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"Poison Pill??"

gdiaz0358

gdiaz0358

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I need someone to explain exactly how this works. I have a general understanding of the business term, but what does it mean in NFL terms? THanks.
 
I may be wrong, but I think it's something like this. If Miami wanted Miles Austin (I saw Jerry Jones was worried about a poison pill for him), they could offer him a contract that would give him huge bonuses if he played like 40% or more games in Dallas, Texas. I'm not sure exactly how the rest works, but it's done to basically ensure that his current team can't sign him without having to pay a ridiculous amount of money.

I know that's not exactly right but I think that's the general idea of a poison pill contract.
 
Ha great story on Wiki:

Sports
In professional sports, a poison pill is a component of a contract, which one team offers a player, that makes it difficult or impossible for another team (which has the right of first refusal) to match. While it can often refer to a salary structure or clause that would affect all teams equally, it has taken on a new specific meaning of a clause that has unbalanced impact. For example, in March 2006, the Minnesota Vikings offered Steve Hutchinson, an offensive guard with the Seattle Seahawks, a seven-year, $49 million contract of which $16 million was guaranteed. This contract offer had two poison pills in it. One was the salary structure, which would require the team to pay $13 million in the first year of the contract. That salary structure would apply to both teams equally, as the Seahawks would also have to pay $13 million in the first contract year, were they to match the offer. The second was a clause that required Hutchinson to be the highest paid player on the offensive line, or else the entire contract would be guaranteed. Since the Seahawks had another offensive lineman, Walter Jones, with a higher salary and the Vikings did not, this clause would have required the Seahawks to guarantee $49 million, and it effectively eliminated the Seahawks' opportunity to match the contract offer.

In the wake of this contract offer, similar clauses have appeared in other contract offers, including a contract offered to Vikings wide receiver Nate Burleson by the Seahawks, which, with irony fully intended, was structured as a seven year, $49 million deal. The contract given to Burleson had two vengeful poison pill clauses in response to the contract offered to Hutchinson. Firstly, it stipulated that if Burleson were to play five or more games in the state of Minnesota during any single season over the life of the contract, the entire $49 million would become guaranteed. Secondly, if Burleson were to earn more per year on average than all of his team's running backs combined, the $49 million would be guaranteed. Since the Vikings play half of their games at home in Minnesota, and their running backs combined earned less per year than the $7 million in Burleson's contract, Minnesota was unable to match it.
Click to expand...
 
gdiaz0358 said:
I need someone to explain exactly how this works. I have a general understanding of the business term, but what does it mean in NFL terms? THanks.
Click to expand...

we talked about poison pill contracts in the thread about Miles Austin and Jerry Jones. Basically, say Team A has a RFA RB and Team B is interested in that RB. Team B offers that RB a contract which states that if the RB plays more than 5 games in Team A's state, then that RB gets all his money guaranteed or that he must be the highest paid player on the team. Team A obviously cannot pay that much because they play in that state but Team B plays in another state, so they don't have to worry about that part of the contract. Basically, it's a stipulation within a contract that makes it almost impossible for the original team to retain their player.
 
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