Football is often described as a game of inches. For Green Bay Packers offensive guard Sean Rhyan, the game became more about snap count than distance.
Rhyan needed to be on the field for just two more offensive snaps in the past three seasons to qualify for a proven performance escalator that would have earned him an additional $2 million, per ESPN’s Rob Demovsky. Instead, Rhyan is left with just his original base salary of $1.36 million for the 2025 season.
The proven performance escalator rule is meant to help compensate players on rookie contracts that play significant roles on their teams relative to their draft position. Article 7, Section 4 of the NFL's collective bargaining agreement states that any player selected after the second round of the NFL Draft qualifies for a Level One Proven Performance Escalator in their fourth season if “he participated in a minimum of 35% of his Club's offensive or defensive plays in any two of his first three regular seasons; or participated in a 'cumulative average' of at least 35% of his Club's offensive or defensive plays over his first three regular seasons.”
Packers player missed out on $2 million over two snaps
Rhyan, a third-round pick in the 2022 NFL Draft, is entering the final year of his four-year, $5.12 million rookie contract. Although he did not play a single offensive snap during his rookie season, he served as a backup guard in 2023 and played 183 snaps on Green Bay’s 1,096 offensive plays (16.7 percent). Rhyan started all 17 games for the Packers last season and logged 961 snaps on the team’s 1,082 offensive snaps (88.8 percent).
Rhyan split time with rookie offensive guard Jordan Morgan through the first half of the season, but he assumed a full-time role after Morgan suffered a season-ending shoulder injury in Week 9. Rhyan played nearly all of the team’s offensive snaps for the rest of the season, missing only nine snaps after a collision with Detroit Lions linebacker Kwon Alexander in Week 4.
Those missed plays ultimately proved to be costly — Rhyan finished his first three career seasons with 1,144 snaps out of a possible 3,272 offensive plays, which amounts to a snap share of 34.952 percent.
Cameron Foster, Rhyan’s agent, believed that his client had reached the 35 percent threshold because of records from Pro Football Reference, which shows 1,146 snaps played for the 24-year-old guard. Those figures show Rhyan playing exactly 35 percent of Green Bay’s snaps, but those unofficial snap counts are not used by the NFL or the NFLPA.
“[We had] him at 35 percent of snaps exactly,” Foster told ESPN. “However, the NFL and NFLPA both had him just under. So, per the Packers they are not giving him the escalator. We are pretty disappointed about it for sure.”
Rounding up Rhyan’s snap counts to pay him the additional $2 million may seem like the honorable thing to do, but the Packers are not allowed to do so because of strict salary cap regulations. According to Demovsky, some contracts contain specific language about not rounding up when it comes to statistical marks for incentives or escalators.
Rhyan will just have to perform well in 2025 and earn a lucrative contract as a free agent next offseason instead. That could also prove to be challenging if Morgan is healthy and competes for the starting spot at right guard.