This weekend was an occasion for celebration. For many, the Fourth of July means heading up to the lake, cracking open some beverages, and relaxing for the weekend. For Bobby Bonilla, it means something a little more.
The New York Mets bought out the former outfielder and owed him $5.9 million upon release. The Madoff Mets decided against giving Bonilla the money up front. Instead, the Mets agreed to pay the money over a 25-year period…with eight percent interest.
Thus, Bobby Bonilla Day was born. On July 1, Bonilla receives a check for $1.2 million from the Mets — and likely opens a cold one to celebrate. It’s a bizarre stipulation that pays a 61-year-old more than many young baseball stars. Still, it’s not the only weird contract in sports.
In the spring of 2006, the Minnesota Vikings introduced the “Poison Pill” contract to the NFL. It was so bizarre that it started a war between two franchises and became illegal in 2009. The story of the Poison Pill is just as intriguing and sets off a ripple effect that could have altered the history of the league.
Fixing the offensive line was a priority when Brad Childress arrived in Minnesota. The Vikings had gotten away from the “Minnesota Moving Company,” which had dominated throughout the early 2000s. They needed a ringer in the middle to round things out.
Steve Hutchinson was Minnesota’s top target that offseason. Vikings fans know Hutchinson as the Hall of Fame guard who would eventually pave the way for Adrian Peterson. But he was Shaun Alexander‘s road grader before that.
In 2005, Hutchinson and fellow Hall of Famer Walter Jones were at the peak of their powers, clearing the way for Alexander to win the MVP Award and the Seattle Seahawks to reach the Super Bowl for the first time. Seattle had two anchors on the offensive line, but both were due for new contracts. The Seahawks quickly reached an agreement on a 7-year, $52.5 million contract with Jones after the 2005 season. However, they took their time negotiating a contract for Hutchinson.
Coach Mike Holmgren was traveling as part of the league’s competition committee and made a deal with Hutchinson before he left. The Seahawks would use the franchise tag to keep Hutchinson and negotiate a new contract after the draft. Hutchinson agreed, and Holmgren went on his trip.
But the Seattle front office got cute. Instead of using the franchise tag, which required an acquiring team to give up two first-round picks to sign a player to a contract, they opted to use the transitional tag. That allowed a team to sign a player if his current team declined to match the offer.
The move saved the Seahawks $600,000 but opened the door for the Vikings to sign Hutchinson. Still, the Seahawks were going to match any offer the Vikings made, and they would need a plan to make it work.
The Vikings put the poison pill clause in Hutchinson’s contract that made it fully guaranteed if he wasn’t the highest-paid offensive lineman on the team. Hutchinson’s 7-year, $49 million contract was smaller than Jones’ deal. Therefore, there was no way for them to work around it. They could either let Hutchinson walk or pay him his money up front.
When Holmgren returned, he was furious to learn of Minnesota’s offer and refused to match. That gave the Vikings the offensive lineman they had coveted, but it also created animosity between the two teams.
While the Vikings had their eyes on Hutchinson, the Seahawks were smitten with Nate Burleson. During the 2004 season, Burleson filled in for the injured Randy Moss and caught 68 passes for 1,006 yards and nine touchdowns. His performance was a big reason why Daunte Culpepper flirted with the MVP award and led the Vikings to their only playoff appearance under Mike Tice.
At that point, Burleson looked like a player destined for stardom. However, he took a step back in 2005. Teams focused on Burleson as Culpepper’s top target when the Vikings traded Moss to the Oakland Raiders. A sprained left knee didn’t help his cause, and Culpepper’s own brutal knee injury shipwrecked the Vikings’ season (no pun intended).
That didn’t stop the Seahawks, who were still filled with rage over Hutchinson’s deal. A restricted free agent, Burleson signed a 7-year, $49 million offer sheet with Seattle. But his offer didn’t have just one poison pill; it had an entire toxic pharmacy.
One clause dictated that Burleson would get his money if he played five games in the state of Minnesota. Another would guarantee the contract if Burleson was paid more than the average of all of the Vikings’ running backs on the roster combined. Seattle made the offer before the Vikings drafted Peterson in 2007, so the stable of Onterrio Smith, Mewelde Moore, and Chester Taylor wasn’t going to cut it.
Ultimately, Burleson went to Seattle, but the Vikings were the only team that got what they wanted.
Hutchinson continued his Hall of Fame career with the Vikings and paved a blazing start to Peterson’s career. Minnesota reached the 2009 NFC Championship game with Hutchinson protecting Brett Favre before Hutchinson left in 2012. Overall, Hutchinson was a three-time All-Pro and four-time Pro Bowler in Minnesota, which is more than what the Seahawks got in Burleson.
Injuries played a significant role in Burleson’s decline, but so did the deterioration of a veteran roster. The Seahawks lost in the divisional round of the playoffs each of the next two seasons before falling to 5-11 in 2008. They fired Holmgren after that year, and Burleson rebounded for 812 yards and three touchdowns in 2009. Still, he didn’t play at the superstar level he had reached in 2004.
The Seahawks cut Burleson after the 2009 season. The Vikings clearly got the better of the deal. The NFL outlawed the poison pill in 2011, but what would have happened if the Vikings had never introduced it?
Hutchinson was such a big part of Minnesota’s offensive line that it’s fair to wonder if we would have still been asking Can he play guard? back in 2006. Anthony Herrera was the starting guard on the opposite side of Hutchinson during the Vikings’ run to the NFC Championship. No Hutchinson could have meant another string of failed draft picks at the position.
But the Vikings would have also kept Burleson. Would they eventually have offered Burleson the type of money that the Seahawks did? Would that money have prevented them from signing Bernard Berrian? And would having nobody else on the roster and Tarvaris Jackson at quarterback sunk the Vikings with a bad contract?
All of these things could be true. But it also would have left the door open for another team to take advantage.
Imagine if the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had used a poison pill to lure Tom Brady out of New England or the kinds of clauses that would exist in today’s NFL. Sure, you could sign a top free agent to a contract, but if they eat three Juicy Lucys or go fishing on four different lakes during the offseason, you better be ready to back up the Brinks truck.
It’s an entertaining scenario, one that Bonilla would approve of.
