Per Over The Cap, it’s been revealed that JK Dobbins has a series of incentives that are up to $3.185 million on top of fully guaranteed salaries of $2.065 million for 2025. It’s worth stepping through these incentives, because whether Dobbins obtains any of them could impact whether or not the Broncos get an extra draft pick for 2026.
Incentivized per game roster bonuses
In a feature I can’t recall seeing before, Dobbins has roster bonuses of $40,000 per game, for a maximum total of $680,000. However, Dobbins will not earn any of these per gamers unless one of the following ten metrics are improved upon from 2024:
- The Broncos improve on yards per rushing play (they were 20th in 2024; they are currently 4th in 2025)
- The Broncos improve on total offense (they were 22nd in 2024; they are currently 20th in 2025)
- The Broncos improve on wins (they were 10-7 in 2024)
- Dobbins improves on rushing yards (he had 905 in 2024; he has 222 so far)
- Dobbins improves on yards per rush (he had 4.6 in 2024; he has 5.4 right now)
- Dobbins improves on rushing touchdowns (he had 9 in 2024; he has 3 so far)
- Dobbins improves on receptions (he had 32 in 2024; he has 4 so far)
- Dobbins improves on receiving yards (he had 153 in 2024; he has 14 so far)
- Dobbins improves on yards per reception (he had 4.8 in 2024; he has 3.5 right now)
- Dobbins improves on receiving touchdowns (he had none in 2024 and doesn’t yet in 2025)
As can be seen here, it seems implausible that Dobbins won’t achieve at least one of those metrics. Even if he were to suffer a serious injury, he’s well ahead the past on yards per rush, as are the Broncos on yards per rushing play. And if he were to catch just one touchdown, that would instantly seal the deal.
Individual yardage incentives
Dobbins also has eight incentive packages that he can earn based on how many yards he gets, as follows:
- $250,000 for 700 total yards, and the Broncos improve on one of the three team metrics listed above in metrics 1-3 of the per gamers.
- $500,000 for 1,100 total yards
- $250,000 for 1,200 total yards
- $250,000 for 906 rushing yards
- $250,000 for 950 rushing yards
- $250,000 for 1,100 rushing yards
- $500,000 for 1,200 rushing yards
- $250,000 for 1,200 rushing yards, and the Broncos either make the playoffs or they are in the top ten in yards per rushing play.
Compensatory pick implications
Aside from the most important aspect of whether Dobbins earns more money for his work in 2025, how much of these incentives he earns could determine whether or not the Broncos finally break their league longest active compensatory pick drought.
Here’s how the Broncos’ cancellation chart looks as of now:
The non-7th round compensatory free agents will always cancel each other out. Riley Dixon will almost certainly qualify as a compensatory free agent, and with Javonte Williams securing the RB1 job in Dallas, it looks like he will qualify too. Tremon Smith is unlikely to return the Broncos a comp pick; he would need to get at least 25% of the defensive snaps for the Texans in 2025, and except for injury to Derek Stingley, he has been almost strictly a special teamer there. And even if he does qualify, such a comp pick would be unlikely to make the 32 pick limit.
Meanwhile, while I thought that Trent Sherfield would merely be strictly a Smith replacement on special teams, he has instead gotten significant playing time on offense. He’s played 37.6% of the snaps thus far. Furthermore, Sherfield has snap incentives of his own: $250,000 if he plays at least 30%, and $500,000 total if he plays more than 40%. As it stands right now, it appears that the Broncos are willing to trade off a 7th round comp pick for Dixon going to Tampa in exchange for offensive contributions for Sherfield right now in 2025. It will be intriguing to see whether Pat Bryant takes away enough snaps from Sherfield as he continues to learn during his rookie season to drop Sherfield’s snaps under 25%.
But if Dobbins also qualifies due to earning incentives, he would cancel out Williams in the formula, and highly likely leave the Broncos with nothing. One mystery is whether Dobbins’s per gamers already count in the compensatory formula. Appendix V of the CBA, which details the compensatory pick system, does say that “A player’s Gross Salary shall include: […] (d) roster bonus (including per-game bonuses, which shall count in full); […] regardless of whether such amounts are earned or considered “likely to be earned.””. This would leave me to believe that the $680,000 in per gamers will count in the compensatory formula no matter what, even if Dobbins doesn’t earn them in whole or part due to not being active for all 17 games, or failing to hit any of the 10 metrics listed above. That gets Dobbins’s salary for comp pick purposes to $2.75 million
And for this upcoming draft, OTC’s comp pick program has been seeing $3 million as the likely approximate cutoff as to whether a player will qualify as a compensatory free agent. Dobbins just needs to earn one of the eight individual yardage incentives to get to that bubble, and two or more of them should seal the deal on him qualifying. And that seems likely as it stands right now, since he is on pace to gain 1,258 yards as of now.
It’s perfectly fair and fine if the Broncos feel like the contributions of Dobbins and Sherfield now are worth trading off a pair of very late 7th round picks. But I thought it would be worthwhile to lay out the tradeoff at play in clear terms.