Jacksonville Jaguars have two young players who just made a ton of money and they're not even free agents
The Jacksonville Jaguars have two young players who are pretty lucky, as on Wednesday they got paid a ton of money, and they're not even free agents. No, these guys just worked very hard last season, despite the team's success, or lack thereof. 2024 was not a good year for the Jaguars defense. 2023 was […]
The Jacksonville Jaguars have two young players who are pretty lucky, as on Wednesday they got paid a ton of money, and they're not even free agents. No, these guys just worked very hard last season, despite the team's success, or lack thereof.
2024 was not a good year for the Jaguars defense. 2023 was better, and 2024 saw the Jaguars with a new defensive coordinator in Ryan Nielsen who said all the right things, but did all the wrong things. The roster was okay, better than how they played, and the coaching wasn't great. So that's got to change for 2025. Regardless, last season there were some players who really made a leap in their career, and put in a ton of work.
And while the defense was bad as a whole, the players are being rewarded.
On Wednesday, the NFL released their list of players that were rewarded NFL Performance-Based Pay for what they did in 2024. Of course, the two young players to get that on the Jaguars were cornerback Montaric Brown, who was drafted in the seventh round in 2022, and Antonio Johnson, the safety drafted in the fifth round in the 2023 NFL Draft.
Jaguars' Montaric Brown and Antonio Johnson earn Performance-Based Pay
Brown made an extra $976,637 while Johnson made an extra $872,633, which is huge for a couple of guys that don't make a ton of money on their rookie contracts because of where they were drafted.
According to Spotrac, Brown's base pay in 2024 was $985 thousand, with Johnson making $915 thousand last season. So getting this much extra money is actually a huge deal. They have now almost doubled what they made last year, and they deserve it.
Last season Brown played 71% of all defensive snaps, while Johnson played 57% of defensive snaps. The Jaguars could have two more young guys in the same position next season, for all we know. Playing young players and developing them, letting them get experience early, especially in a year as bad as 2024 was, will only help them get better. And, they will need that if they want to climb the AFC South and beat out the Tennessee Titans, Indianapolis Colts, and the Houston Texans, who won the AFC South the last two years in a row.
