns with frustrating regularity.
League-Wide Status
By 2024, his league-wide status had shifted to inactive, marking a transition point between his playing career and the next chapter. His total trajectory — seven NFL organizations, countless transactions, and a single championship — captures the unglamorous reality facing the majority of professional football players who never become marquee names.
NFL Career Earnings
Headline contract values in the NFL often mask what players actually receive. Funk’s rookie deal with the Rams carried a total value of $3,588,228 over four years, yet he collected only $659,339 from that agreement — roughly 18 percent of the full amount — before Los Angeles moved on. This gap between paper value and actual cash is a defining feature of late-round draft economics, where non-guaranteed money evaporates the moment a roster decision goes against the player.
His verified career earnings across all seven organizations total $1,555,331. The distribution by team reveals how sharply income declined after his initial Rams tenure:
| Team | Years | Total Earned |
|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles Rams | 2021–2022 | $874,888 |
| Indianapolis Colts | 2022–2023 | $358,721 |
| Jacksonville Jaguars | 2024 | $179,722 |
| Miami Dolphins | 2023 | $60,000 |
| New Orleans Saints | 2022 | $46,000 |
| Baltimore Ravens | 2023 | $36,000 |
The Rams’ tenure alone accounted for 56 percent of his total career cash. His single largest annual payout — $645,722 in 2021 — dwarfed anything he would earn in subsequent seasons. After Los Angeles, no single team paid him more than $358,722, and several stops generated less than $50,000 in actual compensation despite contract values that looked far more substantial on paper.
Income Sources
NFL salaries have served as Funk’s primary income stream, but the economics of his position in the league hierarchy deserve honest examination. His rookie contract with the Rams provided a $108,228 signing bonus and a 2021 base salary of $537,494. Beyond that initial windfall, practice squad weekly salaries — which in recent seasons have ranged from roughly $12,000 to $21,000 per week depending on experience — became his football income baseline. The instability of that arrangement cannot be overstated. Players who are signed on Monday and released by Saturday, or elevated for a single game and then returned to the practice squad, face a level of income volatility that bears little resemblance to the steady paychecks most professionals take for granted.
Partnerships
Endorsement partnerships have supplemented his football earnings in smaller but meaningful ways. Funk’s personal narrative — a two-time ACL survivor who reached the Super Bowl within months of his draft selection — resonates with athletic brands and regional sponsors. His appeal runs deepest among fitness-oriented young adults and Maryland-area sports fans who have followed his journey since his Damascus High School days.
Social media
Social media has emerged as an additional revenue channel. Funk maintains an active presence on Instagram under the handle @jakefunk34, where he has built an audience of approximately 60,000 followers, and engages roughly 10,000 followers on the same platform on X. His content covers training routines, game highlights, and personal milestones — material that naturally aligns with brand collaborations targeting sports and fitness demographics. His marriage to Hannah Ann Sluss has further amplified this potential, as their combined audience spans both the football and entertainment worlds.
Speaking engagements and personal appearances round out his income picture. High schools, colleges, and athletic organizations regularly invite players with comeback stories to address student-athletes and sports audiences. Funk’s experience navigating injuries, roster cuts, and career reinvention makes him a compelling speaker for events centered on resilience and goal-setting.
Investments and Business Ventures
Funk’s most consequential financial move outside football has been his transition into the real estate industry. Reports confirm that he has built a growing career in real estate while maintaining his physical training and remaining available for potential NFL opportunities. This dual-track approach reflects a maturity uncommon among athletes in their mid-twenties — rather than waiting indefinitely for another roster call, he has proactively developed an income stream independent of his athletic ability.
His involvement with the Pro Athlete Community — a professional network that supports current and former athletes in business development and career planning — further underscores this commitment. The organization has publicly recognized Funk as a member who exemplifies the transition from professional sports to entrepreneurship, describing his trajectory as one defined by discipline and forward momentum.
Professional representation has played a supporting role in these decisions. Funk is represented by agents Dan Saffron and Samantha Sankovich of Steinberg Sports & Entertainment, an agency that manages both his football affairs and helps guide his broader career planning. Having experienced advisors who understand the financial peculiarities of NFL life — from non-guaranteed contracts to the tax implications of playing in multiple states — provides a layer of professional management that many players at his level lack.
Retirement planning has occupied Funk’s attention from an unusually early stage, driven partly by the structural realities of his position. Running backs face steeper physical decline curves than nearly any other position in football, and the average NFL career spans just over three years. By beginning his real estate career during his active playing years rather than after retirement forced his hand, Funk positioned himself ahead of the difficult transition that catches many former players financially unprepared.
