All those unexpected starts for second-year offensive tackle Bobby Hart and undrafted rookie safety Andrew Adams are finally paying off financially.
Hart and Adams earned the biggest performance-based pay distributions for the New York Giants this season. Hart and Adams each started 13 games. Based on their salary and playing time, they will receive nice extra checks for their work in 2016.
Every year the NFL allocates a pool of money to be distributed evenly among the 32 teams. Players are compensated based on their compensation and playing time for that season.
The 2016 Performance Based Pay Distributions pool was $3,995,000 per team. There was also an additional $1,000,000 per team available in the 2016 Veteran Performance Based Pay distributions.
Hart, 22, was a seventh-round pick in 2015. His adjusted compensation was valued at $548,942 (the same as his salary cap number) and playing time was a touch over 60 percent after he stepped in for the injured Marshall Newhouse at right tackle early in the year and kept the job for most of the season. That earned him a bonus of $285,288.92 in performance-based pay, second-most on the team. He will also receive an additional $75,784.04 from the veteran pool, tops on the Giants.
Hart will receive a total of $361,072.96 from the performance-based pay distributions.
Adams, 24, will collect $316,310.42.
The performance-based pay formula is designed to reward younger players with lower salaries who fill substantial roles. The top of the Giants list is filled with first and second-year players. Quarterback Eli Manning, the top-paid player on the team, is near the bottom of both distribution lists.
Veteran linebacker J.T. Thomas is at the bottom of both. He will pocket the smallest amount of anyone who played for the Giants this season.
Thomas earned a payout of just $1,080.75 after getting injured in the season opener against the Dallas Cowboys.
Here are the Top 10 earners in performance-based pay for the Giants this year:
2016 Performance Based Pay (total pool $3.995 million)
1. S Andrew Adams $316,310.42
2. OT Bobby Hart $285,288.92
3. TE Will Tye $229,405.30
4. DE Romeo Okwara $201,864.02
5. LB Devon Kennard $185,440.33
6. RB Paul Perkins $160,945.52
7. WR Sterling Shepard $159,638.21
8. WR Roger Lewis $149,494.54
9. LB Kelvin Sheppard $146,469.76
10. S Landon Collins $142,918.58
2016 Veteran Performance Based Pay (total pool $1 million)
1. OT Bobby Hart $75,784.04
2. C Weston Richburg $61,102.42
3. TE Will Tye $60,001.09
4. S Landon Collins $58,753.28
5. LB Devon Kennard $56,618.88
6. DT Johnathan Hankins $52,511.78
7. G John Jerry $49,912.17
8. LB Kelvin Sheppard $45,845.27
9. CB Trevin Wade $41,146.94
10. WR Odell Beckham Jr. $30,528.17
