Peppers pay could exceed $19 million

Before we put the Julius Peppers contract issue to bed (again), there are still a few things that have gone unaccounted for in regards to the amount of money he could actually earn in this season alone. The Panthers are paying a base salary of $16.683million (thats $1,042,687.50 per game), and that is the minimum amount of money that he could possibly earn. "Likely to be earned" incentives, which are part of virtually every players contract, include a $1.5million bonus should Peppers be selected to the Pro Bowl, and also an additional $250,000 per playoff victory, not to mention an even greater amount should the Panthers reach and win the Super Bowl.

Let's do some math real quick.

Assume the following:

• Peppers plays all 16 games at his salary of $16.683million


• Peppers reaches the Pro Bowl


• Panthers reach the playoffs and Super Bowl, and win it all.

$16,683,000 (base) + $1,500,000 (pro bowl) + $1,000,000 (assume 4 playoff wins) + $1,500,000 (super bowl estimate) = $20.683 million

Now this is just a shot in the dark and of course no one knows how many playoff wins we'll have ( so we assume all), but it gives a better sense of just how much money Peppers could stand to make.

Incentives are interesting. Incentives are categorized as either "Likely to be Earned" (LTBE) or "Not Likely to be Earned" (NLTBE). Their names are pretty self explanatory. LTBE incentives count towards the cap while NLTBE incentives do not. But the way it goes is that if the player achieves those NLTBE incentives then they count toward the following year's cap.

All in all, the amount of money a player can in a year make gets rather complicated, especially when you factor in bonuses and incentives. But the one thing you can count on is that Peppers will count towards nearly 20% of the Panthers salary cap come next offseason, and that's when something will have to break.