Assets and Lifestyle
Funk’s relationship with money appears shaped by both his family’s athletic background and his own professional experience with roster uncertainty. Having been released repeatedly across multiple organizations, he has firsthand understanding of how quickly income can stop flowing. That awareness seems to have guided his spending habits toward a more measured approach than many young athletes adopt.
Maintaining roots in Maryland has anchored his personal and financial decisions. The state where he was born, raised, and educated continues to serve as his home base — a choice that keeps him close to family while supporting his real estate activities in the region. Rather than relocating to a high-profile market for lifestyle reasons, Funk has prioritized geographic stability and proximity to the community connections that matter most to him.
The combined financial picture with Hannah Ann Sluss adds meaningful depth. Sluss maintains her own business ventures and social media presence from her entertainment career, and their joint brand opens doors to partnership opportunities neither could access independently. This household-level financial diversification mirrors the multi-stream approach Funk has applied to his own career — a pattern that reduces dependency on any single income source.
His spending on health and physical maintenance reflects a player who views these costs as career investments rather than lifestyle expenses. Personal trainers, nutritionists, and recovery specialists represent ongoing costs that protect the earning capacity central to his financial model. Off-season travel and time with family and friends provide necessary mental recovery, but Funk’s overall pattern suggests a bias toward saving and investing over conspicuous consumption.
Personal Life
Athletic achievement is a family inheritance in the Funk household. Jake’s father, Jim Funk, played college football at Penn State, where he competed at the highest level of collegiate athletics. His mother, A’Lisa Funk, reached even greater heights in her own sport — earning national champion status as a swimmer at Clarion University. The competitive fire that drives Jake can be traced directly to parents who understood the demands of elite athletics from personal experience.
The pattern extends to his siblings. His brother Jordan Funk carried on the family’s football tradition at the United States Military Academy at West Point, combining athletic competition with military service. A half-brother pursued lacrosse at Ohio State University before competing professionally with the Minnesota Swarm, adding another sport to the family’s multi-discipline legacy. Growing up surrounded by this level of athletic commitment created a home environment where excellence was not aspirational but expected.
Funk’s relationship with Hannah Ann Sluss brought him into a different kind of public spotlight. Sluss, who gained national recognition as the winner of Season 24 of “The Bachelor,” began dating Funk during his time with the Colts. The couple became engaged on January 25, 2023, and married on June 26, 2024, uniting two distinct audience bases — his from professional football and hers from reality television and lifestyle media.
Their partnership has proven commercially synergistic. Joint appearances, collaborative social media content, and co-branded endorsement possibilities leverage crossover appeal that neither could generate alone. For Funk, whose NFL profile alone might not attract mainstream entertainment sponsors, the marriage has broadened his marketability into demographics well beyond the football community.
Early Life and High School Career
Jake Funk was born on January 11, 1998, in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and attended Damascus High School, where he built one of the most decorated prep football careers in state history. His senior season bordered on the absurd — Funk scored a championship game record seven rushing touchdowns against Dundalk High School and finished the year holding the Maryland state record for touchdowns in a single season with 57. The performance earned him the 2015 Maryland Gatorade Player of the Year award and The Washington Post’s All-Metro Offensive Player of the Year honors, along with two consensus all-state selections.
Despite those accolades, Funk entered the recruiting process as a moderately rated prospect. Scouting services gave him two-star ratings from ESPN and Rivals.com and three-star marks from 247Sports and Scout.com. His recruitment generated interest from a wide range of programs — service academies like Army, Navy, and Air Force; Ivy League institutions including Harvard, Yale, and Penn; and Big Ten programs Wisconsin and Maryland. Recruiters noted concerns about his straight-line speed but were intrigued by his strength and two-way ability, as Funk had also played safety in high school. When Maryland offered, he committed quickly, becoming the first verbal commitment for then-interim head coach Mike Locksley.
College Career at Maryland
Funk spent five seasons at the University of Maryland from 2016 through 2020, a span defined by flashes of brilliance interrupted by severe physical setbacks. He contributed immediately as a true freshman in 2016, rushing for 59 yards and a touchdown in his debut against Howard University while also catching his first career scoring pass later that season against Purdue. His sophomore year saw increased involvement across all 12 games, with 145 rushing yards and four touchdowns on 27 carries.
