Ok...Whats the Deal With Coles & Money

[JudgeJebus]

SportsCurmudgeon,

From the Washington Post:

[A]ccording to one teammate with knowledge of the situation, Coles has said he would return -- and play hard -- if necessary.

I think that before this recent episode (which, as some have noted, Coles handled in a very classy manner by keeping his discontent out of public view), all of us would have agreed that this sounds about right for Coles. Your suggestion that Coles would not play hard if we kept him seems, to me, completely discordant with everything we know about the guy.

Now, even though I think Coles is a stand-up guy, I don't think the Redskins should indulge his ridiculous request to be released. The reason: It's pure blackmail. If we honor this request, there's nothing to stop any player from blackmailing us in this way. Anytime we sign someone, they could cash their signing bonus and then immediately demand to be released. We simply cannot allow that.

Now, because I think Coles is a stand-up guy and has handled this situation professionally, I do think we should try to accomodate his request to be released, but only on fair terms. As I noted in another thread, if a player retires, he is obligated to return the pro-rated amount of his signing bonus that he has not yet earned. A signing bonus is given in return for the player signing the contract. In this case, Coles was given $13M to play for 7 years. Since he wants to leave after 2 years, I would not even consider his release unless it involves him forfeiting five-sevenths of this amount, or about $9.3M. Accordingly, not only should Coles have to forfeit his right to the $5M installment of his signing bonus he is yet to receive, he should return (a la Ricky Williams, another malcontent who refused to honor his contract) $4.3M.

In fact, even this is not enough. The $9.3M is what Coles would owe if he wanted to retire. But he doesn't want to retire--he wants to play for another team. For this to be fair, he would need to offer the Redskins (who own his rights to play in the league for the next 5 years) even more for the club to relinquish these rights.