We haven’t spent much time on the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement this week. Here’s a spoiler: nothing will happen until Labor Day. We’d literally see more happening if we watched paint dry.
But here’s something hilarious out of New York: third-year defensive lineman Vernon Gholston had a clause in his contract that would have paid him $9 million if he had a sack, a forced fumble OR a fumble recovery. Any one of those. In three years. Nine million bucks. And guess what happened.
In 45 NFL games, he did none of those things. Zero. They even moved him from linebacker to defensive end and tried to devise schemes specifically to help him out. Nothing.
He did get a sack in a 2009 preseason game, which prompted coach Rex Ryan to say, ”It was the first of many.” Unfortunately, the best he could do was 16 total tackles in three seasons.
The Jets are trimming personnel and rolling back the pay of their assistant coaches to brace for the expiration of the league’s CBA, which is Friday. I don’t know how not playing football in a period of not playing football is huge news, but there it is. It shouldn’t affect Gholston, who really wasn’t playing much football even when he was on the field.
