Vikings despite matching with exactly the same contract. An arbitrator ruled in favor of the Vikings, and the Seahawks were essentially unable to match and received no compensation. In an act of apparent revenge, the Seattle Seahawks included their own "poison pills" when signing restricted free agent wide receiver Nate Burleson. The total contract was seven years and $49 million—not coincidentally the exact amount of the contract Hutchinson received from the Vikings. The first poison pill stipulated that the entire contract would be guaranteed if Burleson played five or more games in the state of Minnesota during any year of the contract. This of course would be impossible as a member of the Seahawks, but an inevitability as a member of the Vikings, who played their home games in the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minnesota. The second provision would guarantee the full contract if Burleson is paid more on average per year than all of his team's running backs combined. At the time of his signing, the averages of the Vikings' tailbacks fell well shy of the $7 million average of the Burleson offer sheet. However in Seattle, running back Shaun Alexander alone made an average of over $7 million per year. In 2011, the NFL and NFLPA ratified a new collective bargaining agreement. In this agreement, poison pill clauses were eliminated from offer sheets issued to players under the transition tag. The specific language in the CBA states: "No Offer Sheet may contain a Principal Term that would create rights or obligations for the Old Club that differ in any way (including but not limited to the amount of compensation that would be paid, the circumstances in which compensation would be guaranteed, or the circumstances in which other contractual rights would or would not vest) from the rights or obligations that such Principal Term would create for the Club extending the Offer Sheet (i.e., no 'poison pills')." The effect of this additional language has resulted in the transition tag being useful to teams again. In 2014, the Pittsburgh Steelers applied the transition tag to Jason Worilds and the Cleveland Browns applied the transition tag to Alex Mack. Worilds signed his transition tag, while Mack accepted an offer sheet from Jacksonville. Cleveland later matched to the offer sheet, thus keeping Mack as a Brown. Projected 2023 transition player costs by position References External links Askthecommish.com Free Agency FAQ National