Chandler Harnish’s one-day salary for Vikings more than some make in year
When the Minnesota Vikings took on the Green Bay Packers in Week 5, it was a rough night for two of their quarterbacks. Starter Teddy Bridgewater was ruled out with an ankle injury, and backup Christian Ponder stunk up the joint in his place.
But the No. 3 quarterback, Chandler Harnish, made out like a bandit.
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Harnish was called up from the practice squad earlier that day when Bridgewater was ruled out. After serving as Ponder’s backup for the game (and not playing), Harnish was released the following day. They just needed someone who knew how to play quarterback in the NFL in case Ponder got hurt.
So Harnish was on the Vikings’ roster for about 23 hours. For his efforts, per the Pioneer Press, Harnish made $22,818. That’s nearly a grand an hour
(An aside: That’s almost as much as I made in salary my entire first year out of college.)
Some more math: NFL game checks are paid out in 1/17 portions, one for each week of the regular season. The NFL minimum salary for a player, such as Harnish, with zero accrued years of service is a healthy $495,000. Divide that by 17, and you get $29,118. Subtract $6,300 — his practice-squad salary — from that and you get $22,818.
Not too shabby for a day’s work that really didn’t require him to do much. If you extrapolate that hourly salary out to a 40-hour, 52-week rate, you’re talking $2 million.
“It doesn’t matter how many days you practice,” Harnish said. “If you sign that active contract on game day, you get paid for the whole week as if you were active. So that was a really good one day. I hadn’t been working for the last four weeks, so I needed some pay.”
Of course, Harnish is back to $6,300 a week after re-signing with the practice squad. Harnish said he received some congradulatory text messages from friends — as well as a little financial advice.
“I got some buddies who are more on the financial side and some buddies who are more on the opportunity,” Harnish said. “Some were like, ‘You get picked up on Monday and activated on Thursday and you get paid that kind of money?'”
Not a bad take-home for the former Mr. Irrelevant in the 2012 draft who now has toiled on a few teams’ practice squads, so he’s used to that lower level of play.
“That’s still a large number,” he said. “As long as you budget correctly, you can do a lot with $6,300.”
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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Eric_Edholm