As John B just broke to you, the deal for Tim Tebow with the Denver Broncos has been imperiled by a disagreement over money. There's an article from the NFL where the "complex" situation Adam Schefter originally broke is outlined in further detail. According to the NFL this is a unique situation that is fairly unprecedented as no team would agree to a deal where the trading franchise attempted to recoup money from the original rookie contract, and money is rarely if ever exchanged in this manner in the NFL.This would add 5 million dollars to the cost of Tebow; the expense would fall to the Jets as the team obtaining the QB.
Why would the Jets FO agree to a such a bizarre and undesirable deal that every other team knew was foul? Because they never read the contract of the player they were trying to trade for. From the NFL:
...according to NFL.com’s Jeff Darlington, Broncos sources contend there’s no reason for the Jets to be able to back away from their decision to trade for Tebow. The Jets agreed to the trade, even announcing it on their official Twitter page, a source said. It’s their problem — not the Broncos’ — that the Jets failed to review the language of Tebow’s contract before agreeing to the trade.
Several other teams, the sources contend, were unwilling to make the trade knowing they’d have to pay nearly $5 million to the Broncos, per the language of Tebow’s original contract. The fact that the Jets didn’t do this, a source says, isn’t the Broncos’ fault.
Though the Jets announced the trade, a league source told NFL Network insider Jason La Canfora that no trade papers were filed with the NFL on this deal, so there never was a fully valid trade.
I don't mean to be a glass-is-half-shattered kind of guy, but isn't it funny that a deeply unpopular move was potentially averted by the lack of due diligence by the front office attempting to acquire Tebow? Throughout my writings and rantings in my time with SBN, I have often even wondered myself if I was too harsh on Mike T, or placed too large a portion of responsibility for team failings on his dealings. Maybe I'm jumping the gun with this report, but the Jets under Mike Tannenbaum's has been an absolute circus and the GM needs to improve his image and fix genuine team needs if he wishes to save his job, and even then it might be too late.
From the sounds of it, The Broncos are attempting to hold the Jets to a verbal binding agreement by citing their Twitter account announcement, which could actually make this a ground breaking legal and ethics case for the business as well as the courts if either team chooses to pursue the matter far enough.
The Broncos really have quite some...fortitude in making this demand, however I really have to place the fault with the Jets for not knowing the terms of the deal before they made it. It looks like the team just might escape Tim Tebow, but only by fault of the GM responsible for trying to sign him in the first place.
Words really fail me. What do you think about the potential escape from the Tebow trade? Who would you "blame" if the trade fell through?