What a season it has been for Kerby Joseph. The third-year man leads the league in interceptions with nine, allows just 43.9% of passes his way to get completed, is the second-highest graded safety in the league according to Pro Football Focus, and led all free safeties in Pro Bowl votes.
That’s why it’s incredibly strange that all of that was not good enough to get Joseph into the Pro Bowl in 2024. He has been kept off the initial ballot per Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press.
While you might say that it doesn’t matter because Joseph potentially wouldn’t play in this game due to playing in the Super Bowl, but it does matter. This cost Joseph a lot. By that, I mean that this decision just cost Joseph millions of dollars in 2025. $3.86 million to be exact. Here’s why:
The NFL has a mechanism called Proven Performance Escalators, which is written into the contracts of players who are drafted in the second round and beyond. There are three levels to the PPE program.
Level 1: If the player participated in a certain percentage of snaps for two of his first three seasons, or averaged that through three years. The percentage is 60% for second-rounders or 35% for later picks.
Level 2: If the player participates in at least 55% of the team’s offensive/defensive snaps in each of his first three seasons. New salary: amount of the original draft round RFA tender + $250k.
Level 3: If the player is an original Pro Bowl selection in any of his first three seasons. New salary: amount of the second-round RFA tender (projected by OTC to be $5.217 million).
Joseph had already qualified for level two so he was going to get a little pay bump in 2025 anyway, but hitting level three and making that Pro Bowl would have given him a major pay pump. He would have gone from making $1,357 million in 2025 to $5.217 million. Unfortunately, that won’t happen.
The good news is that there’s a solid chance the Lions are going to get him set up with a contract extension this offseason that could make him the highest paid safety in the NFL. So maybe this won’t matter at the end of the day. Still, what a snub.