The Buffalo Bills lineman has indicated he will retire, but will he?
By Mike Florio / ProFootball Talk on NBC Sports
Bills guard Richie Incognito is retired. Unless he isn’t.
Incognito sent this message via Twitter to the account belonging to the team’s P.R. department: “That was a short lived retirement. See you Monday for offseason program.”
Incognito said this week that he’ll retire. After an initial suggestion that he’d keep playing for the right price, Incognito said that he’s done. Incognito later said he’s absolutely not changing his mind.
It was enough for the Bills to put Incognito on the reserve/retired list. But now Incognito says he’ll be back on Monday.
The process of unretiring is simple, and generally automatic; Incognito merely needs to tell the league he’s returning, and once the league acts on his intent to return he’ll be restored to the team’s roster. The Bills then will have to decide whether to keep him or to cut him.
Incognito could be hoping to be released, since that would eliminate the potential obligation to refund $1.15 million in signing-bonus money he previously has received. This assumes that Incognito currently has any type of plan at all. Based on his comments of the past week, it’s possible that he doesn’t.