The Patriots shocked the NFL world when they signed Antonio Brown earlier this month to a two-year contract that guaranteed him $10 million and could pay him up to $15 million in 2019. It wasn’t long, though, before the drama that surrounded Brown in Pittsburgh and Oakland followed him to New England.
Last week the Patriots released Brown, and they reportedly are withholding payment of his guaranteed salary for the season. According to ESPN, Brown is filing a grievance against the team to collect that money.
Brown’s contract with the Patriots had four primary sources of income. There was a guaranteed base salary of $1 million, a guaranteed signing bonus of $9 million, a non-guaranteed $500,000 in per-game roster bonuses paid for each game Brown was on the 46-man roster, and $4.5 million in non-guaranteed performance incentives.
The $5 million in non-guaranteed compensation is not an issue, but the other $10 million is a number much larger than what’s usually involved in an NFL grievance.
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There are two issues here, and the main one concerns the signing bonus portion of Brown’s contract.
Signing bonuses in the NFL generally are paid in installments over the first year of the player’s contract. Brown was due $5 million of his $9 million signing bonus Monday (Sept. 23). That date explains the timing of his release Friday, as it gave the Patriots the ability to withhold that payment since he is not on the roster.
Signing bonuses are the player’s to keep regardless of the payment schedule — except for extreme circumstances. If the player is suspended for a drug violation, for example, he is forced to pay back a portion of the signing bonus. Other reasons for lost signing bonuses are failure to practice, going to jail or retiring. None of these apply to Brown.
As do many teams, the Patriots include in their contracts what are essentially morals clauses. Such language states that the player is neither engaged in nor will engage in any unlawful or immoral conduct while a member of the team, and that there are no circumstances that would prevent the player from fulfilling the contract. These clauses extend to the signing bonus as well as any other parts of the deal.
So the Patriots’ argument is Brown basically voided his own contract with immoral behavior that would have jeopardized his availability to the team.
The $1 million in guaranteed salary in the contract can be impacted not only by the morals clauses, but also broader language, including the player being found guilty of conduct detrimental to the team or behaving in a manner that paints the team in a poor light. The Raiders used these clauses to void the remaining $29 million-plus in guarantees on Brown’s contract following his altercation with general manager Mike Mayock.
When Brown files his grievance against the Patriots, he will need to prove his actions should not have voided his contract or his guarantees.
He probably has some merit to his claims; at the time of his release, he was not being criminally charged, he practiced every day as a member of the team, and he was active for the first game. Brown also should be able to bring up examples of other Patriots players who were allowed to fulfill their contracts despite ongoing civil or criminal investigations.
However, guarantees are easily voided as long as the team has created some type of paper trail documenting the issues. Brown’s actions leading up to his release — in particular the texts he sent to one of his accusers while a member of the Patriots — are probably enough to void the guarantee even if they don’t void the signing bonus.
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It is worth noting that grievances in the NFL are common; a grievance is filed when there is a disagreement between a team and a player about how much money he should be owed when released. Some players are successful, and some are not.
While Brown’s case involves more money than most, it is not out of the ordinary, and will not even be the worst grievance in which New England was involved. (After he was released in the wake of a murder charge, the late Aaron Hernandez filed a grievance against the Patriots to collect the balance of his signing bonus.)
The Brown case will be heard by an independent arbitrator, not NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.
Brown has collected just $158,333 from the Patriots for his one game. That number is made up of two weeks’ salary and one week’s per-game bonuses. That salary should be his no matter what is determined in a grievance. In addition, Brown should be able to file a claim for $125,000 in termination pay regardless of the grievance findings.
The other $9.875 million that hangs in the balance will be determined at some point this or next.