Cowboys Contracts: Trevon Diggs Among 3 Getting Raises
Several Dallas Cowboys players are looking for new deals soon, not least of which is cornerback Trevon Diggs, who is entering the final year of his rookie deal.
Diggs may not have his new deal yet, but he will make quite a bit more dough on the final year of his rookie contract. Thanks to the NFL's Proven Performance Escalator program, which is designed to help players drafted outside the first round earned performance-based bonuses as their rookie deals come to an end, Diggs earned himself a nice raise in salary this season.
The PPE has three distinct tiers, and Diggs is in an exclusive club of those in the third and highest level. To reach this level, players must earn a Pro Bowl selection on the original ballot, so replacement selections don't count, in their first three seasons, and Diggs has two of them.
His reward is seeing his base salary rise to that of a second round RFA tender, which is about $4.3 million and over three times his base salary last year, according to Over the Cap. Diggs is one of just three players in this level, alongside Indianapolis Colts running back Jonathan Taylor and Baltimore Ravens receiver Devin Duvernay.
Diggs isn't the only Cowboy to earn a raise through this program. Defensive tackle Neville Gallimore and center Tyler Biadasz both earned a nice bump as well, albeit not as big as Diggs'.
Both Gallimore and Biadasz qualified for Level One PPE, the lowest tier of the program. To qualify for this level, players must play a certain percentage of their team's snaps, 60 percent for Round 2 selections and 35 percent for Rounds 3-7, for two of their first three seasons, or average that snap percentage across all three seasons.
Biadasz comfortably meets both criteria, but Gallimore just barely qualified after missing much of 2021 with injury and being largely a rotational player. Regardless of how they got there, both will see their base salary rise to that of a Right of First Refusal RFA tender, which is around $2.7 million this year.
No Cowboys earned Level Two PPE, which requires players to participate in 55 percent of their team's snaps in each of their first three seasons. Players who reach this tier will earn the same base salary as those in Level One PPE, plus an additional $250,000.
As Diggs and the Cowboys prepare to push for a long-awaited championship in 2023, a slight raise could be a good bit of extra motivation.
You can find Jonathan Alfano on Twitter @JonAlfano_News
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