NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement

Article 27
Veteran Salary Benefit

Section 14
Player Returning to Old Club

A player whose prior contract was terminated may sign a Qualifying Contract with his “Old Club”(defined as the Club that held contractual rights to the player’s services on the final day of the prior regular season or last postseason game), provided that the Old Club did not, on or after January 1 in the calendar year that preceded the calendar year in which his contract was terminated, (a) renegotiate and/or extend his prior contract to increase or guarantee compensation or to convert nonguaranteed compensation to a signing bonus allocation, for more than the maximum Additional Compensation amount in any League Year of the contract for which the player has received or will receive compensation, or (b) sign the player to a new multiyear contract for more than the applicable Minimum Salary in any League Year of the contract plus additional Salary above the maximum Additional Compensation amount in any League Year of the contract for which the player has received or will receive compensation, and further provided that (c) the sum of any acceleration from Signing Bonus that was agreed to in a contract executed on or after January 1 in the calendar year in which the contract was terminated and any other Additional Compensation that the player has received or will receive from that terminated contract does not exceed the maximum Additional Compensation amount. For purposes of the immediately preceding clause (c) only, any acceleration of signing bonus will be counted in the League Year of the contract’s termination regardless of whether the contract was terminated before or after June 1, and signing bonus proration for the final League Year of a contract terminated after June 1 in the contract’s next to last League Year will be considered to be accelerated. For example, if on January 1, 2021 a player signs a two-year contract for the minimum Paragraph 5 Salary in both years and a $200,000 signing bonus, and his contract is terminated on June 2, 2021, the player is not eligible to sign a 2021 Qualifying Contract with his Old Club because the sum of the acceleration of the 2022 prorated portion of the signing bonus ($100,000) that was agreed to in the year of his contract termination and the 2021 prorated portion of signing bonus from that terminated contract ($100,000) resulted in “additional compensation” of more than $137,500 in 2021. However, if the contract was signed on December 1, 2020, and the contract is terminated on June 2, 2021, the player is eligible to sign a Qualifying Contract with his Old Club if that contract includes no more than $37,500 in Additional Compensation.