Under the collective bargaining agreement, if a player is injured during the season and cannot play in the team’s final game, he can be waived the next season if he is unable to pass the pre-season physical. If he’s waived, he’s entitled to an injury protection settlement of $250,000 but otherwise the team has no further salary obligations unless his individual contract provides otherwise. But player contracts in the NFL are never guaranteed so in Bentley’s case, the Browns had an opportunity to avoid paying off the remainder of Bentley’s rather large salary over the next five years by simply waiving him prior to last season.
Making a move like that on a marquee player is rare and not just because of the public relations hit. Generally, a team will put a player like Bentley who can’t pass the pre-season physical on the physically unable to perform or PUP list in order to keep that player in the fold. When that occurs, the player receives his salary for that year as if he were actively playing. The reason a team puts a player on the PUP list is because they believe he will eventually recover and become a valuable player again.
As Bentley’s situation progressed and the extent of his injury became clear, it’s pretty obvious that Savage played a bit of poker with Bentley and his agent before last season. Knowing that Bentley couldn’t pass the pre-season physical, Savage used that fact as leverage to get Bentley to re-work his contract.
Bentley chose not to call Savage’s bluff and instead agreed to a shortened contract, three years instead of the original six, and a salary at the league minimum of $605,000, more than double the $250,000 injury protection payment he would have received had he been waived. The Browns got out from under a large contract at a cost of an extra $350,000. Plus Savage got a bit of upside protection for the Browns if Bentley could actually return in 2008. The re-worked contract was loaded with incentives that could have pushed this year’s salary to more than $4 million.
But this wasn’t quite a win-win situation. Savage proved to be a shrewd and clever general manager, leaving the team with cap room by reworking a contract that would otherwise have been a burden. And while Savage arguably did Bentley a favor, it was of far lesser magnitude. Bentley got that extra $350,000 over the injury protection payment last season by agreeing to the new contract and he also got an extra year of retirement benefit credits when he sat on the PUP list last year rather than being cut. He also got the chance to further rehabilitate his knee knowing that he still had a salary coming from the Browns.
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