Running back Clinton Portis accepted the sweetest handoff of his career Monday.
The Washington Redskins agreed to hand Portis the richest deal given to a running back: an eight-year, $50.5 million contract that includes $17 million in combined signing and option bonuses, ESPN.com reported, citing several league sources.
The bonuses include $13 million up front and another roster bonus of $4 million - the type of money Denver was unwilling to pay - as well as veteran minimum base salaries.
But with all the bonus money Washington is giving Portis, the minimum salaries mean little.
"Wow, I wish I could get something like that," said Broncos fullback Reuben Droughns, scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent Wednesday. "He deserves everything he gets. I'm just sorry the Broncos couldn't get anything done with him. Yeah, he's a little flamboyant, but that's what you need at that position."
Portis' deal is the first of what will be two big ones this week. The other will come when cornerback Champ Bailey, the player the Redskins are trading along with their second-round pick for Portis, signs his seven-year contract with the Broncos. The deal could be signed as early as today.
The numbers for Portis were startling. What made them even more so was that he had two years remaining on a contract that was scheduled to pay him $380,000 this season and $455,000 next season.
Bidding against nobody, the Redskins agreed to give Portis the richest running back contract in NFL history, with much of the money backloaded.
Until Portis' deal, the Tennessee Titans' Eddie George held the record for the largest signing bonus given to a running back. George nabbed a $14 million signing bonus that was included in a six-year, $42 million deal.
The other most lucrative deals given to running backs, according to NFL Players Association Information Reports, included:
* Former Bronco Terrell Davis landing a seven-year, $56 million contract that included a $10.9 million signing bonus.
* Former Cowboy Emmitt Smith getting a seven-year, $42 million contract that included a $10.5 million signing bonus.
* The Chiefs' Priest Holmes getting a seven-year, $45.5 million contract that included a $10 million signing bonus.
* The Jets' Curtis Martin getting a seven-year, $36.4 million contract that included a $10 million signing bonus.
* The Rams' Marshall Faulk commanding a seven-year, $46.2 million contract that included a $9.3 million signing bonus.
Now Portis has put up numbers other backs around the league will envy.
"Seventeen million is 17 million, however you want to put it," Droughns said.
As word of Portis' deal spread around the Broncos' organization, offensive tackle Matt Lepsis joked that he and his fellow linemen were entitled to a small commission.
"Just a million apiece," Lepsis said. "I'm sure he'd be willing to give us a piece. He can still have quite a bit of it left over. But that's good for him. This trade will be good for him, and it'll obviously be good for us."
The biggest trade of Pat Bowlen's ownership tenure with the Broncos will become official today. But Bowlen said the seeds were sown last month when Clinton Portis' agent demanded the Broncos make his client the highest-paid running back in the game - nothing less.
Had Portis been willing to compromise in some form, Bowlen said the trade that sent shock waves from Washington to Colorado never would have happened.
Portis' agent, Drew Rosenhaus, declined to comment when reached Wednesday.
Asked how much today's trade was the result of Portis' desire to cash in, Bowlen replied: "All of it. If Portis would have come in and said, 'Look, I'll play next year for my existing contract. All I want is for you to give me a personal assurance that you'll renegotiate my contract next year and it'll be up there close to the top-paid guy in the game,' I don't think we would have blinked at all. We would have said, 'Sure, that's exactly what we'll do.'
"But it didn't come down like that. He wanted the money, the big money."
The Broncos feared Portis would hold out until the 11th game of the season, the last date he could report and have the upcoming season count as one that would bring him one year closer to becoming a free agent.
To prevent a holdout, Bowlen said he insisted his team attempt to make con- cessions. The Broncos offered Portis a $15 million insurance policy through Lloyd's of London, only to see the running back reject it.
"Man, I'm not accepting no insurance policies," Portis said at last month's Pro Bowl. "I've got my own. Insurance doesn't do anything for me. There's not the guarantee."
In turn, Bowlen said Denver recently proposed another guarantee. Shortly before the Broncos agreed to send Portis to Washington for cornerback Champ Bailey and the Redskins' second- round pick in the April draft, Denver offered to upgrade the running back's contract while adding years to it.
Bowlen said Portis informed Denver the only contract he would accept would be one that made him the highest paid running back in the game.
"Let's understand, I liked Clinton Portis," Bowlen said. "I thought he was a first-class guy. But all this animosity over his contract started not with us, but where he was picked in the draft. He was picked in the second round, and he thought he should have been at least a mid-first round pick and gotten a good chunk of his money up front. That was always eating away at him.
"Then based on what he saw happen to some of his pals both in college and in the pros getting their knees blown out, it scared the heck out of him. He was thinking, 'Gee, I could play three years, and at the end of my third year I could tear my ACL and all of a sudden I lost the opportunity to hit the home run and land the big contract."'
When Portis balked at the Broncos' overtures, Denver suggested Rosenhaus shop Portis to another team as long as the Broncos received a first- and second-round draft choice in return. Portis did not request a trade.
A Broncos official said the team also provided Portis and his agent with two other caveats:
The first-round pick they received had to be a top-10 pick.
Should Rosenhaus fail to find a taker, Portis had to return to Denver and play under the $15 million insurance policy or a reworked deal.
Washington didn't offer its first-round pick, but it did offer Bailey and the second-round pick Denver was demanding. The trade satisfied everybody.
Washington got a Pro Bowl running back. Denver got a Pro Bowl cornerback and a second-round pick. Portis got an eight-year, $50.5 million contract that included $17 million worth of bonuses. And Bailey got a nine-year, $63 million contract that included an $18 million signing bonus.
To those who believe the Broncos should have given that money to Portis, Bowlen said: "You've got a player going into the third year of a four-year contract. Certainly he deserves to be rewarded at the appropriate time, but you can't start rewriting a four-year deal halfway into it.
"If you do after he has just completed 50 percent of his contract, in my mind you get a lineup of players that play well and think, 'I deserve a new contract.' You can't operate a business that way. I thought it was premature to ask for that. But that might have been his agent talking. I don't know whether that was Clinton talking."
03-02-2004 09:40 PM
