More On The “Minimum Salary Benefit”

As our audience continues to grow, we often forget that plenty of you weren’t in the audience when we explored certain concepts. Based on a comment we made earlier today regarding the one-year deal reportedly inked (or to be inked) by quarterback Todd Bouman with the Jaguars, we need to clarify the device that allows teams to sign veteran players at a lower cap charge than the signing otherwise would trigger. In response to a concern that a system of increasing minimum salaries based on experience might be running veteran players out of the game, the NFL and the NFLPA adopted several years ago a system for signing veteran players to one-year contracts at greatly reduced cap charges. The program, called the “Minimum Salary Benefit,” appears at Article XXXVII-a of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Under the Minimum Salary Benefit, a player with four years or more of service can be signed to a one-year contract at the minimum salary based on his actual years of experience. The cap charge, however, equates only to the cost of a player with two years of service. And so, in 2009, a player with four to six years of service can be signed to a $620,000 contract, but the cap charge will be only $460,000. For seven to nine years of experience, the player gets $745,000 at a cap charge of $460,000. At ten or more years of experience, the one-year pay is $845,000, at a cap hit of only $460,000. The player also is entitled to receive additional compensation, which typically comes in the form of a signing bonus, at no additional cap charge. From 2006 through 2008, the maximum was $40,000. As of 2009, the limit is $50,000. So there you have it. You can now wake up and keep reading about dudes who wear 400 pounds or guys with middle fingers that point west even when the rest of their body is otherwise fully facing to the east.