Cooley Speaks His Mind About Jason Taylor

Jason Taylor was cut by the Redskins this week because he refused to agree to the team’s offseason workout clause. The clause would’ve required Taylor to attend 75% of the team’s workouts from mid-March through May. In return, Taylor would receive a $500,000 bonus. Taylor presumably refused this because attending the workouts in Ashburn, VA would’ve meant time away from his family in Florida. ↵↵In a post on his blog titled “JT Hates Money,” Redskins tight end Chris Cooley breaks down the madness of Taylor’s decision:↵

↵↵⇥For JT to reach his 75 percent requirement of the deal, he would have had to be hear [sic] for 39 days. Had he arrived and worked for the 39 days he would have been compensated $12,820 per day. That is unreal to me! Most people pay their own money to go to the gym, but almost 13 thousand dollars a day is a pretty good membership in the other direction. Again, I will not judge this decision and I have no idea what his bank account could possibly be, but that’s a [crap] ton of money. As for my end of the off season, I will be required to make 42 days to reach my bonus. I again would receive a check grossing $100,000. This would pay me $2300 per workout. Still pretty awesome and enough to get me into the gym. ↵↵

Obviously, Cooley has a point: That’s an absurd amount of money to turn down just to lift some weights a few times a week (not to mention the $8 mil salary he lost out on by not agreed to the clause). But there are two other factors to consider: ↵↵1) 39 days away from the family during the offseason -- those few precious months that athletes actually get to spend with the wife and kids -- is a lot to ask, I’d imagine. Of course, I’m a blogger with no family of my own, so maybe that’s not the case. Vinny Cerrato pointed out that Clinton Portis has no problem reaching his 75% quota, and he lives in Florida as well. But Portis is also a single man. ↵

↵↵2) Maybe Jason Taylor just didn’t want to be a Redskin and this was his out clause. ↵

↵↵Either way, as Redskins fan, I’m not one bit sad to see Taylor go and the team keep its $8 million-plus. Although I certainly would like to have back those two draft picks the Skins traded to Miami for Taylor’s half-season of sub-par performance. ↵

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