A week ago, the Raiders were regarded as the favorites to land Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb. According to Jason Cole of Yahoo! Sports, however, McNabb intended to never play for the Raiders.
Per Cole, McNabb made it known to the Eagles through McNabb’s associates that McNabb would retire if traded to Oakland.
“He has plenty of money,” a source close to McNabb told Cole. “He’s not doing anything he doesn’t want to do.”
While McNabb would have given up $11.2 million in 2010 compensation if he had retired, the Raiders would have not been able to collect money previously paid to McNabb, like the Bucs ultimately did with Jake Plummer several years ago. The signing bonus proration on McNabb’s 2002 extension concluded in 2009, and his “financial apology” from last year did not include (as far as we can tell) a signing bonus, which is the only form of compensation that can be recovered if a player retires with years remaining on the proration.