Chiefs' Marcus Cooper the big winner in performance-based pay

The 2013 performance-based pay numbers are out and Marcus Cooper is the big winner among the Kansas City Chiefs. He picked up an extra $250,000 in pay for his work last season. The performance-based pay system is designed for players who play a lot during the season but aren't among the highest paid players.

Cooper is a great example of this because he was on a seventh round pick contract while playing lots of snaps as the season went on. Think about undrafted free agents and late round picks who end up starting or playing a lot of snaps. Each NFL team has $3.46 million to distribute, according to the formula, and Cooper leads all Chiefs. He was actually No. 10 in all of the NFL. Bears tackle Jordan Mills led the league with $318,000.

Here are the top payouts to Chiefs players:

Marcus Cooper: 253,736.78
Quintin Demps: 193,180.80
Sean McGrath: 185,734.55
Junior Hemingway: 182,389.80
Akeem Jordan: 163,981.38
Anthony Sherman: 148,992.77
Husain Abdullah: 144,393.45
Rodney Hudson: 137,986.21
Frank Zombo: 130,542.93
Jeff Allen: 109,907.99

This money won't actually be paid to the players until April 1, 2016. It is not part of the salary cap this year.