ORLANDO, Fla. - Bengals Pro Bowl linebacker Vontaze Burfict just missed winning the NFL's Performance-Based Pay title for a second straight year when the league put two Bengals in the top four in the list released Tuesday.
Burfict, scheduled to make the minimum $570,333 in his third season in 2014 after being undrafted (according to spotrac.com), took home an extra $315,848 for leading the NFL in tackles in 2013. Bears tackle Jordan Mills edged him at $318,244. Safety George Iloka, a 2012 fifth-rounder scheduled to make $610,075 this upcoming season, got an extra $281,515 for playing a defense-leading 1,048 snaps, according to profootbalfocus.com. With Burfict at 1,044 snaps, those two played the most for the league's No. 3 defense.
According to profootballtalk.com, Burfict's extra $299,465 led all players, last year, jacking him well over the $500,000 figure.
Performance-Based Pay is computed by using a "player index," the NFL press release said. To produce the index, 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 then compared to those of the other players on his team to determine the amount of his pay.
COMMAND CENTER PASSES: Bengals president Mike Brown may not like instant replay, but he was one of the 30 owners that voted to allow refs to consult with the NFL's officiating command center this upcoming season when calls are challenged. Earlier in the day his head coach, Marvin Lewis, a member of the competition committee, said he was for it.
"We feel like it will speed up the process." Lewis said. "Because we still have to go by the sideline and do what we are doing because of the location of where our units are on the field, maybe in future time we can speed up the system a little better where they don't have to get all the way there they can get maybe right to the boundary. We think it will be able to speed up our process and it will get better, our process was better last year. We continue to cut time out of that process."
