The New Orleans Saints got a little thinner at tight end after releasing Tommy Hudson with an injury settlement, per Thursday’s update to the daily NFL transactions wire. So what does it mean, and how does it work?
Hudson had landed on injured reserve earlier this week with an unspecified ailment. Had he remained on IR, he’d recover with the assistance of team doctors and trainers, but be ineligible to play again this season until he can pass a physical. So this is a good opportunity to recap what injury settlements are.
In most cases, the team and player must agree on an estimate for how many games the player would’ve missed recovering from this injury — say, six weeks into the regular season — which is then paid out as a lump sum, with the team getting a salary cap credit for the remaining weeks left on the contract. Then they become a free agent after clearing the waiver wire. Occasionally a neutral arbiter may be called in to help find that estimate if there are major disagreements between team doctors and the player’s camp.
Both sides have an interest in settling. The team wants that cap credit and for their trainers to have one less injured player to attend to. The player wants the opportunity to keep playing once healthy. What prevents a team from re-signing a player after letting them go with an injury settlement? NFL rules dictate that they cannot sign with the original team until three weeks after the agreed-upon settlement, but other teams are free game.
However, the terms of these settlements often remain confidential. We’ll likely see other Saints players on injured reserve agree too these deals before training camp is over, and it’s likely Hudson will catch on somewhere else, but it’s too soon to say when and where that will be. In the meantime, the Saints must get more production out of their tight ends than they have thus far with Juwan Johnson recovering from offseason foot surgery.
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