Mason McCormick tops the Steelers performance-based pay for 2024

On Tuesday, The NFL announced the top 25 players who received the most performance-based pay for the 2024 season. For the Steelers, rookie guard Mason McCormick led the way earning $819,102 and landing 25th on the list, more than his based salary this past season.

The top 25 for performance-based pay this past season, which includes a few guys at the top who just got paid big on the free agent market. #Jets LB Jamien Sherwood led the way. pic.twitter.com/uwA3L8EKl8

— Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) March 12, 2025

For those who are not familiar with this payout, the NFL’s performance-based pay happens in accordance with the Collective Bargaining Agreement. It is designed to compensate players based upon their playing time and salary levels. If a player is participating in a high amount of the team’s snap count while on a low salary, the program is designed to help supplement their income. Additionally, these numbers do not count against the salary cap.

So exactly how does this payout work? The following is the explanation as to how the system works which was released from the 2022 season from NFL communications:

Under the Performance-Based Pay program, a fund is created and used as a supplemental form of player compensation based on 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 produce 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 of the player with the most total combined plays on that team) is divided by his “PBP Compensation” (defined as regular season full salary, prorated portion of signing bonus, earned incentives). Each player’s Index is then compared to those of the other players on his team to determine the amount of his Performance-Based Pay. If a player’s base salary is less than the Minimum Salary of a player with seven or more Credited Seasons, then player’s base salary will be imputed to be equal to the Minimum Salary of a player with seven or more Credited Seasons (i.e., $1.120M for the 2022 season). By imputing a minimum salary of $1.120 million, a slightly higher percentage of the pool is directed to high-performing veteran players whose salaries exceed $1.120 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.

Although this explanation can offer some help in understanding performance-based pay, it can still be a bit confusing. The biggest thing to remember is the more snaps a player has on the field, and the lower the salary a player makes, the more money they are eligible for in this program. It should also be noted that the money set aside in this program is divided evenly among 32 teams. For example, each team handed out more than $12 million per team for the 2023 season. So even though players who were on the field a significant amount for the Steelers and have a low salary, such as cornerback Beanie Bishop, are not on this list, they simply did not earn more than McCormick who was in the 25th position.

Keep in mind this amount paid is simply due to the number of snaps McCormick played this year compared to his salary and not anything to do with “quality of play.”. Logging 939 offensive snaps and 72 special team snaps during the regular season, McCormick was one of only three offensive players who logged over 1,000 combined regular-season snaps in 2024 along with Dan Moore Jr. and Broderick Jones. Based on the sheer volume of snaps he played, as well as being on a rookie contract, it put McCormick in the driver seat for receiving the most from this program of any Steelers player in 2024.

There are plenty of other Steelers players who receive money from this program but simply didn’t land in the top 25. Zach Frazier had almost as many snaps as Mason McCormick but had a higher salary. Beanie Bishop had a lower salary than McCormick, but had only 713 snaps. These Steelers players, and many others, likely saw a significant payout from the program for 2024.