The Tale Of How Vernon Gholston Missed Out On $9 Million

By No Guts, No Glory • March 1, 2011

This has been a pretty bad week for Vernon Gholston. The Jets just released him and to top it off, ESPN’s Adam Schefter just dropped a tweet that exemplifies Gholston’s entire career with the Jets.

Now, I’m not one to kick a man when he’s done, but some things just need to be discussed. This tale is one of those things.

So the story goes that Vernon Gholston had escalator clauses in his contract for on the field performance. Typical, right? It’s also typical that some of the escalators are gimmes for the players and others a very difficult to obtain. It would be a waste of your time to discuss the difficult escalators in Gholston’s contract, so we’ll focus on a few gimmes. Gimmes, might I add, that Gholston’s failed to to obtain.

I’ll let Schefter take it from here:

Vernon Gholston had a $9 million escalator clause in his contract for one sack or forced fumble or fumble recovery. Never got it.

Now let that soak in for a moment.

Okay, done?

Now let’s equate this to your everyday life. This is like making an extra $9 million for taking out the trash. Or showing up to work everday and doing just enough to keep the boss off your back. It’s part of your job. It’s what you do.

Apparently, playing football isn’t what Vernon Gholston does.