Jan 28, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) holds the George Halas Trophy while after winning the NFC Championship football game against the Detroit Lions at Levi’s Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy may officially be able to pay for his wedding and own his own home now after receiving his incentive pay from 2023. And no, this isn’t an April Fools joke. The star quarterback who took his team to the Super Bowl this past season only made a base salary of $870,000. While that sounds like a pretty nice amount of money for most of us, for a quarterback leading his team to the best two-year stretch win percentage-wise, it is hardly anything.

For some perspective, Joe Burrow is getting paid $55 million per year, which is 63X times more money than what Purdy is making. Luckily for Purdy, there are NFL performance bonuses, which mean bonuses for reaching certain milestones.

Brock Purdy Almost Made More in Incentives Than His San Francisco 49ers Salary Contract

Believe it or not, Purdy is still on his rookie contract for the next two years. Rookie contracts are known for being almost a cheat code for teams trying to succeed on the field, particularly at the quarterback position. Instead of spending nearly 15-20% of the salary cap on a quarterback, teams can pay less than .5%, opening up that money to be spent on other players.

With Purdy still on his rookie contract, he is set to make $985,000 next season and $1.1 million in 2025. Lucky for him, as successful as he has been, he will be able to earn almost the same amount in performance-based payouts.

For many players, incentives are cool but not necessarily a huge deal since they make up a fraction of their salary, but for Purdy, his $739,795 performance bonus is an 85% money boost to his current contract. While his exact other bonuses haven’t been publically announced, it’s safe to say that for making the Super Bowl, winning the NFC, and finishing fourth in the MVP race, there is a good chance he made more than $120,000 in bonuses, meaning his on-field performance outpaid his contract.

How Performance-Based Payouts Work

Performance-based payouts work differently than bonuses. The team pays bonuses, which can be given out for various reasons, including making a Super Bowl, throwing for 4,000 yards, or achieving a certain amount of touchdown passes.  According to a the NFL, performance-based payouts are figured in the following way:

“Performance-Based Pay is computed by using a player index in which a player’s regular-season playtime (total plays on offense, defense and special teams) is divided by his adjusted regular-season compensation (full season salary, prorated portion of signing bonus, earned incentives). Each player’s index is compared to those of the other players on his team to determine the amount of his Performance-Based Pay.”

In other words, if a player is worth much more than they are being paid, they are given at least some kind of compensation to show they are valued and worth a lot to the league.