Laurent Duvrnay-Tardif is very aware. That shouldn’t surprise you because the Kansas City Chiefs offensive lineman spends his offseason training to become a doctor.
He signed a five-year, $42.5 million extension this offseason, which seemingly wraps him up for the next five years. Except this is the NFL and contracts don’t work like that. He could easily be cut after one or two seasons, which he seems to understand, because contracts are not guaranteed. LDT used the example of Jeremy Maclin who learned this first hand.
“(Former Chiefs receiver) Jeremy Maclin got cut three weeks ago, and he was one of the highest-paid players on the team,” Duvernay-Tardif said this week in Toronto, where he spoke at a conference for the Quebec Federation of Egg Producers, a new sponsor to his charitable foundation. “It’s going to give me stability for a year or two because of the way contracts are structured, but after that you must prove you’re worth the money they’re investing in you.”
It’s a five-year contract but it’s really only a one or two year deal because the contracts aren’t fully guaranteed. Maclin was cut two years into his five-year deal. There are plenty of people who don’t realize the NFL contracts aren’t completely real. Not that I feel bad for someone making just a few million compared to $10 million but NFL players aren’t raking in the type of money many people think they are.
That’s been a talking point with NBA free agency last week. You see these middle of the pack NBA players making as much as stars in the NFL. Down the road you’re going to see more NFL players push for fully guaranteed contracts. It likely won’t start to happen until a quarterback demands a fully guaranteed deal or there is some sort of change in the CBA to the way contracts are done. Or maybe the players strike to get a larger slice of the pie. I’m not sure. My prediction is there will be some effort to “fix” the NFL’s contracts by the time the next CBA rolls around.