A little background: a few weeks ago the Minnesota Vikings signed Seattle Seahawks guard Steve Hutchinson to an offer sheet worth $49 million over seven years, with about $16M in guarantees. However, because Seattle had placed the “transition” tag on Hutchinson, they had the right to prevent him from leaving by matching any offer sheet that he signed with another team.
But the Vikings got clever: they included a clause in the contract stipulating that if Hutchinson was at any time not the team’s highest paid offensive lineman, then his entire contract would become guaranteed, which would be an unacceptable risk for any team given the size and length of the deal. The problem is that Seattle would be unable to match that provision, because they are already paying Left Tackle Walter Jones more than Hutchinson would make under the proposed contract.
Seattle challenged the clause, claiming that it was not a “principal term” of the contract and that they were not required to match it. They lost, and Hutchinson moved on to Minnesota.
So today, Seattle signed restriced free agent Wide Receiver Nate Burleson of the Vikings to an offer sheet. As with the Hutchinson case, Minnesota has the right to match the deal if they want to keep Burleson.
The contract: $49M over seven years. Only $5M of that is guaranteed, so it’s actually a much smaller deal than Hutchinson’s, and one that Minnesota would probably be willing to match; that it’s technically a 7-year, $49M deal is clearly a swipe at the Vikings. That’s pretty cool in and of itself.
The best part, though, is that Seattle included the following clause: if, in any season, Burleson plays five or more games in the state of Minnesota, the entire contract becomes guaranteed! The Vikings will no doubt file an appeal but, given the previous ruling, I really hope they lose.
Jeez, why not just put in a clause requiring the team to pay Burleson an extra $100,000,000 for every “v” in the team’s name? No way is that going to stand up in court. Hutchinson’s clause, while impossible for Seattle to match, is real. Burleson’s is a joke.
He’s not. Only $5M of that is guaranteed (as opposed to $16M of Huthinson’s contract), and all the big money is undoubtedly in the back end of the contract. The deal will be renegotiated or voided before he ever sees the huge salaries that make it a $49M contract, and Burleson is surely aware of that. In reality, he’s probably making about $3M a year.
I think the clause in Burleson’s contract is more obviously a joke, but there’s no meaningful difference between the two cases. The Hutchinson clause was a transparent attempt to deny Seattle the right of first refusal – even dropping Walter Jones before matching the offer wouldn’t have helped because of the way the contract was worded. That it is essentially no different than the Burleson clause seems obvious to me. Whether it is technically any different may or may not be a separate matter.
Make that “salt water” and you’d be saving a bundle. I don’t a map handy to work it out, but Seattle is probably 50-60 miles from the Pacific as the Seahawk flies; on the other hand, you could probably spit from the roof of Qwest Field and hit Elliott Bay (an arm of Puget Sound).
