Breaking down NFL postseason money

Making it to the NFL’s “second season” is important professionally for NFL players, but it’s got a decent financial benefit as well.

NationalFootballPost.com’s Joel Corry provided the ins-and-outs of how NFL players are paid throughout the playoffs, but the basic payouts are listed below.

NFL players receive the entirety of their contracted salary over the course of the 17 weeks in a season. Their regular checks don’t come during the postseason or the offseason. But regardless of whether you’ve signed a 100 million dollar contract or are earning the rookie minimum, the payment in the postseason is the same for every player at each stage of the playoffs.

With that, Corry highlighted a few more important points to note:

- Wild Card playoff money is less than the weekly pay of a player making the $420,000 first-year player minimum salary

- Players on teams with Wild Card round byes are essentially working for free for the week since they will not receive payment.

- The maximum a player can earn in the 2014 season’s playoffs is $189,000 (given that that player participated during Wild Card weekend. The most a player can earn if he is from a team with a first round bye is $165,000.

- Practice squad players don’t receive playoff money, but continue to get paid (minimum of $6,300 per week) during the weeks their respective teams are in the playoffs.

Okay, here’s where things get even more interesting. There are certain requirements players must fulfill to be eligible for postseason payment. As players get traded, cut and picked up by other playoff teams, there are loopholes that provide for an extra payment, or in some cases, a postseason check for a player not even in the playoffs.

Here’s more from Corry:

- Ravens CB Antoine Cason could get paid for being on two different teams during the season that made the playoffs. Cason played 12 games for the Carolina Panthers before he was released. Cason has been with the Baltimore Ravens since Week 15.

- Jet WR Percy Harvin could be rooting for the Seahawks despite getting traded to the New York Jets in the middle of the season, [because he was traded to a team out of conference]. He will make $70,500 if the Seahawks repeat as Super Bowl champions since he was on their roster for five games.

Further, though LeGarrette Blount spent the first 11 weeks in Pittsburgh before being waived and picked up by New England, Blount can’t benefit from both teams’ playoff runs since the Steelers and Patriots are in the same conference. In his case, he’ll only be collecting a check for as long as the Patriots can hang around this January.