Former linebacker Manti Te’o played in the NFL for eight years before he quit in 2021. In 2013, the professional football player was picked up by the San Diego Chargers. He later played for the New Orleans Saints and the Chicago Bears.
During his long and successful career, he won a lot of awards and made a lot of money from the contracts he had with the teams. Here is what we know about his income and net worth.
Manti Te’o Net Worth
Manti Te’o has a net worth of $3.5 million, according to the website Celebrity Net Worth. The football player, whose full name is Manti Malietau Louis Te’o, got his start at Notre Dame, where he went to college. In 2007, he was named the State Defensive Player of the Year and the Gatorade State Player of the Year.
In his first year of college, he played in all 12 games and had 63 tackles. During his time at Notre Dame, he made a total of 437 tackles and won the Maxwell Award, the Butkus Award, the Chuck Bednarik Award, the Walter Camp Award, and the Lombardi Award.
NFL Career and Earnings
In 2013, the Chargers picked Te’o in the second round of the NFL Draft. He was taken 38th overall and given a $5 million contract for four years. There was guaranteed money of $3 million and a signing bonus of $2 million. Te’o played his first game against the Houston Texans after hurting his foot in the first preseason game.
The football player made more than 60 tackles in each of the next few seasons. In 2016, he was named team captain. After that, he was put on the injured reserve list. In 2017, he signed a $5 million deal with the New Orleans Saints for two years.
The team paid him $1.7 million the next year, which was the most money he ever made in a season. Te’o did not play for most of the 2018 and 2019 seasons, but on December 3, 2019, he was re-signed by the Saints for $805,000 for a year.
In 2020, he moved to the practice squad for the Chicago Bears. He made $132,000 while he was on the team. When his contract with the team ran out in January 2021, that was the end of his career as a professional. During his eight years in the NFL, Te’o made a total of $10,400,000 in salary.
Catfishing Controversy
In 2012, the player was the victim of a case of catfishing. During his time in college, he was tricked by a man named Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, who used the name Lennay Kekua to pose as a beautiful woman on Facebook and start dating the footballer.
When the story got out online, Te’o got a lot of unfair criticism. Because of what happened, the NFL didn’t let him play in the first season of 2013. In the end, he was hired for the second season. People say that the scandal cost him a lot of money.
In 2022, a Netflix documentary about the event was made about it. In the documentary Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist, both Te’o and the person who made up the fake girlfriend were shown. Te’o publicly forgave the person who made up the story.
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