{"id":774786,"date":"2026-02-25T06:27:32","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T06:27:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/774786\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T06:27:32","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T06:27:32","slug":"4-arizona-cardinals-getting-big-salary-increases-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/774786\/","title":{"rendered":"4 Arizona Cardinals getting big salary increases in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Four Arizona Cardinals<\/a> are set to get raises in 2026, and it isn’t because of a contract extension. These players have earned league “proven performance” salary escalators.<\/p>\n

Players not orginally drafted in the first round can earn fourth-year salary escalators, based on playing time and\/or recognition.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

The details come from the collective bargaining agreement, via Over the Cap<\/a>.<\/p>\n

How NFL players earn proven performance escalators<\/p>\n

The Level Two PPE<\/a>\u00a0is earned if a player participates in at least 55% of a team’s offensive or defensive snaps in all of his first three seasons.<\/p>\n

The Level Three PPE<\/a>\u00a0is earned if a player is selected to a Pro Bowl\u00a0on the original ballot\u00a0(not as an alternate) in any of his first three seasons.<\/p>\n

A level-one player will make the salary of a restricted free agent original-round tender \u2014 about $3.6 million.<\/p>\n

A level-two escalator will get the level-one salary, plus $250,000 (about $3.85 million)<\/p>\n

A level-three escalator will earn the salary of a second-round restricted free agent tender, more than $5.8 million.<\/p>\n

4 Cardinals players earn escalators<\/p>\n

Three players earned level-one escalators.<\/p>\n

Williams, Stills and Higgins will make about $3.6 million in salary in 2026. Stills and Higgins were scheduled to make the league minimum of $1.145 million.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

One player \u2014 receiver Michael Wilson \u2014 qualified for level 2, so he will make more than $3.85 million in 2026.<\/p>\n

Williams will likely start the season on injured reserve. The rest will have their roles again.<\/p>\n

Wilson could see a contract extension.<\/p>\n

Get more Cardinals<\/a> and NFL coverage from Cards<\/a> Wire’s Jess Root and others by listening to the latest on the Rise Up, See Red podcast. Subscribe on Spotify<\/a>,\u00a0YouTube<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Apple podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Cards Wire: 4 Arizona Cardinals getting big salary increases in 2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four Arizona Cardinals are set to get raises in 2026, and it isn’t because of a contract extension.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":774787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2078],"tags":[375,390,2604,1327,22013,6513,1719,11550,7,8288,11369,6,7120],"class_list":{"0":"post-774786","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arizona-cardinals","8":"tag-arizona","9":"tag-arizona-cardinals","10":"tag-arizonacardinals","11":"tag-cardinals","12":"tag-collective-bargaining-agreement","13":"tag-contract-extension","14":"tag-dante-stills","15":"tag-elijah-higgins","16":"tag-football","17":"tag-garrett-williams","18":"tag-michael-wilson","19":"tag-nfl","20":"tag-salary"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116129853871318375","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=774786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/774787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=774786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=774786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=774786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}