Today, the NFL announced the annual performance-based pay distributions that were earned by players during the 2025 season. In total, $542 million of wealth is being dispersed out to players, none of which impacts teams’ salary caps.
The league used to provide breakdowns of all the distributions a team’s players received, but lately, they have just covered the Top 25 distributions. One member of the Cleveland Browns appeared in the Top 25: safety Ronnie Hickman, who came in at No. 2 overall with a distribution of $1.294
million. When you combine that with the fact that Hickman was tendered for $5.8 million this offseason, the former undrafted free agent is having a pretty good start to the offseason when it comes to adding to his wealth.
Each team has their own performance-based pay pool, and players on the same team compete for a share of that pool. There is a formula that goes into calculating it, but in short, it tries to give a higher percentage of money to players who played a high number of snaps, but had a low salary. Hickman fits that bill as a former undrafted free agent, since he would have been making a minimum salary, yet was playing pretty much every snap. The fact that Hickman ranked second league-wide also goes to show you how rare that might be relative to other teams.
