'I felt like I needed to smoke a cigarette sometimes': Untold NFL holdout stories

Future Hall of Fame offensive tackle Walter Jones spotted something in a newspaper that changed everything about his monthslong holdout in 2002.

Jones was trying to secure a long-term deal from the Seattle Seahawks. After holding out of all team activities for the entirety of training camp, he extended his absence into the first two games of the regular season.

But, while leafing through a newspaper at his Huntsville, Alabama, home, Jones read something that compelled him to sign a deal that same day:

The amount of money he had forfeited.

Players receive their paychecks on a weekly basis during the season. So missing Weeks 1 and 2 meant two checks totaling $578,823 had not been deposited into Jones' bank account. So he signed the franchise tag tender that had been awaiting him for $4.92 million.

"[The article] was like, 'This is how much money Walter [is] losing,'" Jones said. "I was like, 'Wait, I don't want to lose any money.' So I went in."

It is a harsh reality of holding out -- a process in which a player does not report to training camp, despite being under contract, and becomes subject to mandatory fines. The emotional twists and turns for all involved in a holdout -- or hold-in (when a player attends team activities to avoid being fined but doesn't participate ) -- are many. Players must deal with uncertainty over their future and missing time with teammates. General managers know they must get an important player signed while facing pressure from fans, owners and coaches. Agents not only negotiate deals but also handle the players' emotions. And through it all, coaches are left to twist in the wind, wondering when one of their best players will be available to the team on the field, if at all.

"Holdouts are brutal, man," said longtime agent Vince Taylor, who has had two clients hold out on three occasions, including twice with San Francisco 49ers left tackle Trent Williams. "I'll say this for an agent or a player who has never experienced it, I don't think you can tell them enough how brutal it is.

"Don't push that button unless you really [plan to] go all the way."

As NFL training camps opened this week, there were two high-profile veteran holdouts: Cincinnati Bengals defensive end Trey Hendrickson and Washington Commanders wide receiver Terry McLaurin. Both players have one year left on their current contracts.

Holdouts come at a hefty cost. Players are fined $50,000 for each day they hold out. Previously, teams could waive those fines. But that loophole was closed under the current collective bargaining agreement ratified in March 2020. Now, only players on rookie contracts can get that relief.

"It's a toothache," former NFL general manager Bill Polian said. "It's there all the time."

Here are stories of notable NFL holdouts from the perspectives of a coach, agent, general manager and player.

Washington head coach Jay Gruden felt helpless in the summer entering the 2019 season. His job was in jeopardy and his team was coming off an injury-induced collapse that ended in a disappointing 8-9 record and a second straight campaign without a playoff berth. The starting quarterback they hoped to build around for the next several years, Alex Smith, was recovering from a horrific broken leg suffered against the Houston Texans in November -- a setback that underscored the rash of injuries, particularly on defense, that Gruden & Co. were faced with entering a fraught 2019.

Making matters even more difficult: Their best offensive player, left tackle Trent Williams, was holding out.

Williams, who had been selected to his seventh straight Pro Bowl the previous year, was upset by how Washington handled things after he was diagnosed with a rare form of skin cancer. He also had no guaranteed money left on his deal.

That left Gruden and his staff to deal with what was left of the on-field product. Not least of which was replacing Williams, entering his age 31 season and squarely in the prime of a likely Hall of Fame career, with 36-year old Donald Penn, a solid NFL veteran, but one whose career wouldn't last past that 2019 season.

"It's difficult because you count on your best players to play," Gruden said. "It helps you in your ability to win football games, especially when you go from maybe the best starting tackle of all time to a guy who's on the tail end of his career. You just try to limit the damage and make sure you take care of your best guys.

"Unfortunately for the coach, it's really out of your hands."

The coach knows he needs the player, but the mindset becomes similar to when a player gets hurt -- the coach just has to adapt to who's available. However, there are some crucial differences.

"The holdouts are a little different than injuries," Gruden said. "You feel like you can control the holdout, just pay the guy. S--- we need him. I understand there's a salary cap and all that, but the one thing you want to do is make sure you take care of the guys that are your best players. It's just hard to replace guys that are top of the food chain. Receivers that put points on the board and left tackles to protect the quarterback's blind side and quarterbacks and pass rushers, those are ones you got to try to keep."

Adding to any coach's dilemma in these situations, Gruden said a coach can't interfere in the contract proceedings, unless they also serve as a general manager. Before Williams' decision to hold out, Gruden had often let his star know how wanted and appreciated he was by him and his staff. During the holdout, the coach avoided all contact.

