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Sources: Pacman offers to cut pay demand for Titans

By Ed Werder
ESPN.com
(Archive)

Updated: April 4, 2008, 6:58 PM ET

While Pacman Jones trade discussions remain stalemated, sources tell ESPN that the Cowboys are convinced that the more than $6 million in guaranteed base salary the Titans are obligated to pay the suspended cornerback over the next three years virtually assures that an eventual trade is Tennessee's only inexpensive solution.

To stimulate a deal, according to sources, Jones has offered to forego money he has earned from and is owed by the Titans if the team drops its insistence he repay a similar amount of signing bonus.

Jones is expected to apply for reinstatement next week following a one-year suspension. Even though Jones had behavioral issues before coming to the NFL that caused some teams to downgrade him or to take him completely off their draft boards, the Titans took him sixth overall in 2005 and agreed to guarantee base salaries of more than $1.2 million for the upcoming season, $1.7 million in 2009 and in excess of $2 million in the final year. The Titans will be responsible for those amounts if Jones is released or kept on the Titans roster. Trading Jones and his contract to another team is the only way to avoid it.

Still, Titans coach Jeff Fisher, in an interview at the NFL owners meetings, told ESPN he has not eliminated the possibility of keeping Jones. That seems unlikely and contradicts other comments he has made about the Titans moving forward without the player arrested six times since beginning his NFL career.

To facilitate a trade to Dallas -- where Jones says he prefers to resume his career -- the player has offered to forego the $1.2 million performance bonus he earned for playing at least 25 percent of the Titans' defensive plays in an attempt to offset the $1.275 million signing bonus the Titans are currently demanding he repay before completing any trade. According to sources, Jones is willing to call it even and walk away. The Titans have not made that compromise.

There remains a less serious difference of opinion between the Cowboys and Titans over draft-pick compensation. The Titans want a fourth-round pick in this month's draft and another pick in 2009. Believing they have leverage, the Cowboys are unwilling to offer two picks.

"If they are serious about what they are asking from us, that's what they should do is keep him," a Cowboys source said.

Ed Werder covers the NFL for ESPN.

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