Contract Provisions And Beyond For Injuries To Fringe Players
August 4, 2009
NFL TRAINING CAMPS OPEN
The opening of NFL training camps, and in a few weeks the beginning of NFL pre-season games, is a time anxiously awaited by a majority of American sports fans. There are a myriad of legal issues that we can look at in the NFL this time of year. Of course, we can discuss rookie draft choice contract signings, and we may look at these later on down the road. But there is another side of the game that many people do not know about. Books like Dave Meggysey’s Out of Their League (1970) and Tim Green’s The Dark Side of the Game (1997) explore the relationship between player and management in frank terms. So over the next few weeks we will examine some legal issues that would fall into the area of player versus management in the NFL. Extremely common among these issues in the NFL is how teams handle injuries to fringe players. These are players who have less than a 50% chance to make the team's roster.
Under the standard NFL player contract paragraph nine addresses what happens if a player is injured:
INJURY. Unless this contract specifically provides otherwise, if a Player is injured in the performance of his services under this contract and promptly reports such injury to the Club physician or trainer, then Player will receive such medical and hospital care during the term of this contract as the Club physician may deem necessary, and will continue to receive his yearly salary for so long, during the season of injury only and for no subsequent period covered by this contract, as Player is physically unable to perform the services required of him by this contract because of such injury….
So, in theory, if a player is injured while performing services under his contract, the team may not release him until the player is healthy enough to play football again during that season. This does not always happen. There are many ways in which a team will get around this area of the contract. We will take a deeper look into this in the coming weeks.
One way a team tries to protect itself is through a split contract. A split contract is standard for many rookies. The team will protect itself by putting into paragraph five of the player contract a salary split. For example, in 2009 the rookie split is $230,000./$385,000. That is, if a player is injured and placed on injured reserve, he will receive the lesser contract amount. If the player makes the 53 man active roster he will receive the larger amount. Of course, these amounts are pro-rated over the 17 weeks of the season, and each team will negotiate somewhat different language for the split contracts.
Over the coming weeks we will look at injury settlements, injury grievances, and worker’s compensation claims. So stay tuned as the NFL season gets under way.
And hey, email us your comments! respond@sportslawtalk.com
Categories: Dave Meggysey; Tim Green; NFL Player Contract; Fringe Players; Split Contract
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