The trajectory changed dramatically during his junior season, when a wrist injury and his first ACL tear cut the year short. After receiving a medical redshirt and an additional year of eligibility, Funk returned to action — only to tear his ACL again in just his third game of the following season, against Temple University. Two major knee reconstructions within the span of roughly a year would have ended most football careers. Funk treated them as temporary obstacles.
The COVID-19-shortened 2020 season provided the platform he needed. In Maryland’s four games, Funk averaged 129 rushing yards per contest, led the Big Ten Conference with 8.6 yards per carry, and ranked second among all Football Bowl Subdivision running backs in that statistical category. Those four games rewrote his professional outlook, transforming him from an injury risk most teams would overlook into a legitimate NFL draft prospect. The Los Angeles Rams made that transformation official the following spring.
Age, Height, and Physical Attributes
At 28 years old, Funk occupies the later stages of what most analysts consider a running back’s prime production window. The position demands explosive acceleration, contact durability, and recovery speed — physical attributes that typically peak in the mid-twenties and begin declining noticeably by the late twenties. For a player whose career has been shaped as much by injury comebacks as by healthy seasons, this biological timeline adds particular urgency to his off-field business development.
His listed measurements — 5 feet 10 inches and 205 pounds — reflect the compact, powerful build suited to his playing style. That frame allowed him to generate enough lower-body force to break tackles while maintaining the agility needed for special teams coverage, the role that sustained his NFL viability across multiple organizations. The physical profile traces back to his multi-sport family genetics and the early athletic development fostered in his Gaithersburg upbringing.
Ongoing investment in physical maintenance — specialized training, nutritional optimization, and recovery protocols — remains a significant budget item. These expenses function as career insurance for a player whose earning potential depends entirely on his body’s ability to perform at professional standards. Whether Funk pursues additional NFL opportunities or focuses fully on his real estate career, the habits of physical discipline he has developed will carry forward into whatever comes next.
Career Highlights and Achievements
Super Bowl LVI Champion (February 13, 2022): As a seventh-round rookie with the Los Angeles Rams, Funk earned a championship ring in the team’s 23-20 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals at SoFi Stadium. The achievement is rare for any player; for a late-round selection in his first professional season, it borders on extraordinary. The championship elevated his marketability and cemented a credential that will define his public profile indefinitely.
National Statistical Leader (2020): Funk’s 8.6 yards per carry during Maryland’s four-game 2020 season led the Big Ten Conference and ranked second nationally among all FBS running backs. That performance — achieved after two ACL reconstructions — demonstrated the kind of physical and mental resilience that few athletes at any level can claim.
Maryland High School Record Holder: His 57 touchdowns during his senior season at Damascus High School remain among the most prolific single-season performances in state history. The seven-touchdown championship game against Dundalk established a title-game record that further solidified his status as a Gaithersburg football legend.
Seven-Organization Professional Span: While many seventh-round picks never appear on a regular-season roster, Funk remained in the NFL conversation from 2021 through 2024, appearing across seven different organizations. That longevity — earned through versatility, professionalism, and an unwillingness to accept defeat — reflects a level of league-wide respect that extends beyond statistics.
Resilience as a Legacy: Perhaps Funk’s most enduring achievement transcends any measurable category. Returning from two career-threatening knee injuries to win a Super Bowl in his first professional season, and then sustaining a four-year NFL career through sheer determination, represents a narrative that resonates far beyond the football field. That story now fuels his real estate career, his public speaking engagements, and his personal brand — proving that the qualities that make a great athlete can also build a meaningful life after the game.
Conclusion
Jake Funk’s estimated net worth of approximately $2 million reflects not a single financial windfall but the steady accumulation of professional earnings, emerging business ventures, and disciplined personal finance decisions. His verified NFL career cash earnings of $1,555,331 form the bedrock, while his real estate career, endorsement partnerships, social media presence, and combined household brand with Hannah Ann Sluss represent the growth layers of a diversified financial portfolio.
The arc from a two-star recruit in Gaithersburg, Maryland, to a Super Bowl champion navigating seven NFL organizations and now building a second career in real estate carries lessons that extend well beyond sports. Funk’s story illustrates that financial stability in professional athletics does not require first-round pedigree or guaranteed millions. It demands adaptability, honest self-assessment, and the foresight to build income streams that endure beyond the playing years. As he continues developing his post-football ventures, Funk is writing a chapter that may ultimately prove more financially significant than anything he accomplished on the field.
