Rams get creative using nicknames, palindromes in players' contractsBy Kevin Seifert
Negotiations between the Los Angeles Rams and receiver Tavon Austin were nearly complete last summer when the real fun began. The sides had agreed to a four-year contract extension, worth between $10 million and $11 million annually. Now it was time for Tony Pastoors, the Rams' senior assistant and lead contract negotiator, to work some magic.
When it was over, Austin's deal averaged exactly $10,555,501 per year.
Look at that number carefully.
See anything?
If you recognized it as a palindrome -- a sequence that reads the same forward or backward -- you win a prize.
The numbers were no accident. In recent years, the Rams have used palindromes as one of several ways to lighten up the otherwise gray world of NFL finance. Their bag of tricks includes submitting contract proposals via haiku and personalizing the titles of incentive clauses.
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