St. Brown, Joseph score Lions' largest performance-based paychecks

Allen Park — Built into the NFL's collective bargaining agreement is a nearly $400 million fund, which is divided evenly among the league's 32 teams. Its purpose is to provide additional compensation to players based on playing time the previous year, weighed against their salaries.

Labeled performance-based pay, each team received $12.3 million to split across their rosters for the 2023 season. Players with lower base salaries — often those on rookie deals who play a large percentage of the team's offensive or defensive snaps — see the largest checks.

The Detroit Lions didn't have anyone crack the top 25 across the league, but 16 of the team's players received at least $250,000, led by wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown. He paced the Lions with $700,473 in performance-based pay. That's almost 75% of his $940,000 salary last season.

New York Jets offensive lineman John Simpson received the biggest cut in the NFL, at $974,613.

In total, 74 Lions received performance-based pay, from St. Brown to cornerback Emmanuel Moseley, who got $464.20 after logging just two snaps prior to suffering a season-ending knee injury.

Here were the top 10 performance-based pay earners for the Lions from the 2023 season:

▶ St. Brown: $700,473

▶ Safety Kerby Joseph: $680,854

▶ Cornerback Jerry Jacobs: $647,873

▶ Defensive tackle Benito Jones: $558,685

▶ Linebacker Derrick Barnes: $543,931

▶ Tight end Brock Wright: $484,491

▶ Tight end Sam LaPorta: $438,311

▶ Defensive back Brian Branch: $395,363

▶ Defensive tackle Alim McNeill: $393,610

▶ Safety Ifeatu Melifonwu: $387,508

jdrogers@detroitnews.com

@Justin_Rogers