Chris Cooley Tried to Negotiate Case of Beer into New Contract
By Josh Hill
When Redskins tight end Fred Davis went down for the season, there was one many clearing his phone lines as he was expecting a mighty important call. Chris Cooley signed a fresh new contract with the Washington Redskins this week, but he tried to get a strange clause in writing in the process.
Cooley told 106.7 The Fan in Washington that after he passed his physical he tried to negotiate a case of beer into his contract.
“My knees not swollen; I’m not overweight. I’m sure if I was a fat slob when I walked in there yesterday, someone would be like, ‘Hey, let’s run a little bit.’ But I’m in good shape right now.”
He then said that he tried to get, in addition to near $1 million the Redskins gave him, a case of beer — you know as we all do when we negotiate our pay.
“Literally, I have text correspondence trying to negotiate a case of beer into my contract. They wouldn’t do it. I wanted it in writing so much.”
Cooley’s a hard man to hate and it’s stories like this that give him a certain throwback quality to him. These seems like a story that would be told on one of those ESPN Classic (do they still have that channel?) retrospectives about how the game used to be. But Cooley’s story of re-signing with the Redskins doesn’t end with his case for some beer. According to Cooley, all he had to do was walk into the teams doctors office and let him give the veteran the once over.
“I’ve had so many people text, ‘How’d the physical go?’ Literally, you go into the training room, and the doctor’s like ‘How are you feeling, man? Good? Good. Okay, you passed.’. I think it might be different if I went to another team, or somewhere where they don’t know me. The doctor that did it is the doctor that did my knee surgery before. I mean, he knows me. So it’s not up in the air. I’m healthy.”
Cooley is no stranger to the team’s doctor. He’s suffered a rash of injuries over his career in Washington and the two go back a ways. But Cooley can likely buy a few rounds for himself and his doctor friend with the cool $485,294 of guaranteed money the Redskins gave him as part of his deal. There’s also the matter of the $3.8 million he got last season and the $100,000 he got for just showing up for offseason workouts.
But hey, free beer is free beer and you try to get it at any opportunity you can.