"That's where you have to be careful as a coach," Gruden said. "You can't pit the player against the organization and take the player's side. I'm just going to stay in my lane and coach the football team. And that's kind of what I did. That's why I stayed away from texting and calling, 'Hey man, I love you. I want you to come here, man, these guys are a--holes. They won't pay.' Then all of a sudden that gets back to you, so now you have division."

Williams never played for Washington again, choosing to extend his holdout for the entirety of the 2019 season. He was traded to the San Francisco 49ers the following April.

Without Williams, Smith and a healthy defense, Gruden's team sputtered to an 0-5 start. Gruden was replaced by then-assistant head coach and offensive line chief Bill Callahan before Game No. 6. Washington finished the season 3-13.

In the end, Gruden said Williams' holdout didn't make or break the season. But he learned firsthand how little power coaches possess during the process. And, though he said they might have won one game had Williams reported, Williams' absence plus injuries to other players added up.

"It's like, 'Holy s---,'" Gruden said. "It was pretty frustrating. You just feel like the world, the football gods were against you."

When Williams held out from Washington in 2019, his longtime agent, Vince Taylor, said he allowed for his client's emotion to be heard. Williams felt the team didn't handle his cancer scare well and that impacted his thoughts on a new contract with the team. But Taylor said he had another job to do as well.

"I had to slowly get him to a business mindset," Taylor said. "And if you want to continue your career, these are the things we're going to have to consider. It's advantageous for us to get a business mindset and get the personal [concerns] to the side. In his mind he wasn't [going to report]. He didn't even want to stomach the fact that he had to be there."

But for Taylor or any agent navigating a holdout, it's not enough to negotiate a deal. And, he said, having gone through it now twice with Williams -- and once with offensive tackle Jason Peters in 2008 with Buffalo -- he's better equipped to handle it. In 2019, Williams never reached an agreement with Washington and was traded in the offseason. Five years later, during a holdout with San Francisco, Williams received a $27.6 million salary and $48 million fully guaranteed, which his agency said was a record for non-quarterbacks over 30 years old.

"The second time around, what it helps you with is the management of family, friends, wife, kids, media and things of that nature," Taylor said.

Taylor said he'll talk to or meet with a handful of people in the player's "circle of trust." He'll lay out the possible scenarios -- if it takes all summer; if it lasts into the season. With the player, he'll lay out what to expect -- like how much the player stands to be fined -- while also making sure the player is maintaining his conditioning.

"You're an agent, you're a counselor, you're a therapist, you're a police officer, sometimes security guard, trying to keep the guy from going on a rant on social media," longtime agent Damarius Bilbo said about navigating a holdout. "I mean, you've got to wear all those hats. The No. 1 thing is emotion."

Bilbo was involved in running back Melvin Gordon's holdout from the Los Angeles Chargers in 2019 and has had other players with contract issues, such as former Miami receiver Jarvis Landry and New Orleans running back Alvin Kamara. Bilbo said the word they used often was "value." When they don't feel valued, it fuels their emotions.

"For a guy to put his heart, soul and everything into his business, how do you tell a guy not to be emotional?" Bilbo said. "But when people are offering their opinion by way of social media, by way of podcasts and stuff, these players listen and it takes them. You never know what that trigger is going to be.

"It's a constant [battle]. They don't listen. And I get it. I get it. This is hard. It's hard."

Landry wanted an extension from Miami in 2017 but did participate in camp. However, for those who want to hold in -- report to camp to avoid fines, but not fully participate in practice -- it's not always easy.

"There have been instances where coaches are pulling guys to the side and saying, 'Hey, your agent, your representation is being difficult. We're trying to get this done,'" Bilbo said. "They're trying to talk him into believing that this is his market. Sometimes being in a building could be more of a distraction because obviously the media wants to talk to the guy. He's not practicing, he's on the sideline. I dealt with this last year with Matt Judon that led to him getting traded to the Falcons."

Taylor said holdouts also can lead to other situations.

"That's a prime time for agents to poach, too," Taylor said. "Agents and friends of agents. There was one agent in Trent's DMs, but luckily [our] relationship is strong."

Ultimately, in a league where careers are typically shorter than other major sports, and where most players can be replaced, there's something Bilbo doesn't forget.

"The balance of power," Bilbo said, "is always in favor of the organization."

Bill Polian recalled a nickname former GM Ernie Accorsi had for general managers enduring a holdout situation:

The fellow sufferers club.

In some ways, when one general manager goes through it they all do.

"You took so many slings and arrows publicly," said Polian, who served in the role for Buffalo, Carolina and Indianapolis and was later an NFL analyst for ESPN. "Guys will call up and say, 'Hey, I really empathize with you. This is terrible.' Other people will offer advice: 'Hey, don't cave on this one. This is really important.' On occasion, [NFL] management council will step in.

