After earning his incentive compensation from 2023, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy might be able to
formally afford his wedding and buy a house right away. It’s not an April Fools’ joke, either. Only $870,000 was the
base salary of the talented quarterback who led his team to the Super Bowl this past season. For most of us, that
would seem like a good sum of money, but for a quarterback who is guiding his club to the best two-year stretch
victory percentage, it is virtually anything.
To put things in perspective, Purdy makes 63 times less money annually than Joe Burrow, who is paid $55 million.
Purdy is fortunate to have access to NFL performance bonuses, which are awards for meeting specific After earning
his incentive compensation from 2023, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy might be able to formally
afford his wedding and buy a house right away. It’s not an April Fools’ joke, either. Only $870,000 was the base
salary of the talented quarterback who led his team to the Super Bowl this past season. For most of us, that would
seem like a good sum of money, but for a quarterback who is guiding his club to the best two-year stretch victory
percentage, it is virtually anything.
To put things in perspective, Purdy makes 63 times less money annually than Joe Burrow, who is paid $55 million.
Purdy is fortunate to have access to NFL performance bonuses, which are awards for meeting specific After earning
his incentive compensation from 2023, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy might be able to formally
afford his wedding and buy a house right away. It’s not an April Fools’ joke, either. Only $870,000 was the base
salary of the talented quarterback who led his team to the Super Bowl this past season. For most of us, that would
seem like a good sum of money, but for a quarterback who is guiding his club to the best two-year stretch victory
percentage, it is virtually anything.
To put things in perspective, Purdy makes 63 times less money annually than Joe Burrow, who is paid $55 million.
Purdy is fortunate to have access to NFL performance bonuses, which are awards for meeting specific milestones.
For the next two years, Purdy will, surprisingly, still be under contract as a rookie. Rookie contracts are notorious for
being practically a football team’s cheat code when it comes to winning, especially when it comes to quarterbacking.
Teams can pay a quarterback less than.5% of the salary limit, freeing up funds to be used for other players rather
than spending roughly 15-20% of it on a quarterback.
Purdy is scheduled to earn $1.1 million in 2025 and $985,000 the next season while he is still under contract as a
rookie. As fortunate as he is, performance-based payments will allow him to nearly match his previous level of
accomplishment.
Since incentives only make up a small portion of a player’s pay, many players find them cool but not particularly
significant; nonetheless, Purdy’s $739,795 performance bonus is an 85% pay increase over his current contract.
Although the details of his other bonuses are unknown, it’s safe to assume that he received more than $120,000 in
bonuses for winning the NFC, the Super Bowl, and the MVP competition, indicating that his on-field success
exceeded his contract.
Bonuses and performance-based rewards operate in distinct ways. The team offers bonuses, which are awarded for
winning a Super Bowl, throwing for 4,000 yards, or reaching a specific number of touchdown passes, among other
accomplishments. As stated by the NFL, performance-based payouts are figured in the following way:
“A player’s adjusted regular-season compensation (full season salary, prorated share of signing bonus, earned
incentives) is divided by his regular-season playtime (total plays on offense, defense, and special teams) to calculate
performance-based pay. To calculate each player’s Performance-Based Pay, their index is compared to the other
players on their squad.
Put another way, players who are worth significantly more to the league than they are being paid are compensated in
some way to demonstrate their value.
