Tarell Brown fired his agent for a really good reason.
 

I bet the agent was really looking forward to hearing his receptionist say, "Tarell Brown on Line 2".

Seriously, it seems like this is really good lawsuit material. Isn't it the agent's job to know this stuff?


http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap100...49ers-workouts

Tarell Brown left $2 million on the table this offseason. This hardly was part of the plan.

The San Francisco 49ers cornerback was due to earn $2.925 million in 2013, the final year of his contract. To collect $2 million of that salary, he was obligated to attend offseason workouts with the team. Unaware that his attendance was contractually mandatory, Brown worked out on his own in Texas.

He didn't realize he had cost himself dearly until Thursday, when he saw reports on Twitter. He immediately fired his agent, Brian Overstreet.

"No one wants to leave money on the table," Brown said Thursday, via The Associated Press. "If I would have known the clauses in my contract -- that's what agents get paid to do, to orchestrate the contract and to let you know what you can and can't do as far as workouts and OTAs and things of that sort. That's what he got paid to do. He didn't do that, so in my opinion, you have to be let go. We all are held accountable for our actions. This is part of the business."

After finishing what we imagine was a tremendously pleasant conversation with Mr. Overstreet, Brown reached out to the 49ers. Unfortunately for the 28-year-old, "there wasn't too much I really could say."

"It had nothing to do with not being in shape, not wanting to work out, no contract problems, it just had to do with me wanting to go back home and train," Brown said. "It's something I've been doing for the past few years."


Brown said he plans to sit down with 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh in an effort to work out a compromise of some kind.

"Hope for the best," Brown said. "Pray for me."

Let's throw in a prayer for the agent, too. What a mess.

he'll never work in this town again.

Its also his job to read

Brown is a ****tard

I'm trying to imagine being Tarell Brown, checking his twitter site.

(Scroll, scroll)

Kaepernick wore a Dolphins hat? Dumba**.

(Scroll, scroll)

Looks like Harbaugh's at the grocery store.

(Scroll, scroll)

Terrell Owens should just give up. No one's going to sign him.

(Scroll, scroll)

Hey, it's about me. Tarell Brown loses two mill - wait, what? WHAT?!?!?! G** D*** M*****F****** WHAT?!?! NO! NO! WHERE'S MY F*****G AGENT?!?! WHAT'S MY F****** AGENT'S NUMBER! WHAT'S AARON HERNANDEZ'S F****** NUMBER?

(TYPE TYPE TYPE TYPE TYPE)

@AARONHERNANDEZ GIVE ME A CALL. GIVE ME A CALL RIGHT NOW.

It's the agents fault. Brown hired his agent to understand the contract. His agents only job is to know the contract. Browns job is to play football.

Also, if I'm the 49ers, I would pay the man. It's not like he was being a rebel for skipping. He was probably working out on his own. Shouldn't the 49ers have at least called him and said 'hey, I don'tknow if you realize this, vbut your contract says you need to be here.' It's a small price for the 49ers play to avoid building a reputation that they're trying to take advantage of their players.

Yeah, he should know his contract. I am guessing many players would have missed this

Dumbass agent.

I think you have to take responsibility for yourself.

That's not exactly fine print in terms of the contract wording.

Yes the agent should be fired IMO, but I don't feel sorry for the guy as it's his own responsibility to know the basic framework of his contract.

Yeah this. It is his own responsibility and talk about 2 million dollars it would be in his own interest to take note what is in the contract and ask the rep questions or read the damn thing himself.

Than what is the point of having an agent?

If I had a clause in my contract that was going to pay me an extra $100,000 bonus if I showed up for work on time every day for a year, you could guarantee that I would be aware of that clause and follow it to the letter. This stupid mother ****er just assumes everything is being taken care of by somebody else.

The 49ers have no obligation to let him know about this contract clause and they shouldn't call him and alert him of the clause. He should take responsibility for his own requirements. His agent screwed up by not reminding him of the workout clause, but JFC it's part of your job to know what your contract says.

