Scott MitchellVerified account ?@ScottMitchellPM 1h1 hour ago Per sources, #Riders WR Maurice Price has filed his retirement papers with the league office and doesn’t plan on playing in 2016. #CFL
Scott MitchellVerified account ?@ScottMitchellPM 25m25 minutes ago I’m told #Riders have no way of recouping the signing bonus they gave Price in January. #CFL
Darren Gill
?@cflsuperagent @ScottMitchellPM Take the signing bonus and run....great...
THIS!!!!!!!
Morley Scott ?@Morley_Scott 12m12 minutes ago Edmonton, Alberta Price collects signing bonus ..Then retires. That's the = to #CFL teams releasing players before bonus payment is due.
Well a guy who I grew up with in London, Ontario, RIP Paul Nicholson, played for the Washington Capitals for a few years and you know what they did so they didn't have to pay him some bonus money? Since he wasn't in their long term plans, they didn't play him at all in one more game, no ice time, and sent him down tot he AHL right after that game and never got called back up. He wasn't aware of the bonus if he was on the ice for so many games otherwise he would have just jumped over the boards on that last game to be sure to collect the bonus money or whatever it was called. I don't know who his agent was way back at the time.
The way the biz of pro sports works. Players should do exactly what they can get away with because the teams sure will more often than not.
Ottawa got him for Jasper Simmons and some receiver whose name escapes me now, then traded him to Saskatchewan for a pick upgrade in the 6th round and a 7th.
I can't really condone this, because I bash the league for the same kind of shenanigans against the players. It's pretty clear that he can do it within the CBA, but it's pretty sleazy.
Maybe an opportunity came up. Happens… The bonus was for signing the contract, he did sign it. This happens once for every 500 times a team cuts a player the night before his money is due.
Didn’t the Riders ( Chris Jones) cut Dressler and John Chick the night before bonuses were due ? What is good for the goose is good for the gander I guess.
If he changes his mind before the term of his contract was to be up, his rights belong to the Riders. David Archer did this to Sask post dispersal draft, went on to commentary for CFL games until his rights were cleared and then came back into the league.
And they knew it was going to happen to, or should have, because it was stated multiple times in interviews that several players needed to “take haircuts if they were going to remain with the club,” so I can imagine what was said behind closed doors.
I don’t blame/fault Price for picking up the bonus at all. Underhanded…yup…but can’t blame him for doing it. Now if he comes back it will be another thing. I am sure that whatever came up away from the game made it an easy decision though…because he did renegotiate down and extend, so he seemed to be in it for a commitment
...before he gets tagged with terms like 'underhanded' and 'sleazy' one might want to find out why he retired...it could be for a number of legitimate things that were not known at the time he signed the contract...something that honestly prevented him from playing...just saying...