The presence of poison pill clauses has changed the way sports contracts are being negotiated.

Let the record show that the Minnesota Vikings are officially responsible for the Bayside-Valley rivalry that now exists between Purple People Eaters and the Seattle Seahawks. With their 7-year $49 million dollar poison pill laden offer to Seattle Seahawks guard Steve Hutchinson, the Minnesota Vikings became the most hated team in the U.S. Northwest since the 1994 Dikembe Mutumbo led-Denver Nuggets.  Offer sheets and free agent player losses are a norm in sports, no big deal. But when a player is lost to a poison pill contract, look out. 

The poison pill in the Vikings’ offer to Hutchinson is actually kind of ingenious. The clause states that if Hutchinson isn’t the highest paid offensive lineman on the team then the rest of his contract becomes guaranteed. This is an important clause because virtually no one in the NFL gets a guaranteed contract. Guaranteed contracts in the NFL are about as rare as seeing a pizza delivery guy in a BMW.  What makes the clause so ingenious is that the Seahawks already have OT Walter Jones under contract and as long as Jones remains a Seahawk he will always be paid more than an OG because tackles have so much more value. Hence the Seahawks had to let one of the best young OGs walk away for free.

In retaliation to the Hutchinson signing the Vikings offered their own 7-year $49 million offer sheet to Vikes WR Nate Bureleson; and yup you guessed it, the offer included a poison pill, make that two actually. The first poison pill states that Burleson’s contract must be guaranteed if his salary exceeds the combined salaries of all the team’s running backs.  Since Seahawks RB Shaun Alexander just signed a nice new massive contract there’s no danger of Burleson topping Seattle’s RBs salaries, but he most certainly would in Minnesota. The second poison pill is about as conniving as you can get. If Burleson plays 5 or more games in the state of Minnesota during any year of the contract, his contract becomes guaranteed.  Even the studio that approved the title of Jennifer Love Hewitt’s movie, Garfield - A Tale of Two Kitties (yes, kitties) would be able to tell you that the poison pill conduct of the Vikings and Seahawks pushed the limits of good judgment a little too far.

The NFL has already spoken out against the use of poison pill contracts for obvious reasons but it certainly makes you wonder why other leagues have tried to stretch the parameters of their CBAs as the NFL has done.  The NHL is in the midst of their free agency period and what a different competitive landscape it would be if teams were undercutting each other with poison pill contracts. Just picture if the New York Rangers made a pitch for Senators’ restricted free agent Martin Havlat with a contract provision stating that a contract bonus would kick in if he played more than 50% of his games in the province of Ontario.  The Sens would be forced to let him go.  The NHL actually did have its own version of a poison pill contract even before the name for a devastating clause became part of our sports vernacular.

Sergei Fedorov missed much of the 1997-98 season due to a contract holdout with the Red Wings and if it weren’t for the Carolina Hurricanes and their brazen contract offer strategy, Fedorov would have likely sat out the entire season awaiting the right offer from Detroit. As it turns out, the restricted free agent had his monetary request met by the Wings but only because they had no choice.

The Hurricanes had just moved to Carolina and were eager to make a big splash by acquiring a marquee player. The Canes offered Fedorov a six-year $38 million contract that included a big poison pill. The offer included a $14 million signing bonus and a $12 million accelerated bonus if the team reached the conference finals. At the time the Canes were a weak team that had little hope of making it that far in the playoffs, let alone making it to the postseason. The Wings on the other hand were the NHL’s top club and a sure bet to make it to at least the Western Conference finals.  Rather than taking the Canes five first round draft picks as compensation the Wings decided to retain Fedorov and thus had to adhere to the Canes contract terms. In the end the Wings ended up paying Fedorov $28 million ($2 million base salary, $14M signing bonus and $12M bonus because the Wings went on to win the Stanley Cup) to play 21 regular season games and 22 playoff games, which works out to be $651,162 per game.

As evidenced, poison pills are a dangerous tool of the trade that can ruin teams financially, rob them of their ability to retain quality players and generally compromise good faith bargaining…perhaps we should seriously think about renaming these clauses as the Isiah Thomas contract feature.