....was $1,919,468.00 when he signed his rookie 4-year contract. That's $479,867.00 per year. The signing bonus is essentially a payroll advance on future performance - a performance that we will likely not see from Martin. If Martin were to walk away from football, take time off, or whatever he discussed with Philbin when he declared his intent to leave, Martin could be liable to repay over half of that signing bonus, plus forfeit the remaining 2 years on his contract. Let's prorate the bonus out over 1 year and 7 games, which is how much he played before his current hiatus, and that comes out to a repayment just over $1.2 million dollars that Martin would have to fork over if he just walked away. We saw it happen with Ricky Williams. We saw it challenged in court where Michael Vick was ordered to repay a portion of his bonus to the Atlanta Falcons. We also saw the signing bonus issue come up with Tim Tebow when he was traded to the NY Jets, and it was reported that he had already been advanced future salaries by the Broncos. After Martin declared his intentions to leave the team, I can see cut-throat financial manager Dawn Aponte sending Martin a friendly reminder to make a check payable to the Miami Dolphins to kindly repay the $1.2 million bonus should he refuse to return to the team. I don't excuse Incoginto for his actions, but I am beginning to believe Martin is completely motivated by money. All of these "bullying" allegations came out after Martin met with coaches, but right around the time that Aponte would need to make a roster designation (non-football injury list vs active roster) - which by the way directly effects Martins take home pay. At first this was a case of an over-stressed player, or "mental illness" if you want to be scientfic, and then when his paycheck is effected, it becomes a case of "bullying". Well played by Martin's lawyers, but this ploy reeks of money grubbing selfishness.
The Dolphins should just give him the money and move on at this point, he's showing that he and his team are willing to go nuclear if they don't get their way. I think if he walks away voluntarily he should repay his bonus but he's not going to do that and this is not going away.
Well he did walk away voluntarily. Nobody forced him to leave. He never reported bullying, and never tried to remedy the situation. He just left.
Always nice to just find a neat way to clean up the mess. So law and order can take over again. Neat, clear conclusions. We need one of those. Then we can get excited for Tampa.
Just pay the guy the money and let it be. Why are we creating more distractions over that rookie contract? Ross has thrown away money down the garbage before - see Mike Wallace, Brian Hartline, Ellerbe, Wheeler, 10 million dollar donation for stadium renovations. 500 thousand is the least of his issues. I want Jonathan Martin to go away, and never come back. I don't want to hear him expose more things about the Dolphins to feed ESPN and eveyr other news outlet more crap. As if they already don't have enough bad things to say about us.
