Adam Thielen cashing in on incentives this season

When the Minnesota Vikings signed wide receiver Adam Thielen to a three-year, $27 million extension this past offseason, it sounded like a lot of money for a guy that had never had a 1,000-yard season or reached any of the other big milestones that receivers are supposed to hit. As we know now, however, it looks like the Vikings got a pretty significant bargain.

To his credit, though, Thielen has been cashing in so far this season on some of the incentives in his contract, according to ESPN.

Thus far, Thielen has added an extra $750,000 to his bank account based on the number of receptions he’s had. He got $500,000 for getting to 70 catches, and another $250,000 for hitting the 80-catch plateau. If he can somehow manage to catch seven passes over the final two weeks of the season, he’ll add another $250,000 for getting 90 catches. Add it all up, and that’s a cool $1 million for Thielen for catching everything thrown in his general direction.

For those of you scoring at home, $1 million would be enough to cover 2,000 of the $500 scholarships that Thielen was originally offered to play football at Minnesota State University, a story that we will likely hear several times during tonight’s broadcast.

It’s a good thing for the Vikings that after they signed Thielen to a restricted free agent tender this offseason, no team thought he’d be worth sacrificing a second-round pick for, huh?