A host of Saints receive Performance-Based Pay bumps
A host of New Orleans Saints players are getting some extra cash in their pockets from the 2019 season. The NFL announced on Thursday that players were receiving nearly $148 million in performance-based pay for their performances. This program is a collectively bargained benefit that compensates all players, including rookies, based upon their playing time and salary levels. Here's how the Saints made out, according to Nick Underhill of New Orleans Football.
- C.J. Gardner-Johnson - $278,725.62
- Erik McCoy - $264,723.70
- Taysom Hill - $205,828.65
- Vonn Bell - $194,148.26
- Shy Tuttle - $193,332.27
- Will Clapp - $166,282.33
- Justin Hardee - $155.720.25
- Alvin Kamara - $155,035.66
- Trey Hendrickson - $154,896.89
- Marcus Williams - $145,695.69
- Tre’Quan Smith - $143,511.43
- J.T. Gray - $133,551.43
- Ryan Ramczyk - $120,885.87
- Carl Granderson - $118,418.01
- Josh Hill - $112,234.80
- Dwayne Washington - $106,627.31
- Stephone Anthony - $102.972.19
- Deonte Harris - $101,050.74
Also, the NFLPA elected to dedicate $83.2 million in benefits (i.e., $2.6 million per club) to fund a Veteran Compensation Pool for players with one or more accrued seasons. In total, $231.152 million will be disbursed to players under the combined pools. These are the figures for the Saints.
- Vonn Bell - $171,976.94
- Marcus Williams - $129,903.16
- Taysom Hill - $118,795.03
- Alvin Kamara - $116,911.27
- Ryan Ramczyk - $107,782.57
- Trey Hendrickson - $99,345.60
- Josh Hill - $92,747.09
- Justin Hardee - $89,863.28
- Tre’Quan Smith - $87,421.25
- Will Clapp - $86,053.90
- Eli Apple - $86,000.76
- Dwayne Washington - $69,898.68
- Craig Robertson - $68,722.95
- J.T. Gray - $68,195.74
- David Onyemata - $66,942.97
- Zach Line - $58,217.85
- Stephone Anthony - $59,217.85
- Latavius Murray - $53,569.44
- Malcom Brown - $50,652.44
- Mario Edwards Jr. - $49,785.78
- Patrick Omameh - $48,336.75
Per the NFL release, players have been paid approximately $1.8 billion cumulatively since the inception of the Performance-Based Pay program, which was implemented as part of the NFL’s 2002 Collective Bargaining Agreement with the NFL Players Association. The Veteran Pool is a component of the Rookie Redistribution Fund, which is a player benefit that was created under the 2011 Collective Bargaining Agreement. The NFL Players Association elected to fund the Veteran Pool for the first time in 2016 and has extended the benefit each season since then.
How Performance Based-Pay Works
From the NFL: "Under the Performance-Based Pay program, a fund is created and used as a supplemental form of player compensation based on a comparison of playing time to salary. Players become eligible to receive a bonus distribution in any regular season in which they play at least one official down. In general, players with higher playtime percentages and lower salaries benefit most from the pools."
"Performance-Based Pay is computed by using a player index (“Index”). To produce the Index, a player’s regular-season playtime (total plays on offense, defense and special teams) is divided by his adjusted regular-season compensation (full season salary, prorated portion of signing bonus, earned incentives). Each player’s Index is then compared to those of the other players on his team to determine the amount of his Performance-Based Pay. "
The Veteran Pool has similar calculations, but has two significant modifications.
- Players with zero accrued seasons are not eligible to receive distributions, however, such players remain eligible to receive distributions under the Performance-Based Pay program.
- To calculate the eligible player’s Index, if the player’s full-season base salary is less than $1 million, an additional amount will be imputed so that the player’s base salary equals $1 million. By imputing a minimum of $1 million to the denominator of the Veteran Pool’s index calculation (playtime divided by salary), a slightly higher percentage of the pool is directed to high-performing veteran players whose salaries exceed $1 million but are not among the highest in the league, as contemplated by the formula. This imputation of salary is solely for the purpose of calculating distributions from the pool, and does not affect the actual salary paid to the player under his contract.
