Jacksonville Jaguars RB Maurice Jones-Drew defends unconditional return from deal holdout – NFL News
Jacksonville Jaguars star running back Maurice Jones-Drew has defended the decision of ending the deal protest to join the team unconditionally, saying the choice of the holdout in the entire offseason programme for compelling fresh deal demand also had
a perspective of career security which at one point appeared to be compromised.
Maurice has two years left on his current contract, but he had demanded the team to work out a fresh one for him on the ground that he was underpaid. On refusal by the Jaguars to do so, he opted out of the entire offseason, mandatory minicamp, training camp
and preseason.
Until just before the start of the season, general manager Gene Smith kept asking Jones to honour the remaining tenure of his deal instead of demanding a new one and when the player finally found nothing going his way he returned to action at the start of
the season to avoid unnecessarily risking his career.
Now he has defended the decision refuting suggestions of a budge, and cited an example of New York Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis who too after seeing the team unmoved about a new contract demand accepted to play on the previous terms.
Maurice said of the situation:
"Darrelle Revis, for example. He could have held out. He wanted a new contract and, knock on wood, hopefully it doesn't happen to anyone else. But he gets a freakish injury. Now he has to rehab and do it all over again.”
He added:
"This game can be taken from us so quickly. When you're producing at a high level, as players, we feel like we should be compensated for that, and obviously that was what my holdout was for."
Lucky for Maurice, the Jaguars did not fine him for missing the mini and training camps. He had faced a fine of $60,000 for missing the three-day minicamp and then $30,000 for each day he had remained absent from training camp.
A section of media had cited unconfirmed reports claiming that the running back had been fined $800,000 but it was denied categorically by the player while the Jaguars never commented on it.
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