The ability of Patriots tight end Martellus Bennett to play with a torn rotator cuff doesn’t mean that the Packers won’t have the ability to recover bonus money from Bennett.
As a source with direct experience handling grievances of this nature explained it to PFT, the question isn’t whether the player can play with the injury but whether he had an injury that he failed to disclose when he signed with his team.
It doesn’t take much to violate that standard, if a team wants to play hardball. If a players fails to list a given body part as previously injured and if the medical records from his other NFL stops say otherwise, the team has a case for recovering bonus money.
Ultimately, Bennett may have only himself to blame, if he ultimately is required to surrender millions to the Packers. It’s quite possible that he lost interest in playing for the Packers after quarterback Aaron Rodgers was injured. And it’s quite possible that Bennett, when he wasn’t traded before the deadline, decided to claim he couldn’t play due to an injured shoulder. And it’s quite possible that, through the process of trying to talk his way out of Green Bay, he said enough to give the Packers ammunition to argue that he knew he had a torn rotator cuff but failed to disclose it.
With a $6.3 million signing bonus on a three-year deal and seven of 48 games played, Bennett could be asked to return nearly $5.4 million. And if the Packers can prove that Bennett had a torn rotator cuff and failed to mention it before he signed, the Packers have a good chance to win.
Which frankly could be one of the few remaining wins they’ll have coming out of the 2017 season.