"I made those calls to guys that were in predicaments, too, to try and just provide a little positive reinforcement."

The general manager becomes a lightning rod during these situations -- fans upset that the team hasn't signed a player; an agent whose client wants the deal done now; an owner that might not fully grasp the situation.

"If ownership is inexperienced or new, has been outside football," Polian said, "then it's a little more difficult because you have to explain the dynamics. And the agent is certainly playing a waiting game and using a public relations campaign against you, and you have to explain that if they're new to it."

ESPN analyst and former general manager Mike Tannenbaum, who dealt with holdouts as a general manager in Miami (Landry) and the New York Jets (cornerback Darrelle Revis), said he tried to remove the emotion from the negotiations. He also said a GM should not talk to the player, adding that he viewed himself as the agent for the team, and as such, he dealt only with the player's agent.

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"It's keeping alignment and knowing that there's going to be tension points throughout the process until you get to where you want to go," he said. "Just stick to the facts, look at the market, let the data drive us to where we want to go."

Polian dealt with two holdouts as the GM in Carolina from 1995 to 1997: rookie running back Tim Biakabutuka and veteran edge rusher Kevin Greene. Both were difficult.

Polian said he never understood why Biakabutuka was holding out and that there wasn't much dialogue with his agents. At then-owner Jerry Richardson's urging, Polian "wrote them two rather strong letters, which I would almost never do in a holdout situation."

They didn't respond to that either.

Ultimately, the former Michigan star, whom the Panthers selected No. 8 in 1996, signed when various base salary escalators were agreed upon, after missing the first 27 days of training camp.

"They just capitulated on the eve of the season," Polian said. "I don't know what it was all about in the first place. To this day I don't know what their aim was."

In 1996, Greene signed a two-year deal with Carolina and, that season, was named first-team All-Pro after leading the league with 14.5 sacks. But he and his agents felt he had outplayed his two-year, $2 million contract. So, he held out.

Given Greene's importance to a team that, in Year 2 of its existence, came one win from reaching the Super Bowl, Polian said his job was to keep coach Dom Capers informed of the proceedings on a weekly basis. When it became clear the matter was far from being resolved, he held a meeting with the personnel department and Capers.

"Start looking for a replacement," he told the group. "This could go south."

Which it eventually did. After the two sides failed to reach an agreement, Carolina cut Greene, who then signed with San Francisco.

Looking back, Polian said that parting ways with Greene was the cost of doing business as an NFL GM.

"You hope for the best, but you always have to prepare for the worst," Polian said. "That's what we did and that's the GM's job."

For three years, Walter Jones heard the same jokes from his Seattle teammates.

"Guys would make fun of me, like, 'Hey, Walt, you remember when that happened in training camp? Oh, you wasn't there!'" Jones said.

Technically, Jones said, he was never a holdout. He just never signed his franchise tag tender until finally reporting. But he certainly knew how to play the holdout game once he stopped costing himself game checks, and his game on the field never suffered.

Jones skipped training camp from 2002 to 2004 because of his contract; he made the Pro Bowl after each of those seasons. He credits that to workouts in Alabama with his high school coach. He'd run sprints, lift weights and push his Escalade back and forth in 20-yard intervals.

"My first year [holding out] was kind of hectic because you just didn't know whether I was going to be ready because you're doing all the workouts by yourself," Jones said, adding he knew the importance of staying in shape.

"If I would've came in there out of shape, they would've said, 'See this is why he needs to get to training camp,'" Jones, who maintained in lockstep with agents Roosevelt Barnes and Eugene Parker over what he wanted, said. "I always wanted to prove to them that even though I'm not here, I'm ready to play. ... I don't know if it made me a better player. I think I played longer by missing training camp."

In 2014, tight end Vernon Davis skipped San Francisco's mandatory minicamp while seeking an extension with two years left on his deal. That experience taught him a lesson: Missing time stinks. He received daily updates from his agent Todd France but didn't want to hold out.

"It was frustrating. I was antsy," Davis said. "I felt like I needed to smoke a cigarette sometimes. I didn't do that, but I felt like I wanted to. ... And it was just one of those things that just because you feel like you're missing something, you feel like you're behind."

But for Jones, who rode his string of holdouts to eventually sign a seven-year, $52.5 million deal in February 2005, what he really missed were those first two game checks. He came from a small rural town and said the money he forfeited had staggered him. So he told his agents from that point on: No matter what, when payroll starts, he's signing -- jokes from teammates be damned.

"It was never something where guys resent you because you held out to try to get the money that you deserve," he said. "Listen, man, you know this rising tide lifts all boats, right? So if you get more, someone else is going to get more."