--- title: These NFL Players Got a Smaller Bonus Than You description: While Peyton Manning got $4 million, these players earned performance bonuses of less than $500. authors: - name: Martha C. White role: Writer url: https://money.com/author/martha-c-white/ education: BA, English, Princeton University at_money_since: 2015 articles: 350 covers: - Lifestyle - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Debt - Economy and Politics - Education - Federal Reserve Rate Cuts - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology published: '2016-03-16T15:10:07.000Z' modified: '2024-05-16T11:01:32.000Z' section: Lifestyle tags: - 2016 Super Bowl - bonuses - Denver Broncos - job performance - Peyton Manning - pubdesk - Sports - Super Bowl 50 word_count: 244 canonical: https://money.com/nfl-player-bonuses-smallest/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Matt Cassel #16 of the Dallas Cowboys warms up before the game against the Buffalo Bills on December 27, 2015 at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park, New York. Buffalo defeated Dallas 16-6.](https://img.money.com/2016/03/160316_car_nflbonuses.jpg) *Matt Cassel #16 of the Dallas Cowboys warms up before the game against the Buffalo Bills on December 27, 2015 at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park, New York. Buffalo defeated Dallas 16-6.* While Peyton Manning scored a cool $4 million bonus for leading the Denver Broncos to one final victory last month in Super Bowl 50, not all pro football players snag that kind of a bonus. Nor even in the same ballpark of what the average Joe on Wall Street received as a bonus last year: just under [$150,000](https://money.com/wall-street-bonuses-decrease/?iid=sr-link1). An unlucky 10 NFL players, including four quarterbacks, got performance bonuses of less than $500 each this past year, [according to ESPN](http://espn.go.com/blog/nflnation/post/_/id/199981/ten-players-who-received-performance-bonuses-less-than-500). Matt Cassel earned just under $59 for his brief tenure with the Buffalo Bills this past season, though this entry is essentially bogus because he received a bonus of over $28,000 after being traded to the Dallas Cowboys and spending the rest of the season playing for them. The Philadelphia Eagles' Randall Evans made only $302.67 in bonus money, and five other players earned less than $400. Even a member of the Super Bowl 50 champion Denver Broncos earned the dubious distinction of a bottom-of-the-barrel performance bonus. Backup quarterback Trevor Siemian earned a bonus of just $328.13. Compare that to the Broncos' Matt Paradis, whose performance bonus was $391,647.56 this past season, the largest in the NFL according to the [*Denver Post*](http://www.denverbroncos.com/news-and-blogs/article-1/Reports-Matt-Paradis-earns-leagues-biggest-performance-bonus/e602cf66-8d8b-477c-a093-7551c8c60042). (Manning's bonus was tied to the team's wins in the playoffs and Super Bowl, and is in a different category than pure performance bonuses.) Maybe Manning and Paradis at least took Siemian out for a beer on them after the big game. [![Best college education image](https://content.money.com/wp-content/themes/money2018/img/college-site-banner-02.png)](https://best-colleges.time.com/money/search-colleges/?xid=cm-mcpFindTheCollegeWidget) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/nfl-player-bonuses-smallest/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Lifestyle", "item": "https://money.com/lifestyle/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Sports", "item": "https://money.com/sports/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "These NFL Players Got a Smaller Bonus Than You" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/nfl-player-bonuses-smallest/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/nfl-player-bonuses-smallest/", "name": "These NFL Players Got a Smaller Bonus Than You", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2016-03-16T15:10:07.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/nfl-player-bonuses-smallest/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/nfl-player-bonuses-smallest/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-05-16T11:01:32.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "These NFL Players Got a Smaller Bonus Than You", "articleSection": "Lifestyle", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2016/03/160316_car_nflbonuses.jpg", "width": 2100, "height": 1400, "caption": "160316_CAR_NFLBonuses" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Martha C. 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