The Patriots and linebacker Gabe Jacas took a long time to work out a rookie contract for reasons unrelated to the standard terms of his rookie deal. The problem was that Jacas has a pre-existing injury for which the team wanted financial protection.
As explained by Ben Volin of the Boston Globe, the Jacas contract has an injury waiver regarding his left knee. The fact that he’s on the non-football injury list suggests that his left knee injury has kept him from passing a pre-training camp physical.
Per Volin, the first three years of Jacas’s contract are fully guaranteed, along with roughly 17.5 percent of the fourth year. The injury waiver covers the 2027 and 2028 league years. It means that the injury guarantee doesn’t cover the left knee in those two seasons.
As a source with extensive knowledge regarding contract negotiations and injury waivers explained it to PFT, the unusual insertion of an injury waiver into a slotted rookie deal points to three possible explanations: (1) failing to disclose a medical condition at the Scouting Combine; (2) suffering an injury after the Scouting Combine and before the draft; or (3) sustaining an injury away from the team facility after the player was drafted.
For Jacas, there weren’t many alternatives to accepting the injury waiver. He could have refused to sign the contract including the injury waiver, sat out the year, and re-entered the draft. But what would that have gotten him? He most likely wouldn’t have been drafted any higher in 2027, and he would have gone a year without playing football — and without getting paid.
There’s also a question of whether, if he suffered the injury while working out on his own after the Combine or after the draft, the Patriots should not have insisted on the injury waiver, since he was doing what he needed to do to stay in shape for football season. If, alternatively, Jacas suffered the injury in some other way, it becomes more reasonable to take the position that the guarantees for 2027 and 2028 don’t apply to the damaged knee.
Whatever the explanation, it’s a rare situation. Teams draft players on an as-is basis. If they know or had reason to know about a player’s injury history, that becomes a factor as to when he’s picked. And if the Patriots had been insisting on an injury waiver for a condition that they knew or should have known about before picking him, Jacas, his agent, and the NFL Players Association should be making a stink about it.
They aren’t. Which points to one of the three explanations listed above. And which forced Jacas to either agree to the waiver and sign the deal he was offered, or to not play this year and roll the dice in the 2027 draft.