To negotiate on yourbehalf. Do you know what happens if you don't know you're own contract? You get ****ed over.

I hope his agent has a good E&O policy because he is going to be sued.

To negotiate the contract and help write it in a way that it is legally binding. Not to play babysitter and make sure the dumbass player is reminded of a pretty big clause in the contract. I guarantee you that the agent let this guy know about the clause when the contract was negotiated.

Sued for what?

So now he gives a shit about OTA's?

Got it.

Bad day at the office for all...

I don't know about sued, but I bet he lost a nice chunk of that $2 million himself. What's going commission for agents?

Edit: A quick search says about 4% on avg so that's 80K from the agent. Not as much as I thought.

He paid for a service from the agent and the agent failed to adequately provide that service resulting in $2 mil damage.

I wish we had such a clause in the Royals owner's deal for home games... I'd love it if that ****er had to show his face at games!

This. He sure as hell ought to be sued.

That was my initial reaction, but now I wonder if the contracts that agents sign with players includes some sort of "you are ultimately responsible" clause. If not, I'll bet they will now.

Not that it matters for that agent. I suspect that he'll never get work again.

That's the problem. Nobody is responsible for their own actions anymore.

Exactly what for though?

The agent just says to the courts "of course I told him XYZ...."

You never really know what the course of communication was when the contract was negotitated and signed or when Brown made the decision to stay at home and not attend the off season workouts.

Did he even call or write the agent Overstreet and tell him that he wanted an answer on that decision before he made it?

I doubt there is going to be any lawsuit because there probably are some letters or e-mails from when the contract was signed specifically explaining the bonuses and Brown probably did not even call or write the agent to ask about his decision not to attend workouts.

From Googling his name, looks like Overstreet has a lot of name players and maybe they are satisfied with his representation.

If Brown did not know that 2/3 of his salary depended on 1 bonus, I would not assume that he never got that specific information in a separate writing from the signed contract. Of course, the signed player contract has too many pages, but more than likely he got that inforamtion in a one page summary or e-mail.

Agreed for the most part, especially the last line. You pay an agent to watch your contract for you. That agent lost commission on$2 million because he didn't do his job.

Not really. Most people wouldn't understand the language the lawyers use in these contracts. That's the point of an agent. To read the contract and interpret it to the player.

If I'm paying someone a certain % of my money to orchestrate contracts and negotiate on my behalf, they better tell me things like this.

For you and I? Sure.

But if you hire someone to do nothing but monitor your food and make sure there are no peanuts in it, then you get used to knowing that said food montitorer is monitoring your food and as yet you have not gone into shock from eating a peanut.

Then somebody slips in a peanut, he misses it, you go into shock. Why? Because you hired this man for precisely this reason and in the course of your working relationship together, you have ceded that control to him. If he never existed, you'd have seen the peanut, but dammit you weren't looking for it because that's what you pay this idiot for.

That's the role of agents - to literally do all of this. They're business managers, contract handlers and guys that stay on top of their client. Tarell Brown hired this agent and likely paid him 5-10% of his hard earned salary to make damn sure that contract terms, schedules, etc... aren't his problem.

I don't see how it's still incumbent upon Brown to do his agent's work.

View Tarell Brown as a business. View him as the sole owner and product developer. Now view his agent as the CEO and CFO. That's his agents role here - to administer the business. Brown's role is simply to create the product. If the agent forgets to pay taxes and balance the books while Brown is out building the next money-making product for the company, Browns only failure is that he trusted the wrong guy.

To blame Brown for not catching contract terms is silly - he hired this man and paid him a six-figure income precisely so he wouldn't have to worry about that sort of thing.

Now if you're the 49ers, however, you know you have Brown as a pending FA and perhaps you may want to use this as a jumping off point for a potential contract extension. "Sure, Tarell; we'll honor your bonus, but as part of this extension that's a hair under market and structured in a team friendly manner".

