Packers guard Sean Rhyan experienced a rather unfortunate blow regarding his potential salary increase.
Just two snaps. If he had managed to play just two more times during his first three seasons with the Green Bay Packers, he would have seen a substantial increase of $2 million.
Currently, under his rookie contract from 2022, Rhyan’s base salary for 2025 stands at $1,363,571. This figure could have tripled with just that extra snap. Can you imagine? Three times the salary—that’s a significant difference.
According to Article 4 of the NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement, players who are drafted in rounds three to seven must participate in at least 35% of offensive or defensive plays in two of the first three regular seasons, or make the first three plays in those positions.
Rhyan was drafted in the third round by the Packers in 2022 and managed to play 1,144 snaps out of 3,272 total offensive plays. This comes out to about 34.952% of Green Bay’s offensive snaps over those three seasons. Close, but not quite enough.
In his rookie year, he played only one snap, and since that was on special teams, it didn’t count for incentives. That season, if I recall correctly, the Packers had a total of 1,094 offensive plays.
He also missed six games that year, which cost him $235,000 due to a violation of the NFL’s performance-enhancing substances policy, a particularly painful setback.
Things improved somewhat in his second year in 2023. He participated in 183 snaps from 1,096 plays as a backup guard, showing some progress, albeit not enough to ease the sting of that missed salary bump.
By his third year, Rhyan was making strides, getting more involved with 961 out of 1,082 offensive snaps.
Interestingly, Rhyan’s agent, Cameron Foster, mentioned to ESPN that if the player’s snap counts from Pro Football Reference were considered, he would have met that 35% threshold.
Sadly for Rhyan, the NFL does not recognize those numbers. It’s just kind of unfortunate when you think about it, right?
On a brighter note, Rhyan did manage to secure an additional $700,000 through the NFL’s performance-based pay program, which rewards players for significant contributions to their teams, separate from their base salary.
