burress, contracts & morals

Plaxico Burress will get his $1 million after all.

The now-ex-Giant receiver beat his old team in their arbitration fight Monday when a Special Master ruled that the Giants must pay Burress the final, $1 million payment of his signing bonus that they withheld back in September. The Giants contended that Burress' actions violated behavioral clauses in his contract that forfeited the payment.

Special Master Stephen Burbank, who heard the case last Wednesday at the University of Pennsylvania law school, did not agree.

"We agreed in the 2006 (Collective Bargaining Agreement) extension that there would be no forfieture of signing bonuses unless it was a holdout situation," NFL Players Association General Counsel Richard Berthelsen told the Daily News. "And in that case, it could only be 25 percent, but the Special Master ruled that language didn't apply."

[UPDATE]: I edited your FanPost so your quotes would indeed appear in box quotes. --bbs

A couple of things:

Firstly, what in the name of all things good and pure is a special master??? I don't know if that's common language on your side of the pond, but I have never heard that phrase before in the UK. I don't know what Mr Burbank looks like, but in my mind it's like this:

Anyway, basically, we have just had a fanpost on this site about whether the colts should consider doing a deal for plax. I think we have unanimously said NO!!! To me, it is bare faced cheek from that man to demand this one million dollars from the Giants organisation. His behaviour has been nothing short of disgraceful and he may well have cost his franchise back to back SB's through his stupidity. I can think of no other profession in the world where you could expect to receive a one million dollar bonus having done nothing productive for your employer and in fact committing a serious felony. I like to think that any reasonable human being would have declined that money on the grounds that it simply had not been earned, Lord knows, he's already made many millions of dollars. If he had done so and shown some genuine remorse for his actions then I think people would forgive him and endeavour to help him rebuild a shattered career, as it is, I can feel no sympathy for the man's troubles.

He is a model of unprofessional behaviour, selfish and egocentric, the anti-Peyton, the mere thought of him in a Colts uniform makes me ill. I am sure that the 'Special Master' has technically made the correct decision based on wording in the contract but to the average Joe this cannot make any sense and is in fact, in my opinion highly insulting to millions of hard working law abiding citizens. So I guess I'm saying this might be technically correct, but morally how can it be anything but wrong.