If the NFL adds a 17th game to the regular season, players will get paid an extra game check. But some players won’t get a full check.
According to Tom Pelissero of NFL Network, players who signed their contracts based on a 16-game schedule would get an extra weekly game check. For example, a player who has a $1.7 million base salary gets $100,000 a week during the regular season, with one paycheck each week, including the bye week. If the NFL expands the schedule to 17 games over 18 weeks, that player would still get $100,000 a week, so his salary would automatically bump up to $1.8 million.
But there’s a catch: The extra payment would be capped at $250,000. So for any player who makes more than $250,000 a week (a base salary of $4.25 million), he’d be playing for less money in the 17th game.
This will apply only to players who negotiated their contracts before the switch to 17-game seasons became official, and the 17-game schedule likely won’t begin until the 2022 season. So there’s still plenty of time to straighten all this out. But for some of the league’s higher-paid players, it won’t sit well that they’re expected to take less money for the 17th game.