Giants offered all of Plaxico Burress' future money in proposed grievance settlement
April 4
Newark Star-Ledger
"I mentioned earlier the Giants were willing to make a deal with Plaxico Burress to avoid a hearing with the NFL's special master on whether the team violated the collective bargaining agreement by withholding a $1 million payment of his signing bonus and claiming he defaulted on future roster bonuses and guarantees.
Well, I've gotten the details of the offer and it turns out it was a pretty sweet deal for Burress. And the fact that he turned it down shows you how much he really didn't want to be a Giant anymore.
According to someone familiar with the negotiations, the team offered Burress the chance to earn all of the money that was written into his contract from here on out. All he had to do was end his fight for the money he forfeited over the last four weeks of last season (base salary, roster bonus and signing bonus) during which he was suspended for "conduct detrimental to the team" and start playing by their rules.
It's unclear if the full $1 million signing bonus payment the Giants withheld would have been considered part of the defaulted money or if the team would have held on to only the prorated portion for the four weeks he was suspended (a little more than $200,000) and paid him the rest.
But what is clear, according to the people familiar with the team's offer, is the Giants would have allowed Burress the opportunity to earn the remaining four years on his deal: $11.5 million in base salaries, $3.5 million in reporting bonuses (which are actually behavioral clauses), $8.2 million in roster bonuses, $5 million in escalators and $1.3 million in workout bonuses. That's a grand total of $29.5 million that was out there to be earned."
Link
Calendar
