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Is it customary for teams to reward players for not honoring contracts? Can you think of any other Patriots that Bob Kraft has bestowed millions to as a parting gift? Did the Pats and Brady restructure, sacrificing future cap space, so Matt can ride off into the sunset with extra coin?
Ted Johnson for one was allowed to retain about $1.5M in signing bonus they could have asked to be refunded. I don't believe Tedy was asked to reimburse them any of his when he retired, either. Their deal with Light may well have been for $7M to play in 2011 and $5M if he plays another season which neither side was anticipating he would and they just structured it in a way that allowed them to spread the hit over two years by calling a lot of that 2011 payment "signing bonus". Teams aren't required to recover it on retirement, just entitled to if they choose to.
Had they structured it differently with little signing bonus and mostly salary (as you would do in a two year deal that is really a one year deal with little or no dead cap ramifications) he would have counted against the cap $7M last season instead of $4.5... $7M is very good although not quite top tier LT money, so... the structure of his deal made him a 1 or two year bargain.
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