OTOH, the agent lost money too so I bet it was explained, but he wasn't listening, only seeing dollar signs.

All that should be done before he signs on the dotted line. From my understanding how negotiations work is the agent goes back and forth from player to front office and informs both sides what kind of deal needs to get done. He should be telling in detail what is in the contract and the player damn well should be asking questions. No real excuse for the player to not have known about a little detail that he should show up for team practice for 2mil$$. Can blame the agent but it's still his responsibility before he signs the paper what is in it.

How about if you are being paid millions to play football you just show up voluntarily to offseason workouts? Why does it take a multi-million dollar clause to get you show?

Some players just like to work out on their own.11 of San Francisco's 22 starters didn't go to OTAs. If you're familiar with the system and know it's not going to change, it's not that big of a deal if you skip OTAs and train on your own.

http://blogs.sacbee.com/49ers/archiv...-absences.html

And one didn't get paid ROFL

i think the agent has a leg to stand on though,

its not like Overstreet is some nobody or Browns cousin brother uncle given an agent job. Overstreet reps a lot of mid tier serviceable NFL players.

So if you think Overstreet didnt have the wording of that contract correct or helps his clients think again.

The guy has to deal with players like Dre Kirkpatrick and Nick Fairley I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt his company told Brown to get the **** to practice soon,

like he probably did any of his other clients with camp escalators.

I find this whole thing funny.... I know the agent should have told him, but he's pretty stupid for A) not thinking that being with his team is better than working out alone (it just sounds very non-team-player'esque) and B) not knowing that such things are a requirement in the industry.

And last, how isolated is this ****. You'd think that at least one team player might have asked him what he's doing during the OTA and maybe they could hang out. If he had friends and they talked, they may have told him that OTA's might not be optional.

Oh well, it's only $2M...

Sorry, I just can't feel bad or have any empathy for this guy.

A lot of people here don't sign an actual contract for work salaries, but I know how much I get paid, and what for, and what my vacation days are and how they work, sick/personal days etc, and how much I make working OT and how many hours of OT I work. I normally know how many hours I've taken for lunch within the week. etc.

I don't see how this is any different for an NFL player knowing what exactly they're getting paid for etc.

A) For off season workouts, a lot of players work out on their own with their own trainers.

B) OTAs are not a requirement

OTAs are optional.

Yes, I'm sure your contract is exactly like an NFL player's contract. No way an NFL contract is more complex and contains more contractual nuances than yours. LMAO

:doh!: That is why it is a contract. These football players are too busy Big Pimpin' instead of reading their contracts and watching their money.

9ers won't pay him shit- it would probably violate the collective bargin agreement? :hmmm:

This. He says, "pray for me"...oh, dear God, I hope he can live on that other $925K. If I were set to make almost $3M, I would be darn sure I knew the parameters of the contract.

He hired and paid an agent to negotiate a complex contract. He is paying an agent to represent him. My guess is, the contract is so complex that most nfl players lack the education to understand, otherwise they wouldn't pay to be represented.

You're right on the 49ers. But it's just bad practice on their part.

Its possible that brown was told and just didn't show up. If he wasn't told, that's just bad business practice for both the team and his agent not to raise the flag.

Oh, I know, but when the optional costs you a mere $2M for executing the option, regardless of who's job it was to know that, I'm not sure it's a bit not optional.

That being said, there's no way to build a team, especially a sports team, 1,000 miles apart so the clause is awesome because there are idiots out like this **** who'd make this kind of coin and opt-out of being with his team mates. So him thinking that the team would be better-served by working out on his own tends to make me wonder about his commitment to the team. Plenty will schluff it off, but A) some people showed up (maybe not because it'd cost them $2M otherwise), and B) he didn't think it'd help (enough) to be there. Is this clown some Zach and needs his Mommy more than the team? LOL!

