Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton is fully aware of end of season player bonuses for his players.
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00:00 You were going to have, or you did have this streak going where all the offensive linemen started every game this year.
00:07 Do you care about those kind of things, which would have been the first time since 2011?
00:11 Yeah. Well, it's not like I would try to go out there and start a different guard to change it, right?
00:18 I think the better question at this time of the year, I was sharing this,
00:23 periodically there'll be these performance bonuses.
00:30 And generally I'm not aware of them, but as you get towards the end,
00:34 you know, we had Emmanuel Sanders that you guys know, he needed, we're playing Carolina last game of the year,
00:39 he needed four catches. And so Emmanuel's pretty sharp.
00:42 He finds this like tactful time to, "Coach, can I see you?" I said, "Emmanuel, I know why you're here."
00:49 I said, "You're going to have four catches before the end of the first quarter, and it's going into a 529 plan.
00:55 It's half a million dollars. And you're staying in the game. I'm going to make your tongue drag."
01:00 He had, I think, nine catches for 110 yards.
01:05 We had another instance where we had earned a seed.
01:11 In other words, we were resting starters.
01:14 And Okafer needed one sack for, I think, 250,000.
01:20 But we were resting guys, and so I didn't want him getting injured.
01:27 So I called him in, I said, "I got bad news and good news. What do you want?"
01:30 He said, "Give me the bad news." I said, "I'm not playing you in this game."
01:32 And then I said, "Stop. We're going to pay you the bonus."
01:35 So I think it comes up sometimes. I'm never aware of those specific incentives until they become like,
01:46 "Oh, this is..." And then sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't.
01:52 But we try to do the right thing. But Emmanuel comes to mind.
01:56 And he's trying to come out of the game in the fourth quarter, and I'm just, "You're staying in."
02:03 But with the O-line, I think, "Why'd you bring that up? We're going to jinx this."
02:07 I mean, our starting offensive line is starting.