The New York Jets released RB Thomas Jones just before he was due a 3 million dollar performance bonus.  The last time I checked, a performance bonus was for past work and achievements accomplished -- not future performance!  This is what is heartless about the NFL and should be challenged in court.  They are allowed (through anti-trust exemption) to get away with offering back-loaded contracts with bonus incentives to non-leveraged players (workers) with little power to argue terms when they break into the league.  Players are basically forced to agree to these terms and in the process are signing their own walking papers.  Up-front money is all that matters in the NFL and players would be wise to get as much of it as they can knowing their days are numbered.  Also, with regard to the upcoming and ongoing CBA talks, player union reps should demand that NFL management reduce the number of years a player works in the league to become tenured.  Six years is a good number for management considering the average career in the NFL is 4 1/2 years!  This would go along way to protecting players from being left out in cold with no pension after sacrificing their bodies for back-end-loaded contract incentives that they most likely will never receive!  I understand the NFL is a business, but I never thought of the NFL as a slave-labor camp having no regard for the players that established the league as the money making juggernaut that it has become!   I wonder about the terms of Roger Goodell's performance bonus.