I just disagree and think that if he's only worried about the $2M, he was expendable anyway.

Trust falls and bowling outings FTW!

It amazes me how badly some people want professional sports to resemble their own experiences with team sports at the youth and high school level. These are grown men with lives outside of football.

You ever consider that Terrell doesn't have the law degree needed to understand everything in his contract??? THAT"S WHY YOU PAY SOMEONE FOR THAT KNOWLEDGE!!!

Yes, I'm sure his agent didn't tell him all these important details (rolleyes). I'd be willing to bet the agent sent said player the contract, maybe even outlined it or highlighted it for this guy, and said player didn't even read it. Now he's all like "see, it's all your fault!"

If I was SF I'd definitel get the agent's side of the story too. And, future note to all agents--when sending important documents to client, send it certified mail.

Oh FFS, it's not the teams or the agents job to remind this jackass that he has a workout clause in his contract. I'm 100% positive this was covered with the player when the contract was signed. An agent is not a babysitter. They are paid to negotiate the contract, disclose the parameters of that contract to the player, and take care of any other legal issues such as endorsements that the player may have. It's the players responsibility to listen to what the agent tells them is in the contract and act on that information accordingly.

Anyone who has ever worked with a head hunter to find an acquire a job knows this.

You're missing the point.

This is a major stipulation of the contract....not something that is in fine print somewhere buried in a 100 page document.

Let me ask you this? At your current or past job, did you know how much you made to the dollar and what for and how many hours you worked and how much vacation time (if any) you had etc. All of us know these things.

All I'm saying is this....if I was an NFL player getting paid millions to just make appearances and show up to practice, you bet your ass I'm going to know exactly how much I'm getting paid and when and how often etc. It's not the agent's job to retain major contract info pertaining workout clause and bonuses.

Brown is a dumbass and this was a hard lesson for him to take. Notice how he's now going to beg the 49ers like it's any of their ****ing problem. Be a man and own up, stop looking to other people to blame for your failures.

I bet he knows how much guaranteed money he's supposed to get should he get cut/released.

I don't quite understand the poll options.

It truly is amazing to see the difference a generation makes.

The nanny state has already drilled into the heads of so many toddler-adults that it is the job of someone else to take care of them and lead them through life.

The world of 1984 is going to be quite easy for some of you to adapt to...

That was my initial reaction. Is it that big of a problem to attend workouts in exchange for $2 million freaking dollars?

I seriously doubt that. It's easy for a player to find an agent. With the exception of the superstar agents like Scott Boras or Drew Rosenhaus, the agent needs the player a helluva lot more than the player needs that particular agent. And I guarantee you that Boras and Rosenhaus make damn sure details like this don't get overlooked when they would cost their client MILLIONS OF DOLLARS.

Where do you go to find out who represents who?

Um, IT IS DIFFERENT because (1) NFL players are dumbasses for the most part and probably incapable of reading and understanding their contract, (2) they hire an agent to DO EXACTLY THAT for them.

Did you hire an agent to negotiate your salary, vacation days, sick days and overtime rate?

I didn't think so.

We pay our accountants and attorneys to perform certain functions which we need but don't have the expertise to perform. Same with an agent. Unless the agent informed the player of this clause and the player choose to ignore it this is 100 percent on the agent.

Actually, IT IS THE AGENT'S JOB to remind this jackass that he has a workout clause in his contract. That's one of the reasons the player pays the agent.

Your headhunter analogy is completely wrong. You don't pay the headhunter (unless you're desperate and you have no marketable skills). The company that hires you and pays your salary pays the headhunter. Your relationship with the headhunter terminates as soon as you accept the job offer.

The player's relationship with the agent is ongoing. It's totally different.

Yep. Athlete's aren't paid to be contract specialists. They're paid to perform on the field. That's what these pencil necked ****s get paid for, and they get paid very well to not **** it up. This guy ****ed it right up. Buh bye.

