It wasn’t a “million dollar play,” but a quarter-million for Kyle Van Noy. The Baltimore Ravens edge rusher needed a half sack in today’s regular-season finale versus the Cleveland Browns to reach 12 on the season and thus earn a $250,000 bonus.
The BYU product reached it when he dropped Browns quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson for a four-yard loss in the first half.
Given his post-sack celebration, he was well aware of earning the lovely piece of incentive-based pay.
Kyle Van Noy securing $250k with this sack 💰
(via @Ravens)pic.twitter.com/Prb2VOg064
— B/R Gridiron (@brgridiron) January 4, 2025
As you can see, Van Noy mixed the universal signals for counting/spending money between his clapping. The gesture evoked the immortal words of Jermaine Dupri in his 1998 classic Money Ain’t a Thang:
“it’s all basic I been spending hundreds since they had small faces.”
What makes that specific lyric all the more memorable is that the portrait of Benjamin Franklin on the $100 bill was enlarged only two years before the song was released.
Younger readers may not remember this, but the previous bill design included a different and much smaller Franklin portrait. The change was part of several measures taken to combat counterfeiting.
But congratulations to Van Noy, who now has a whole lot of “Benjamins,” “C-Notes,” or “Hundos” to add to his already vast collection. According to Spotrac, KVN has earned over $47M during his NFL career.
