NFLPA Advises Vikings’ Rookies Not To Sign Contracts

Lost in the late-day excitement of the Teddy Bridgewater video from yesterday was this little tidbit from Chris Tomasson of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Apparently, the National Football League Players Association has advised the Minnesota Vikings’ rookie class to not sign the contracts that they’ve been presented with.

The NFLPA believes that there is language in the contracts that goes against the NFL’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. While there was no specification as to what language that is, a source told Tomasson that it apparently has to do with offset language and anti-tampering clauses.

Offset language addresses how much money a team might pay a player if he is waived with guaranteed money left on his deal and then signs with another team. A player, for instance, would want the ability to be paid by both teams while teams would want a commitment not to extend beyond paying any possible difference in the salaries.

While offset clauses are allowed in rookie contracts, a source said there has been an accusation that the Vikings are “conflating offset language with prohibited terms.”

Anti-tampering language relates to when and if an agent might be able to talk to another team about a player still under contract to the Vikings.

I can’t imagine that these would be terribly large hurdles to get over. . .after all, it’s not like we’ve heard about this with Vikings’ rookies over the previous couple of seasons, and you know that the NFLPA watches these sorts of things closely enough where if it had been an issue in the past, we certainly would have heard something.

Training Camp gets underway in Mankato in about two months. I’m guessing that whatever issues the Vikings’ rookies might have with their contracts will get ironed out between now and then and the Vikings will have all players present and accounted for that first day in Mankato.