Minnesota Vikings DT Jalen Redmond receives great news after breakout season in Brian Flores’ defense
It’s a benefit of the collective bargaining agreement that helps players get what their performance has earned.
One of the best stories in the 2025 season for the Minnesota Vikings was defensive tackle Jalen Redmond. In his second year with the Vikings, he was arguably the best player on Brian Flores’ defense.
In his breakout season, Redmond was tremendous. He played 793 snaps for the Vikings, and was excellent, getting 35 pressures, 6.0 sacks, and 12 tackles for loss. His performance ended up prompting the Vikings to move on from both Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave. It also earned him an extra benefit allowed by the collective bargaining agreement.
Jalen Redmond earns performance-based pay
Monday afternoon brought news that Redmond was the recipient of a program the NFL has to reward players who outperform their contracts. He earned $1,184,087 from the NFL, the seventh-most in the entire league.
It’s a great program to reward players who thrive without having a contract that matches their performance. Here is what the league states about the program.
“Performance-Based Pay is computed by using a player index (“Index”). To calculate the Index, a player’s “PBP Playtime” (defined as the player’s regular season total plays played on offense, defense and special teams, divided by the number of plays in which the player with the most total combined plays participated on that team) is divided by his “PBP Compensation” (defined as each player’s regular season full salary, including his prorated portion of signing bonus, and earned incentives). Each player’s Index is then compared to those of all other players on his team to determine the amount of his Performance-Based Pay. If a player’s full season salary is less than the CBA Minimum Salary for a player with seven or more Credited Seasons, additional salary will be imputed to that player so that his salary is equal to the Minimum Salary for a player with seven or more Credited Seasons (i.e., $1.21M for the 2024 season). By imputing a minimum salary of $1.21 million, a slightly higher percentage of the pool is directed to high-performing veteran players whose salaries exceed $1.21 million, but are not among the highest in the League, as contemplated by the formula. This imputation of salary is solely for the purpose of calculating distributions from the pool and does not affect the actual salary paid to the player under his contract.”
Redmond is going to be one of the top priorities for the Vikings moving forward, and this benefit is another example of his excellent play.