Updates

NFL players will receive more than $542 million in Performance-Based Pay for their performance during the 2025 season. The Performance-Based Pay program is a collectively bargained benefit that compensates all players based upon their playing time and salary levels.

Cornerback Nashon Wright, who spent last season with the Chicago Bears, earned the highest amount among all NFL players for the 2025 League Year Performance-Based Pay program. His $1,441,397 distribution will more than double his 2025 salary. Wright was the Dallas Cowboys’ 2021 third-round draft choice out of Oregon State. He participated in 97% of plays on defense and approximately 4% of the club’s special team plays.

For the first time in program history, the top 25 earners will each exceed $1 million in Performance Based Pay.  Players have been paid nearly $3.3 billion cumulatively since the inception of the Performance-Based Pay program, which was implemented during the 2002 season as part of the NFL’s Collective Bargaining Agreement with the NFL Players Association, and has been carried forward in three subsequent collective bargaining agreements.

Learn more about the League’s current Collective Bargaining Agreement, implemented in 2020.

How Performance-Based Pay Works

Under the Performance-Based Pay program, a fund is created and used as a supplemental form of player compensation based upon 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 pool. 

Performance-Based Pay is computed by using a player index (“Index”). To calculate the Index, a player’s “PBP Playtime” (defined as the player’s regular season total plays played on offense, defense and special teams, divided by the number of plays in which the player with the most total combined plays participated on that team) is divided by his “PBP Compensation” (defined as each player’s regular season full salary, including his prorated portion of signing bonus, and earned incentives). Each player’s Index is then compared to those of all other players on his team to determine the amount of his Performance-Based Pay. If a player’s full season salary is less than the CBA Minimum Salary for a player with seven or more Credited Seasons, additional salary will be imputed to that player so that his salary is equal to the Minimum Salary for a player with seven or more Credited Seasons (i.e., $1.255M for the 2025 season). By imputing a minimum salary of $1.255 million, a slightly higher percentage of the pool is directed to high-performing veteran players whose salaries exceed $1.255 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.

Illustration Of Performance-Based Pay System

Each player on the same team com­petes for his own share of his club’s Performance-Based Pay pool. The hypothetical example in the table below illustrates how the Player Index works, using a simplified four-player team and a club bonus pool of $1,000,000. Each player receives his share of the pool depending on how his Index compares to those of his teammates.

** Index is multiplied by 107 for legibility purposes only (rounded)

Top 25 Performance-Based Pay Distributions For 2025

UDFA – Undrafted free agent