Late Friday afternoon, as many people on the East Coast of the United States were wrapping up their work weeks, NFL teams and agents were also putting the final touches on potential agreements to restructure player contracts in advance of the established deadline. One of those players under consideration to restructure his contract was Denver Broncos defensive end Elvis Dumervil. In fact, the deal was (almost) done. Dumervil was going to accept a reduction from $12 million to $8 million and remain with the Broncos for the 2013 NFL season. But the paperwork was not filed in time, and Dumervil was released by the team.
Prior to the deadline passing, Dumervil was represented by football agent Marty Magid of MRM Sports & Entertainment. Magid supposedly had a deal in place for Dumervil to remain with the Broncos under a restructured contract, but failed to fax the necessary paperwork in time.
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Did Magid make a colossal mistake? Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk said that not only does the agent deserve blame, but all parties involved, including the Broncos, for mistreating the strict deadline imposed by the NFL.
Soon after the snafu, Magid talked to CBS Sports NFL Insider Jason La Canfora and said, “We haven’t talked yet, but I think we all needed to take a deep breath and then we’ll see where it goes. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out the way we wanted, but everything happens for a reason and it’s not like this anybody’s fault. This wasn’t just a case of an agent taking too long to send something. It’s not anyone’s fault, but Elvis is a free agent now and we’ll see how that process plays out.” (emphasis added).
Friday turned into Saturday, and Magid turned into Dumervil’s former agent. Dumervil fired Magid and the morning’s rumor was that he would be hiring Tom Condon of Creative Artists Agency (CAA). Additionally, the NFLPA immediately hired outside counsel to take a deep look at what went wrong, leading many people to start speculating about potential legal consequences for Magid.
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As soon as it was revealed that Magid would waive the mandatory five day waiting period for a player to choose new representation (as promulgated by the NFLPA), I began to receive texts and emails from football agents requesting that I provide them Elvis Dumervil’s phone number. But they were well behind the eight ball. As had been previously suggested, Dumervil was set on adding Tom Condon of CAA to his team. He made it official later in the day.
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Late Saturday evening I received a text from a football agent who said that when Dumervil was seeking new representation (after the passing of his former agent, Gary Wichard), the stated price for the “right” to represent the defensive end was $75,000. Sports Agent Blog does not currently have any information that would indicate such an amount was paid to Dumervil by his former agent, but at a minimum, it shows just how tough and competitive the representation business can be.
