McGahee's deal with Bills a tough one

[MDFINFAN]

I went back though your threads since I've only been here since June, and I couldn't find any posts on this, but if you guys have already debated this, sorry, but I thought it a fair question to ask, if you draft a player in the 1st round and you know he has a injury, do you still pay him 1st round money in the slot he was drafted..I say yes, because you knew the deal..what do you guys think?

Here's the article, it's old, but it's my first time seeing it, and I guess it made me think about it for a moment.

McGahee's deal with Bills a tough one

[SamAdamsFan]

I think you have to pay him first round money that he is due. Maybe less of it can be guaranteed than if he was healthy, but he would probably expect large incentives that would pay him as a top 5 pick down there road were he to recover. That way the Bills don't lose a lot if his injury ends his career and at the same time Willis will be happy. The pay would also be worth if for the
Bills if Willis can play again. You can't just offer a real low offer that a second rounder or lower would get, because then Willis would be insulted and could just hold out and make himself eligible for the draft next year. If that happened and he was healthy by then, he most likely would be selected much higher and recieve a lot more guaranteed money.

[Dozerdog]

It's going to be heavily incentive laden. Mcgahee will be a wealthy guy if he recovers, but don't expect a stock lump of money for his draft position.

What's he going to do? Hold out? This plays directly into the Bills hands.


The Bills will treat him fairly, but he's not going to rake in the moolah without prooving himself. Even WMcG realizes that. The Bill already have made that leap of faith by selecting him in the 1st round.

[mypoorfriendme]

his agent said before signing him will not be a problem for the team that selects him and there is no way TD will let him go. this deal will be very confusing but i think it will be one of those things where he needs to play on 75% of offensive downs or something like that after this season. under no circumstances should he get paid as a top 5 pick or a second round pick. fact of the matter is, he was the 23rd player taken and should be paid like that

[SamAdamsFan]

I agree. I wasn't clear in my previous post, when I mentioned first round pay I didn't mean he should get a signing bonus and the salary of a top 5 first round pick at first. He would need to prove himself to earn that kind of money with his injury. I meant guaranteed money now slightly lower than is due the 23rd overall first round pick, in exchange for the reward of huge incentives for down the road which would make his contract potentially lucrative from 2004 and beyond. I also agree that the guaranteed money right now should be higher though than that of second round pick.

[MDFINFAN]

Originally posted by SamAdamsFan
I agree. I wasn't clear in my previous post, when I mentioned first round pay I didn't mean he should get a signing bonus and the salary of a top 5 first round pick at first. He would need to prove himself to earn that kind of money with his injury. I meant guaranteed money now slightly lower than is due the 23rd overall first round pick, in exchange for the reward of huge incentives for down the road which would make his contract potentially lucrative from 2004 and beyond. I also agree that the guaranteed money right now should be higher though than that of second round pick.

But would that be fair, remember you would normally pay a 1st rd, 23rd pick a certain amount of money regardless..and it's not paid after he's performed, but based on his drafting position. When paying 1st round picks, it's based on what the team thinks of him to draft him that high in the first place, so can you really pay him less the norm, just because he's injured and you knew this while drafting him.

[Doc]

McGahee deserves a contract befitting the 23rd pick in the draft. Incentives will be added in, but if he or Rosenhaus thinks he deserves to be paid like a top 3 pick just because he was one before injury, they've got another thing coming.

[Jan Reimers]

I agree. We drafted him 23rd. He should be paid no more or less than 23rd money.