Payback is...

The Seahawks have struck back against the Vikings. They signed WR Nate Burleson to an offer sheet on Friday. Minnesota can match the offer sheet, but they won't because it will cost them too much. Why? "Poison pills" in the agreement. An example: if Burleson plays more than 5 games in Minnesota any season of the contract, the entire $49 million becomes guaranteed. I can personally confirm that the Vikings are still in Minnesota, so this becomes an impossible deal to match. Of course, the Vikings should recognize this strategy, since they did exactly the same thing to the Seahawks with Pro Bowl guard Steve Hutchinson earlier in the week. Their poison pill said that if Hutchinson wasn't the highest paid lineman on the team, his $49 million salary was guaranteed. Not a problem for the Vikings, but Seahawks tackle Walter Jones would have been paid more. These poison pills have held up in arbitration, so this could change the way restricted free agents are treated in the NFL. Obviously, what the Vikings and Seahawks have done is against the spirit of the rules, and quite dirty. But it's unlikely anything will change until there's a new CBA, and since the ink isn't dry on the current one, that will be a while. It does beg the question: What's the strangest poison pill you can imagine?