If you follow The Scoop -- and you do -- you've noticed by now that it's filled these days with reports of bonuses coaches get to take home for hitting certain contractual benchmarks. Kirby Smart is at $1.05 million thus far this season. Jeff Brohm made $112,500 for appearing in the Foster Farms Bowl. Tom Herman took home $50,000 for winning the Texas Bowl.
It's nice, all of it, and none of it is needed. Head coaches are millionaires many times over, but they aren't the only ones taking home bonuses. Assistant coaches are regularly taking home 5-figure bonuses on top of 6-figure salaries. For instance, the nine Georgia assistants have already earned $731,000 as a group -- more than $81,000 per man. Again, all of it is nice, but none of it is needed.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers' offensive line this year rejected their annual tradition of getting each other gifts and instead pooled their money to provide Christmas bonuses for the unsung staffers in the facility.
"The equipment guys, the trainers, the kitchen staff -- coaches get paid a lot of money -- like those who help us out on a regular basis, the people who cook special food for us, or whatever it is, the training staff, they spend tons of time with us," guard/center Evan Smith told ESPN. "Not all those guys make as much money as people think they do."
Smith estimated the offensive line doled out between $450 and $500 to each staffer. Not life-changing money by any means, but definitely enough to be noticed and appreciated. And it was a drop in the bucket for each player.
Every full-time FBS head coach makes enough money to scrape some off the top of his bonus, if not his regular salary, to help out the people whose job it is to help the coaching staff and football team out -- and don't make nearly as much money as the coaches to do it.