From Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera to Dustin Martin: The best contract year wins and fails
Dustin Martin proved he was worthy of the big bucks in 2017. But not all players deliver on the hype – and deals – they win in their contract years. Here’s how big deals don’t always pay off.
If Dustin Martin’s 2017 will forever be the gold standard for the perfect ‘contract year’, Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera has run a very close second.
When the superstar Saint entered this season, some expected the contract he would sign for 2026 and beyond to nudge $1m a season.
Now, his worth has soared past the $2m mark as he and manager Ben Williams played the season to perfection.
Only team success means Nasiah the Messiah can’t reach Dusty’s majestic 2017, in which he started the season as a $800,000 star and ended it a seven-figure Richmond legend as he scooped up the best three medals in the game: premiership, Brownlow and Norm Smith.
Wanganeen-Milera has won games off his own boot, stepped from an impressive rebounder to a dominant midfielder, and kept suitors waiting as the contract price has only exploded with every laser foot pass.
Like Martin, Wanganeen-Milera waited until August as his worth got higher than Snoop Dogg.
Everything about the star Saint’s rise suggests it is just the start for the 22-year-old, but there is no guarantee.
While some players have gone from good to great in the final year of their contract – their ‘contract year’ – and carried that one, others have earned a fat deal and never carried through on the promise they showed.
Where Martin was laying the blocks for a ridiculous legacy, in the same 2017 season Josh Kelly enjoyed a brilliant year.
Both players fielded massive offers from North Melbourne and turned them down, with Martin becoming a legend and Kelly enjoying a very good career that hasn’t quite become great.
A year later, winger Jared Polec had the best year of his career, won a big contract from the Roos and his form declined from there.
This is a look at some of the great contract years in recent times and as Wanganeen-Milera steps from a contract year to the No.1 paid player in the game in 2026, whether those players delivered on the fat deal they earned from their big year.
CONTRACT YEAR COMPARISONS
AFL player ratings ranking in year before, during and after their ‘contract year’.
WANGANEEN-MILERA | ||
| 2024 | 2025 | 2026 |
| 26 | 3 | ? |
| P DANGERFIELD | ||
| 2014 | 2015 | 2016 |
| 17 | 2 | 1 |
| DUSTIN MARTIN | ||
| 2016 | 2017 | 2018 |
| 94 | 2 | 9 |
| JOSH KELLY | ||
| 2016 | 2017 | 2018 |
| 79 | 61 | DNQ |
| JARED POLEC | ||
| 2017 | 2018 | 2019 |
| 67 | 63 | 116 |
| JAKE STRINGER | ||
| 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
| DNQ | 2 | DNQ |
| BLAKE ACRES | ||
| 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
| 222 | 128 | 58 |
Source: Champion Data, as of the end of round 23.
DNQ: Did not qualify
PATRICK DANGERFIELD (2015)
Dangerfield was already a star before he entered his free agency year in 2015, and he took his game up another notch.
He won his first club best-and-fairest and decided midway through the year that he was off to Geelong.
Dangerfield was rated the 17th best player in the comp in 2014, before jumping to second in the contract year.
He signed a bumper six-year deal and then over delivered on that, completing two extraordinary individual seasons in 2016-17 and reeling off more and more accolades before the 2022 premiership.
He would be the No.1 ranked player in 2016.
The contract year was a clear indicator of future success.
DUSTIN MARTIN (2017)
Still the gold standard of contract years – nobody has done it better.
Martin was heavily wooed by North Melbourne throughout 2017, as he began to compile arguably the best individual season of all time.
Reports at the time suggested early offers to Martin landed around $3.4m over four years, before the Roos eventually offered more than $10m over seven.
In 2016, Martin was ranked No.94 in the league and rocketed to No.2 in his big year.
It’s believed ‘Dusty’ stayed for about $2m less than the Roos offer.
A week after re-signing, Martin broke open a qualifying final and would later win the Norm Smith Medal in a drought-breaking premiership later than month.
He would snaffle two more premierships and two more Norm Smith medals.
Martin never really continued on the week-in-week-out level he delivered in 2017, but the contract he signed in his contract year ended up being unders for his incredible return to the Tigers.
JOSH KELLY (2017)
Just over two weeks after Martin turned down the Roos, Kelly did too.
The GWS great finished fifth in the 2017 Brownlow Medal, polling 21 votes in the best season of his career, won his only All-Australian blazer.
The Roos trumped up about $10m over nine years to lure him south, but he stayed put, and he won the club best-and-fairest in 2017.
It was rinse and repeat four years later.
Kelly won the Giants best-and-fairest again 2021, the year he turned down another mega offer from North Melbourne, re-signing in August on an eight-year GWS contract.
Kelly has been a very good player in the years since but hasn’t quite played at the same game-breaking level.
JARED POLEC (2018)
Polec was on his way to a third AFL club by the end of 2018, when the three-year offer he was hoping for at Port Adelaide never came.
He reeled off 25.1 disposals per game in 2018 and polled seven Brownlow votes, both career highs.
The Roos went after Polec and Andrew Gaff in 2018, and Gaff stayed put but Polec would join North on a five-year deal after a trade.
While he averaged 23.1 touches in his first year in blue and white to finish seventh in the best-and-fairest, he would only play 20 games in the next three years.
He was ranked the 63rd best player in the game in his contract year, but that fell to 116 in 2019.
Polec was let go from the club four years into that five-year deal as the Roos tumbled down the ladder.
The winger certainly cashed in after his contract year.
JAKE STRINGER (2021)
It pays to kick goals when it really counts.
Some Essendon fans were quick to take note of an uptick in form from Stringer last year, when he played every game and kicked 42 goals for the Bombers, his best return for the club.
That was a year Stringer was about to end a contract.
He delivered on the same level in 2021, when he bagged 41 goals and polled eight Brownlow votes, the most of his career.
He was ranked No.2 in the entire league that year and a three-year deal was inked in July.
The first two years of that contract saw Stringer play a combined 32 games for 46 goals, before finding his form again in the final year of the deal.
Coincidence or not, Stringer’s record is much better when there is a new deal to play for.
BLAKE ACRES (2022)
Playing out on a wing, Acres enjoyed the best year of his career so far at Fremantle in 2022, playing 20 games for the first time.
The Dockers were talking deals with Acres in that season but his head was turned when Michael Voss began wooing him to Carlton.
The Blues got him for a song and he played a vital role on the wing in Carlton’s run to the 2023 preliminary final.
Acres improved all the way through, going from the 222nd ranked player in 221, to 128 in the contract year and No.58 in his first Blues year.
Like many Blues, it has been tough going in 2025.
JOSH BATTLE (2024)
Like another Saint in 2025, Battle’s price steadily rose throughout 2024.
But unlike that other Saint, he left Moorabbin.
Battle was a good player who finished 10th in the best-and-fairest two years running before stepping up in 2024, finishing third in the Trevor Barker Medal count and taking off across half-back.
He rocketed from a league rank of 251 in 2023 to No.63 in the contract year.
The defender was lured by Hawthorn on a six year deal that will pay him more than $850,000 a season.
He has made a solid start to life in brown and gold, and time will tell whether his contract year effort will stack up, so far this year his rank has fallen to 206.
Originally published as From Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera to Dustin Martin: The best contract year wins and fails
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