Apparently the Houston Texans want to give Dan Orlovsky and Matt Leinart some extra incentive to compete for the No. 2 quarterback spot.
The Texans have slashed Orlovsky’s base salary from $2.25 million to $850,000, the Houston Chronicle reports. Presumably, Orlovsky agreed to that because the Texans told him they’d cut him and hand the No. 2 job to Leinart otherwise.
Where the Leinart-Orlovsky competition gets interesting is that Orlovsky will get a $25,000 bonus for every game he’s the No. 2 quarterback, rather than the third-string emergency quarterback. As we’ve previously noted, Leinart has a similar provision in his deal, paying him $23,125 for each game he’s designated the team’s No. 2 quarterback.
So while Matt Schaub is comfortably entrenched as the Texans’ starter, each week in practice the competition for the No. 2 spot will be worth a nice chunk of change to Orlovsky and Leinart.
I like it. I think that’s a good move by Texan mgt.
As a Texans’ fan, I hope neither one of these morons even reach the field this season… even if Houston is up 40 pts with 1 minute left in the game. They both suck!
brilliant.
So he only gets paid the bonus if he’s the #2? I guess he’s hoping that Schaub doesn’t get injured and he has to take over as #1! Then he won’t get paid…
Of course, I’d be very happy to get paid $25k per week to be a backup.
pretty smart imo, keeps these guys ready and gives some motivation to as couple of talented qb’s that seem to be un motivated at times.
but if Schaub goes down so goes are season….
Lionheart already has millions paid to him, although most is probably gone, seems like chump change to him.
This is the equivalent of watching two bums fight over a dollar bill……except for the fact that two bums fighting over a dollar could actually be interesting.
So they’re essentially paying a bonus to a bum no matter whioch one is the #2…….. Neither one of them can play. Orlovsky will always be the guy who ran out of the end zone and Leinart will always be rememebred for…………nothing really, he didn’t accomplish a thing in the pro’s.
So the Texans can save $1,875 each week by having Leinart as the #2.
Orlovsky has nothing to worry about. Leinart is in the middle of his Suckfest 2010 Road Show.
I find it appalling that you would have to pay someone to want to do their best for you each week. Just another owner/slave tactic to low-rate the players of the league.
What makes it even more disgusting is that the two ‘men’ agreed to this charade!
Man, I would kill for the chance to earn a $25K BONUS each WEEK.
Was any other evidence ever needed for why players that are in demand hold the managements feet to the flame to get the biggest deal they can.
This is how they would be treated if the teams could.
Cancel your contract and compete with this new guy that just showed up. or we will cut you.
I am curious as to the exact terms and conditions included in the player contracts regarding these bonuses. Purely speculating, but it would make more sense that the bonus is tied to whether the player is active for the weekly game roster.
As I understand the game day active roster, 45 players are designated as active for the game, additional a team can designate 1 player as their emergency QB – who can only play if both the 1st and 2nd string QBs are injured and they are not allowed to return to the game once the emergency QB inserted. However, a team does not have to designate an emergency QB and can instead opt to activate all 3 (or even 4 QBs if they carry that many on their roster) for the game. The emergency QB option was created because even a team’s 3rd string QB doesn’t typically play on special teams, therefore that active roster spot would contribute virtually nothing by way of game participation . . . whereas a back up S/CB/TE/WR/etc. could contribute on special teams even if they don’t take any off or def snaps.
So given my understanding of the active game day roster, I would speculate that this incentive bonus is actually tied to whether the player is active on game day, not what their designated depth chart positioning has been defined as. So if the Texans choose to activate all 3 QBs for a given game, then both of the players would get this bonus. Or in the event that Schaub is injured (or late in the season the Texans have locked up their playoff position and decide to rest Schaub) and one back-up QB is named the interim starter and the other is active as the back-up, both players would again get this bonus. Reverse of that, both of these players might not get this bonus if the Texans decided for a game to only designate an emergency QB and de-activate the other QB – Parcels actually did this once with the Jets when Tupa was the punter – he had been a college QB and converted to punter in the pros.
If my speculation is accurate then defining these potential bonuses as #2QB bonuses is not accurate. The bonuses a likely to be based on being designated as active on the weekly game roster.
jlbay: That’s exactly what I figured it was. I don’t think it would be possible to distinguish otherwise.