The player who gave the Bills and the rest of the league the feel-good story of Week 18 is currently not feeling good about the Bills.
Running back Nyheim Hines, who recently suffered a season-ending knee injury while sitting on a stationary jet ski, is currently caught in a conflict with the team over what he will or won’t be paid in 2023.
Hines capped the 2022 regular season by returning two kickoffs for touchdowns against the Patriots in the first Bills game played following Damar Hamlin’s on-field cardiac arrest.
Hines’s agent, Ed Wasielewski, posted this observation on Twitter earlier today: “Adversity reveals character. Everyone has a choice to treat others with respect and dignity. It’s revealing when an employee is injured to see how a company takes care of its own. I will continue to believe that people will do the right thing when bad things happen to their own.”
It does not take a genius (which qualifies me to make the assessment) to conclude that Wasielewski is referring to Hines. Per multiple sources, the Bills and Hines are indeed at odds over the situation.
Because Hines suffered a non-football injury, his salary of $2.56 million gets wiped away, without question. Things get sticky on the question of whether and to what extent Hines owes money back to the Bills.
Earlier this year, Hines signed a revised contract that replaced the deal he signed with the Colts in 2021. The two-year, $9 million deal included a $1 million signing bonus, a $100,000 workout bonus for 2023, a base salary of $2.56 million for 2023, and $340,000 in per-game roster bonuses.
Hines has received $600,000 of his signing bonus. The Bills, per multiple sources, have proposed withholding the $400,000 installment due later this year, along with the $100,000 workout bonus that Hines earned in the offseason. That would represent reimbursement of half of the signing bonus covering the two-year contract.
The Bills also are willing to pay Hines $289,000 in 2023, which matches the highest amount that can be paid to a practice-squad player.
If Hines doesn’t accept the offer to give up $500,000 in earned bonus money and to receive $289,000, the Bills will: (1) keep the $500,000; and (2) potentially pursue the $1.5 million signing bonus allocation for 2023 from Hines’s prior contract with the Colts. While it could be difficult for the Bills to collect signing-bonus money paid by another team on a contract that was superseded after Hines was traded from the Colts to the Bills, Hines runs the risk of facing that argument — and losing on it — if this ends up in a formal grievance.
Hines also could win, both as to the $1.5 million and as to the $500,000. His signing bonus addendum does not expressly identify jet skiing as a prohibited activity. Moreover, the collision happened while Hines was sitting on a jet ski that was not moving.
Hines remains under contract through 2024. How the Bills ultimately treat Hines now will surely influence his mindset and attitude next year, and it could impact the way other players feel about the organization. The Bills surely realize this. What they ultimately do about it remains to be seen.
