Earl Thomas a reminder of Gronk's incentive to play hurt

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FOXBORO - You know the story by now.

Seahawks safety Earl Thomas, 29, and entering the final year of his four-year, $40 million contract, held out all the way until September hoping to get a new deal either in Seattle or with a new team. 

He didn’t get it. On Sunday, he broke his leg – the second broken leg he’s suffered in three seasons – and his year is over. What’s next? Hard to tell.

But this is the nature of the business.

CURRAN'S HARD TRUTHS:

The contract agreed to in 2014 says Thomas would play the 2018 season for an $8.5M salary. A deal’s a deal.

But human nature doesn’t always dovetail neatly with the nature of the business.

Thomas only had to look around the changed Seahawks locker room to know how dangerous, fleeting and merciless the game is. Whenever Cliff Avril and Kam Chancellor sat before neck injuries drove both from the game, those spots were reminders to Thomas that the next deal isn’t guaranteed. 

He only had to look at the list of contracts being handed out in the 2017 offseason to see that the fast-rising salary cap had made his deal obsolete.

While some of the details are different, overall, there’s very little difference between Thomas’ situation and that of Rob Gronkowski.

When Gronk signed his six-year, $54M contract extension in June of 2012, it was a win-win for him and the Patriots. The team realized it had a generationally great player. Gronk – understanding his football mortality thanks to back injuries he’d suffered already – understood this was security and set-for-life money.

But as the years have passed and Gronk’s built a Hall of Fame resume, his contract also has become outdated.

Hard-line view?

The Patriots bet on him when he was coming off an ankle that limited him in Super Bowl XLVI. Through the broken arm, the ACL, the back surgeries, all of it, the checks have cleared. They’ve made their incentive-based tweaks the past two years. A deal’s a deal. And Gronk’s got another year left after this so the team will probably once again have to tweak it. Whaddya want? The guy had a motocross helmet on in April, boycotted the offseason and was threatening to retire and they STILL gave him the chance to make more money in 2018 with incentives that include playing time and per-game roster bonuses.

Which brings us to Thursday night. Gronk’s ankle hurts. He didn’t finish the game Sunday against Miami. He didn’t participate in practices Monday and Tuesday and was limited in the Wednesday walkthrough.

But he’s expected to play tonight and one could see why he’d push through if that money is important to him. The playing-time incentive – 80 percent of the plays – is the only one he’s meeting so far (he’s played 88 percent of the snaps). He’s on pace for 68 catches, 932 yards and four touchdowns. He needs 70-plus, 1,085-plus and nine-plus to cash in.

Any time a player is battling for playing-time incentives – especially a player who’s made it so apparent that he feels underpaid and wants the team to give him more – the question inevitably arises when he plays while hurt as to whether he’d sit if he didn’t have money riding on it.  

As much as people want to just talk about the game on the field, the X's and O's and the performance, the business and the football are inextricably linked, especially when incentives are involved.

Earlier this week, Patriots defensive back Jason McCourty talked about the Earl Thomas situation on Quick Slants.

“If you hold out, you’re selfish and you’re not a team guy,” he said. “You show up. You go out there and play. You get hurt. And everyone says you should have held out. And that’s the part that sucks.

“[Thomas], [holdout Steelers running back] LeVeon Bell, we sit there and watch [and think], 'He should be with his team...' Bell’s teammates said stuff. At the end of the day, I think guys of that stature who played as well as they’ve played, give them the contract they deserve.
 
You wish it would turn out that way, you hate to see them go down with an injury and obviously you see how he feels about the Seahawks.”

Referring to Thomas raising his middle finger to the Seahawks bench as he was wheeled off the field, Devin McCourty said, “I know people will criticize him heavy for sticking the finger up but at the end of the day I always remind people: football players are humans.

“You go through something like that and your emotions of, 'I shouldn’t go back…' then you decide for your team and the guys you compete with and you go [back] and just hope you don’t get hurt. He probably looked at his leg and knew it was over.”

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