A dozen Dolphins get 100K-plus bonuses, 3 of top 5 earners played relatively little

Dolphins second-year guard Donald Thomas received $316,577 to nearly double his 2009 salary ($338,397) in the NFL’s performance-based pool, according to league documents. Each team receives $3.425 million to be dispensed to every player that plays at least one snap. Performance-based was created in 2002 to reward a player whose playing time is disproportionate to his salary. A player’s bonus is determined by dividing the number of snaps a player played during the season by their regular-season compensation, including full-season salary, prorated portion of signing bonus and earned incentives. Each player’s number is then compared with those of the other players on his team to determine the amount of his bonus pay. A total of 61 Dolphins received extra pay, with rookie offensive tackle Andrew Gardner earning the least ($681). A dozen Dolphins, including Thomas, earned more than $100,000 in performance-based pay: – Thomas (316,577) – CB Sean Smith ($212,282) – TE Joey Haynos ($207,264) – TE Anthony Fasano ($189,412) – WR Davone Bess ($185,902) – OT Nate Garner ($179,041) – RB Lex Hilliard ($154,603) – WR Brian Hartline ($139,649) – CB Nate Jones ($117,238) – DE Kendall Langford ($111,135) – S Chris Clemons ($108,818) – QB Chad Henne ($108,171) Here’s some other interesting tidbits from the performance-based pay report: – Pro Bowl left tackle Jake Long, the No. 1 pick in the 2008 drafted, earned more than any Dolphins player, $10.005 million. Linebacker

Joey Porter, who was cut last week, was next with $7.4 million, followed by running back Ronnie Brown ($6.056 million), quarterback Chad Pennington ($5.75 million), cornerback Will Allen ($5.630 million) and right tackle Vernon Carey ($5.4 million). – A season-ending shoulder injury allowed Pennington, 33, to play just 9.6-percent of the team’s snaps. In fact, three of the Dolphins top five earners played less than 25 percent of the snaps because of season-ending injuries: Pennington, Allen (22.1 percent) and Brown (23.9 percent). – Linebacker Jason Taylor made $2,714,151, plus a $37,165 bonus, in 2009. It had been widely reported Taylor’s one-year deal with the Dolphins could earn him a maximum of $1.5 million. Taylor, 35, also played 55.3 percent of the team’s snaps – most among the team’s linebackers – because 2008 strong-side starter Matt Roth was injured and eventually released. – Long played the highest-percentage of snaps (75 percent), while right tackle Vernon Carey was next (73 percent). Safeties Yeremiah Bell (71.2 percent) and Gibril Wilson (69.7) played the most on defense. – Smith, a rookie second-round pick, played 63.6-percent of the snaps, while fellow rookie cornerback Vontae Davis, the team’s first-round pick, played 54.8-percent of the time. Rookie quarterback Pat White, the team’s other second-round pick, played just 3.3-percent of the snaps.

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A dozen Dolphins get 100K-plus bonuses, 3 of top 5 earners played relatively little

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