What a load of crap. What the **** does this have to do with a "nanny state"?

Answer: This has nothing to do with a nanny state. It's all about hiring a guy to do a job for you and him failing to do the job.

If I hire a tax attorney to make sure I avoid every tax that I can legally avoid, I will fire his ass if he misses some tiny little detail that winds up costing me two million dollars. The tax attorney isn't my nanny: he's a professional that I pay to perform a service.

Well, then him paying $2M for a little more "life" prolly shouldn't bother him then. Or...........was that "life and family" not worth a mere $2M? We'll know by how he reacts....

Meh, it's only money, he got mom-time... Good for him, and his agent should be commended for helping it happen perhaps.

That's complete bullshit. It's the agents job to tell the player what is in the contract. After that it is the player's responsibility to follow the contract. Working out, taking care of their bodies, and playing football is an NFL player's job. If he doesn't care enough to remember a clause in his contract that will pay him 2 FREAKING MILLION DOLLARS, then the fault is his own.

If the tax attorney tells you "keep your receipts for all business transactions", and you "forget" that he has told you that, is it the attorney's fault that you are ****ed at tax time?

For having a total dumbshit for a client.

Did you even read the OP? Brown was never told.

So...you're making up your own facts now?

So you believe that Brown was never told about a 2 million dollar clause in his contract? You do realize you are taking the word of a player who just lost 2 million dollars.

This is an experienced agent. I'm more willing to believe that the agent told Brown and he was too busy daydreaming about what color Escalade he was going to buy to pay attention.

This is the final year of contract....did the contract say he could go off by himself in the previous years and just require him in camp the last year?

Brown's statements aren't facts.

So you believe that a player passed up the chance to make 2 million dollars?

LMAO Oh, you're one of those guys. But hey, continue making up your own facts to make yourself feel better.

And your assumptions are...?

No, not at all, but I'm not the dumbass that used the word facts.

The agent is getting paid to do this. It's not like he's doing this out of the goodness of his heart. If his client has a clause that could cost him $2M, your agent sure as shit better tell his client to do it. What, do you think that every football player has a Microsoft Outlook Calendar and loads into it that 3 years from today, you have to make sure to attend a workout?

Do you hire an accountant to do your taxes? Or a financial planner? Is it your job to micromanage those people? Or do you think that when you pay those people money, it's their responsibility to take care of you?

What else do we have to go off of right now? It's very likely that Overstreet either didn't know about the bonus himself or he neglected to tell Brown. It's not very likely Brown knew he could make 2 million dollars from just working out and declined. His base salary is $900,000 this season. No way he would have turned down the opportunity to make $2,000,000 in the off season.

The agent has done his job so long as he explained this obligation to the client before the contract was signed. Assuming that happened, the agent isn't necessarily in wrong here. However, it would be better quality service as an adviser and in their own best interest to make efforts to remind the client about this provision and particularly as it seemed to only be applicable in the final year of the deal.

No offense but it's clear that you aren't used to dealing with "talent".

People who earn a living from their "talent" hire others to maintain their finances, make deals in their best interest and inform them, daily if necessary, of their contractual obligations.

Doing so allows them to focus on their job, whether it's as a sports, music or movie star.

From what's been released publicly to date, it appears that the agent failed his client.

I bet his agent told him it was 200 million pennies, so he just ignored it.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/GxGHUBSIPZg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>


why aren't Balinese dancers trending higher?

The agent screwed himself as well.

Agents are allowed a maximum of 3% of their player's earnings, but those earning must be paid before an agent receives his portion.

So this guy screwed himself for as much as $60k.

That is a really good point. It would seem that in the general business context reminding him about the provision would be good client service but in the context of an agent representing a player/talent there is an expectation of that.

Welp, he can always deliver pizzas to make-up the difference...

LMAO

Simon Bar Sinister