Jalen Hurts is probably the most important employee of the Philadelphia Eagles. That is not hyperbole. Franchise quarterbacks are extraordinarily rare and, when a team has one, virtually everything from the salary cap to ticket sales to the jobs of coaches and executives revolves around keeping him healthy and on the field.
Which makes what happened in London deeply disturbing on many levels.
What Happened in London
Hurts was ‘cleated’ in a game earlier in the month. He complained of an aching, hot, bruised calf after the Eagles arrived in London for a game against Jacksonville. Team doctors did an ultrasound and found a ‘superficial’ blood clot. He was presumably given a couple of ibuprofen (the go to for these types of deep, nasty bruises) and cleared to play.
He was not checked after the game; team doctors later said they had scheduled an MRI in Philadelphia the next day. Hurts flew home, a seven hour flight. When Hurts was tested later, doctors found that the clot had progressed to deep vein thrombosis and resulted in bilateral pulmonary emboli – blood clots in both lungs, a potentially serious if not life-threatening condition. Hurts is now on blood thinners and will miss the remainder of the season.
The Key Man Problem
There are a couple of business-law issues hiding under the football story. The first is obvious: an organization has a duty to protect its key people, and there may not be a more textbook “key man” in American business than a franchise quarterback. The second is more uncomfortable. The team doctors and medical staff who treat the player work for an organization that desperately needs that player on the field. A solid fact: since Hurts became the Eagles starting quarterback the team has conclusively proven they cannot win with one of his backups.
Who Exactly Is Checking Whom?
The Eagles did involve independent doctors in London, which matters. But the structure itself still raises an interesting question: when the people responsible for treating an indispensable employee are also part of the process that determines whether their treatment worked well enough to put him back to work, who exactly is checking whom?
What Wasn’t Said
What has made all of this much worse is what wasn’t said. Before kickoff in London, nobody outside the building knew the Eagles’ quarterback was playing with a blood clot in his leg. The fuller picture (the ultrasound, the clearance, the plan to wait for an MRI back home) came out after the fact, in pieces, once his season was already over.
The NFL has already said the Eagles handled everything appropriately. The Players Association, rather pointedly, wants an investigation before anyone reaches that conclusion. In other words, the league delivered its verdict before the public had the evidence. So, who exactly is checking whom? Part of the answer, it turns out, is nobody outside the building.
Bettors, Shareholders, and the Injury Report
The NFL might not have shareholders (the Green Bay Packers do, technically, though their stock pays no dividends, can’t be resold, and comes with less than no power), but it does sponsor sports betting, and every single person betting on Eagles games is more voracious, if not relatively powerless, than any shareholder. A shareholder who thinks he’s been misled can demand the books, call a meeting, or file suit. A bettor gets a line, a kickoff time, and whatever the injury report says. The injury report exists, in large part, because the league understands that information about who is healthy is worth money to millions of people. A starting quarterback with a blood clot is about as material as information gets.
Steve Jobs and How Not to Talk About a Key Man
This is where the football story turns into a business-law story. Public companies have wrestled with exactly this problem. When Steve Jobs’s health declined in 2008 and early 2009, Apple’s early explanation, a “hormone imbalance,” gave way within weeks to a medical leave, and the SEC reportedly looked into whether investors had been told enough. No one was charged, but the episode became the case study in how not to talk about a key man.
Candor in a Closely Held Texas Business
Most of our clients aren’t Apple and don’t answer to the SEC. But in a closely held Texas business, the people who own it together owe each other candor, and the people running it owe the company the same. When a key person is hurt, sick, or about to walk out the door, the temptation is to manage the news: say a little, wait for the next test, hope the problem resolves itself before anyone asks. It rarely does, and the partner, investor, or lender who finds out later stops asking what happened and starts asking what else they weren’t told. And there’s always an email.
Candor is a lot easier when there’s a plan to be candid about. Key person insurance. A buy-sell agreement that says what happens to an owner’s interest if he can’t work. Employment agreements that deal with disability and extended leave. A succession plan that someone has actually read. Every one of those is a document that is far easier to draft while everyone is healthy than to argue about later.
Back to That MRI in Philadelphia
Which brings us back to that MRI in Philadelphia. A superficial clot, a seven hour flight, and a test scheduled for the next day. With blood clots, as with any business problem everyone is hoping will quietly go away, time is not your ally. The same goes for the plan for what happens when a key person goes down, which in most companies lives mostly in everyone’s head. It’s a conversation we have with clients long before anyone boards a plane. The Players Association may still get its investigation.
Talk to Hopkins Centrich
If your business would grind to a halt without one person, talk to our business law attorneys about buy-sell, succession, and key person planning now, while everyone is healthy and before anyone has to decide what to tell the partners.