How Much Do NFL Bench Players Make?
How much do NFL bench players make? This is a question that is often asked by curious football fans. While the answer may vary depending on a player’s position and experience, there is a general range of salaries for NFL bench players.
NFL Rookies
NFL rookies are often signed to four-year contracts worth millions of dollars. However, most of these players will never see the field playing in a regular season game. These contracts are typically structured so that the team can release the player without penalty if they do not performance to expectations. So, how much do NFL bench players actually make?
What is the NFL Rookie Salary Cap?
Racing to sign the best young talent, NFL teams have a lot of money to spend on rookies. In an effort to keep salaries down and prevent bidding wars, the NFL has a rookie salary cap. The rookie salary cap is the total amount of money that teams are allowed to spend on their rookies for the first year of their contracts. The Rookie Salary Cap for 2019 is $4.25 million dollars. Every team has this same amount of money to spend on their rookies regardless of how much they have in their overall salary cap.
Some NFL rookies will make more than $4 million dollars in their first year, but those are usually players who were drafted in the first round or who have negotiated higher salaries. Players who are drafted in later rounds or who sign as undrafted free agents will usually make less than $4 million dollars in their first year. In most cases, the rookie salary cap helps keep salaries down and prevents too much money from being spent on unproven players.
How Much Do NFL Rookies Make in Signing Bonuses?
In order to encourage first-year players to sign with the team that drafts them, most NFL organizations offer signing bonuses. A signing bonus is a sum of money that the team pays the player in addition to their base salary and any other guaranteed money. For example, if a player has a base salary of $500,000 and a signing bonus of $1,000,000, their total compensation for the year would be $1,500,000.
The amount of the signing bonus varies depending on where the player is drafted. For example, in 2020, the first overall pick in the NFL draft received a signing bonus of $37,159,259 while the last pick in the first round received a signing bonus of $11,525,000. Players drafted outside of the first round typically receive smaller signing bonuses.
The NFL’s collective bargaining agreement stipulates that rookie salaries are capped at $11.4 million for players drafted in 2020. However, with signing bonuses and other forms of guaranteed money included, it’s not unusual for first-year players to earn much more than that in total compensation. In fact, many rookies who are selected early in the draft can expect to earn well over $20 million in their first year alone.
What is the Average Salary for an NFL Rookie?
A player drafted in the first round of the NFL Draft can expect to earn a significantly higher salary than a player drafted in later rounds. In 2020, the first overall pick in the NFL Draft signed a four-year contract with the team that drafted him worth $36.178 million, which includes a signing bonus of $24.8 million. By contrast, the last pick in the NFL Draft (Mr. Irrelevant) signed a four-year contract worth just $3.268 million, with a signing bonus around $732,000.
Players picked outside of the first round do have some negotiating power when it comes to their rookie contracts, but they are still at a disadvantage compared to first-rounders. In most cases, late-round picks will end up signing for close to or even below the league minimum salary for their position. The league minimum salary for rookies in 2020 is $610,000 for players drafted in rounds 1-4, and $495,000 for players drafted in rounds 5-7.
NFL Veterans
What is the Average Salary for an NFL Veteran?
The average salary for an NFL veteran is $2.7 million. This figure is based on the salaries of the top 51 veterans in the league, who make an average of $5.85 million per year. The median salary for NFL veterans is $1.8 million, while the bottom 51 veterans make an average of $1 million per year.
How Much Do NFL Veterans Make in Bonuses?
Players in the National Football League can earn a variety of bonuses in their contracts. These bonuses are paid out based on certain incentives, such as signing with a new team, achieving certain statistical benchmarks, or being named to the Pro Bowl.
Signing bonuses are the most common type of bonus paid to NFL veterans. They are typically given to players who sign new contracts or extend their current contracts with their team. These bonuses are typically a few hundred thousand dollars, but can be as high as $20 million for star players. Other common types of bonuses paid to NFL veterans include roster bonuses, workout bonuses, and performance-based incentives.
Roster bonuses are typically paid out yearly to veterans who are still on their team’s roster. They are usually a few thousand dollars, but can be up to $1 million for some star players. Workout bonuses are typically given to players who participate in offseason workouts with their team. These bonuses range from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars.
Performance-based incentives are usually given to players who meet certain statistical benchmarks during the season. These benchmarks can include things like total yards, touchdowns, sacks, interceptions, etc. Performance-based incentives typically range from a few thousand dollars to a few hundred thousand dollars.
What is the Salary Cap for NFL Veterans?
The NFL salary cap is the total amount of money that all 32 teams in the National Football League (NFL) can spend on their players’ salaries for a given year. The cap was first introduced in 1994 and it has been increasing gradually over time to its current level of $177.2 million per team.
The salary cap applies to all players on a team’s active roster, as well as to players on the practice squad and injured reserve. It does not apply to coaches or other team personnel.
The NFL salary cap is not a hard limit, meaning that teams can exceed it if they are willing to pay a penalty tax. However, most teams try to stay under the cap so that they have more money available to sign other players or extend the contracts of their existing players.
The salary cap for NFL veterans is $177.2 million per team for the 2019 season. This is an increase of $10 million from the 2018 season.
NFL Free Agents
According to Spotrac, the average NFL free agent in 2020 will make $2.1 million per year. This is a significant increase from the $1.6 million average in 2019. The jump is due to the new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that was signed in 2020. The new CBA includes a clause that allows for veteran players to receive up to a 30% increase on their salaries.
What is the Average Salary for an NFL Free Agent?
The average salary for an NFL free agent is $2.4 million. However, the minimum salary for an NFL player is $415,000, and the maximum salary is $17.6 million.
How Much Do NFL Free Agents Make in Signing Bonuses?
Signing bonuses are chunk payments made to a player upon signing a contract. They are prorated over the length of the contract and typically count against the salary cap in the year they are paid. For example, if a player signs a four-year, $20 million contract with a $5 million signing bonus, his salary cap hit in Year 1 of the deal would be $6 million (the $5 million bonus plus $1 million in base salary).
In general, rookies and low-level veterans are not given signing bonuses. In fact, it’s not uncommon for players on their rookie contracts to be released before they ever see any of that guaranteed money. For free agents, signing bonuses typically range from a few thousand dollars (for low-level veterans) to several million (for marquee names).
What is the Salary Cap for NFL Free Agents?
The average NFL salary has been on the rise for several years now, and it’s no different for free agents. In 2019, the average veteran free agent signed a deal worth $2.7 million per year, with a $13 million signing bonus. However, the salary cap for NFL free agents is set at $4.5 million per year. So, how do teams like the New England Patriots afford to sign so many free agents?
In order to stay under the salary cap, teams use a variety of strategies. One common strategy is to sign players to “backloaded” contracts. This means that a larger portion of the player’s salary is paid out in signing bonuses, which are spread out over the length of the contract and do not count against the salary cap in the first year. Another strategy teams use is to restructure existing contracts to create more cap space. For example, a team might convert a player’s base salary into a signing bonus, which can be spread out over the length of the contract.
Of course, not all teams are able to stay under the salary cap. The NFL has a “hard” salary cap, meaning there are very few ways for teams to get around it. As a result, some teams are forced to release players or make other roster moves in order to stay under the cap.
