49ers cornerback Richard Sherman boasted after negotiating his own contract that no one else could have done a better job. And then the NFL Players Association did a better job.
Via Eric Branch of the San Francisco Chronicle, a breakdown of the final Sherman contract reveals at least one way in which the NFLPA helped improve the terms of the contract after Sherman negotiated a final deal. Joel Corry of CBSSports.com explains that, in the official version of the contract, Sherman has until November to pass a physical and collect a $2 million roster bonus. As negotiated by Sherman, he had to pass a physical early in training camp to get the $2 million; if hadn’t, the $2 million would have been forfeited. As a result, Sherman’s chances of earning the $2 million have dramatically improved, necessarily making the deal as enhanced by the NFLPA better than the deal negotiated by Sherman himself.
It’s a rare and possibly unprecedented move by the NFLPA to renegotiate a deal that already had been negotiated to conclusion. The fact that the 49ers agreed to make the change suggests an awareness by the team that they indeed enjoyed the benefit of negotiating with a player who was representing himself.
So if more and more players will be representing themselves, the NFLPA will need to have the resources necessary to clean up messes that players make for themselves when deciding to negotiate a multi-million-dollar business transaction with a multi-billion-dollar entity that has highly-skilled negotiators on the payroll. Ideally, the NFLPA will have the resources to help the players avoid those messes in the first place.
Wait, the NFLPA has those resources. It’s the small army of Certified Contract Advisors who are regulated by the NFLPA. Also known as agents.
