It would be ber if GB met Miami in the SB and Rodgers throws the winning TD to Jennings over Harris.

"wpr" wrote:

"wpr" wrote:

Let me see if I've got this right; Harris loses the Super Bowl. To the team that cut him. On a pass that he gets beaten on. And not only would this not be a huge kick in his nuts, it would be a reward for him?

"bozz_2006" wrote:

why don't you just say we win the Super Bowl with a great catch by Greg Jennings over a DB that isn't loved in Green Bay. If you're making up a great scenario it would be nice to leave out such a great and loyal player like Al Harris.

"coltonja" wrote:

I have no real problem with releasing Harris. It's sad in that particular way that releasing a long-time veteran is always sad. But unless you're willing to do a Jim Brown or Barry Sanders, no one gets to choose when he leaves the team.

But that said, it definitely sounds like the Packers could have handled things better. The fact that "it is time" doesn't change the fact that how you terminate should matter to you.

I look at the quotes from McCarthy, and Harris describing what Thompson/McCarthy did/didn't do, and I see the kind of manager/boss that drives me nuts. The person who treats people as machines in an industrial process.

If Harris has to go to Thompson's box and confront him before Thompson admits what's happening, what does that say about how Thompson and McCarthy view their employees?

If you're going to be a manager, at some point you're going to have to let people go. That's part of your job. But how you approach that letting go reveals something about you as a person.

If Vandermause has the facts right here, IMO the manner of this release does not reflect very well on Thompson/McCarthy.

Sentimentality is not needed. But neither is treating a long-time valuable employee like a worn-out machine.

"Wade" wrote:

Packers save on Harris

This weeks release of longtime Packer Al Harris by the team illustrates a couple interesting money issues.

As a vested veteran, Harris would normally be entitled to termination pay the balance of his salary upon release by the Packers. However, since Harris started the season on the Physically Unable to Perform (PUP) list, he is not entitled to termination pay and the remaining balance of his $2.5 million salary ($1.18 million). Thus, the Packers, who acquired Harris in 2003 from the Eagles, have no further financial obligation to Harris.

Harris received his weekly paycheck of $147,000 (1/17th of his $2.5 million 2010 salary) from the Packers through the first nine weeks of the season. However, since he was never active for a game, he did not receive any of the $62,500 per game 45-man active roster bonuses (up to a maximum of $1 million for all 16 games). In his deal for the rest of the season with the Dolphins, Harris will earn about that same $147,000 amount per week should he now earn similar 45-man active roster bonuses on top of his salary.

I first inserted 45-man active roster bonuses in 2006 in deals with Ahman Green and Charles Woodson, both coming off seasons curtailed by injury. The Packers and many other teams now use the structure in all veteran contracts. It also is a way of dealing with players grumbling about new contracts, providing easily earned incentive money as long as the player was active and a compromise between tearing up their contracts and giving them new ones as they wished and doing nothing.

The one unanticipated problem with these clauses was at the end of the season when we had clinched playoff berths and coach Mike McCarthy unaware of these clauses decided to rest some starters who were otherwise healthy. Players and their agents were rumbling about those roster bonuses and we had to renegotiate a couple deals to make these players whole.