Packers guard Sean Rhyan loses $2 million raise because he didn't play two more snaps

Packers guard Sean Rhyan's 2025 salary will be $2 million less than it would have been, if only he had played two more snaps in his first three NFL seasons.

Rhyan was a 2022 third-round draft pick, which means he's heading into the fourth and final year of his rookie contracts. For players drafted in Rounds 3-7, the salaries in their fourth seasons are influenced significantly by meeting certain performance incentives. In the case of Rhyan, his $1.364 million base salary would have increased to $3.406 million if he had played 35 percent of the Packers' offensive snaps over his first three seasons.

But Rhyan didn't play 35 percent of snaps. He played in 34.96 percent of snaps, or 1,144 of the Packers' 3,272 offensive snaps in his first three seasons. If he had been on the field for just two more offensive plays at any point in his first three NFL seasons, that would have bumped him up to 35.02 percent of snaps and he would have seen his pay raise by $2.042 million.

Rhyan's agent, Cameron Foster, told Rob Demovsky of ESPN that he consulted an online database of snap counts and thought Rhyan had reached the 35 percent threshold, but that both the NFL and the NFL Players Association told him the official numbers put Rhayn at two snaps short.

"[We had] him at 35% of snaps exactly," Foster said. "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."

So Rhyan will play this season for $1.364 million, and hope to have a good enough year to hit free agency next year and get the kind of big pay raise he missed out on this year.