Most NFL contracts, particularly those of Buffalo Bills general manager Brandon Beane, include incentives to reward performance on and off the field. Josh Allen, the Bills’ quarterback, is no exception, but the economics behind the deal make it far more significant.
With four games remaining in the season, it’s time to evaluate how much more Allen needs to perform to earn some escalators and incentives.
Josh Allen annual incentives
Josh Allen has two incentives based on playing time and team results. The standard for playing time is 60% of the team’s regular-season snaps. Allen has played 94.65% of the team’s offensive snaps this season, and he is likely to have already reached the 60% mark even if he loses time down the road.
The remaining portion of those rewards is based on team performance. If the Bills win the AFC Championship, Allen receives a $1 million bonus. If the Bills win the Super Bowl, he’ll get $2.5 million. So we won’t know about them for another six to eight weeks.
The MVP incentive is the only reward in Allen’s contract that is not related to playing time. If Allen wins MVP, he will receive $1.5 million to create a new display case, in addition to the mantle award. He is the frontrunner for the MVP award in every authorized betting establishment.
To be fair, all of these incentives would be factored into the 2025 salary cap.
Josh Allen 2025 contract escalators
Incentives are defined as being handed out at the time of achievement. Do this thing and get that money. Escalators are unique in that they affect future cap years. In this scenario, if Allen achieves specific goals, his 2025 salary will increase.
Once again, all three of these are connected to regular season playing time, and Allen has already reached the 60% play time level, so we can only focus on the second part of the escalator.
If the Bills win the one seed, he will receive a $2.5 million raise in 2025 compensation. The Bills are currently two games behind the Kansas City Chiefs.
If the Bills win the AFC Championship this year, Allen’s 2025 pay will increase by $2.5 million. If the Bills win the Super Bowl, Allen’s 2025 pay will increase by $5 million.
Incentives Josh Allen has already earned
The fitness bonus is the most typical incentive that Beane adds to contracts. The goal is to get players into the facility over the offseason for a minimum number of optional days. Allen was in town for all of them and received $500,000 for his efforts.
Other incentives aren’t in Allen’s contract
Beane enjoys including per-game roster incentives, which pay players a lesser quantity of money for each game in which they appear. Allen does not have that, therefore they instead rely on playing time incentives.
Several players on the team have Pro Bowl incentives, but Josh does not. Because he’s been on multiple Pro Bowl lists over the years, the Bills wouldn’t want to meddle with those because they’d already counted on the cap being earned.
Many NYL players’ contracts include yardage or scoring incentives. Again, with Allen, these are Likely To Be Earned regardless, thus there is no cap benefit to include them, so they omitted it in the discussions.
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