Denver Broncos cornerback Riley Moss is in the top 25 earners of the NFL’s Performance-Based Pay.
The system was implemented in 2002 and continues today as a way to reward all players based on playing time and their salary.
For the 2025 season, $542 million has been dolled out to players.
Denver Broncos Riley Moss in top 25 earners of NFL’s Performance-Based Pay
Moss got the most performance-based pay bonus from 2025 of any Denver Broncos player. And the 13th-most of any player in the NFL.
Per Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero, Moss earned a bonus of $1.136 million for 2025.
NFL announces new performance-based pay, per @rapsheet.bsky.social
— Tom Pelissero (@tompelissero.bsky.social) 2026-03-16T17:53:42.179Z
That’s a huge chunk of change for Moss because his base salary was $1.245M for 2025. It means nearly a bonus of double his pay.
Why did he get the bonus?
Per the NFL and NFLPA’s agreed upon Collective Bargaining Agreement, players earn supplemental income depending on their playing time and salary.
From NFL.com:
“Under the Performance-Based Pay program, a fund is created and used as a supplemental form of player compensation based upon a comparison of playing time to salary. Players become eligible to receive a bonus distribution in any regular season in which they play at least one official down. In general, players with higher playtime percentages and lower salaries benefit most from the pool.”
In the simplest of terms, the lower paid players who play the most earn the biggest bonuses.
Considering Moss is the starting cornerback, who started all 17 games last year, he was extremely consistent and important to the team. In fact, his 1,089 total snaps were the most among all cornerbacks in 2026.
Playing time is calculated vs. the players a guy’s team. His snaps are divided by the player with the most snaps on the team for a percentage, then divided by his salary, and compared to everyone else on the team. Because each team has a pool of money to play the bonuses from. It’s $16.94M per team.
That means Moss made 7.3% of all the Broncos performance-based pay money this year.
Another way to look at it is this: Moss is underpaid.
Moss is in the final year of his rookie contract and will make $3.91M in 2026, the most of his career to this point. Then, Denver will have to make a decision on his future.