He waited until September 9th last year, missed the first game and was still the NFL Defensive MVP.
In the meantime Morgan Fox is gone for the season and Obo is out for weeks and weeks. Players on other teams as well.
Why would he possibly show up? He gets 6.9 million if he plays under the last year of his contract whether he holds out or not, and around 20 million and oodles guaranteed if he signs a new contract. But he can wait and sign the first week of the season and not risk injury.
Or he can just wait some more as salaries keep going up for the very elite and he is very elite. Certainly he would get more per year signing now than had he signed last year. Next year the 20 million might be 25 million. He's certainly worth more than the 24.95 million that Andrew Luck is getting. So he can do the same thing he did last year and play it out.
On another note, let's say he ends up signing for 20 million per. He loses 2.6 million to the State of California but if he moves to say, Texas, he saves that every year. 2.6 million x a 5 year contract is 13 million over 5 years. Why not play out the year, get franchised twice and play out those years and go live and play in another state for 5 years? An extra 13 million is a lot of money when he eventually does sign and in three years it might be 30 million a year and even more savings on state taxes.
And no, he cannot just move to Texas now and work in California to avoid CA State taxes. So many people have tried that the State of California has a tax office in Dallas. The state is very aggressive at pursuing revenue.
Slight tangent here - but players who live in other states get charged taxes when they come play in CA. So if you are on the Arizona Cardinals, you come play the Rams and the 49ers in CA and you get taxed on 2 of your 16 paychecks. (Think about the Arizona Diamondback players that come play the Dodgers, the Giants and the Padres!) Executives in other industries too pay a portion of the salaries that they are in California doing business.
Anyway, I don't think it is in his best interest to report before September, new contract or not.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/25/2018 09:48PM by Ramadune.