Eleven days ago Jarrett Stidham Jersey Draft , the Patriots gave Antonio Brown a $9 million signing bonus. But they’ve yet to actually give him any of it.The contract requires the team to pay the first installment of $5 million on or before Monday, September 23. Per a league source, that payment has not yet been made. Brown will now wait to see whether the money arrives in three days.If it doesn’t, Brown would have to file a grievance seeking payment. Under the labor deal, the team incurs no risk by refusing to pay it. If the Patriots lose, they simply owe him the money, without attorneys’ fees, liquidated damages, or even interest.So would New England’s case to keep the money hold water? Based on the plain terms of the labor deal, Brown did not commit a “forfeitable breach” that would permit recovery of any portion of his signing bonus. That said Jarrett Stidham NFL Jersey , the Patriots could attempt to resist payment based on the notion that Brown and his representatives knew that Brown faced a potential civil lawsuit that would trigger NFL scrutiny and a possible suspension.It would be a creative and unprecedented argument, but the Patriots have nothing to lose. That said, if there were any shenanigans associated with Brown’s efforts to gain his freedom from the Raiders — some believe he knew the Patriots were waiting to pounce — the Patriots may not want to give Brown any motivation to blow the whistle. But if the Patriots aren’t concerned about any such collateral consequences, there’s simply nothing to lose by refusing to pay the $9 million, forcing Brown to fight for it, and arguing that if Brown had disclosed the threatened litigation they never would have signed him.Brown also has a fully-guaranteed base salary of $1.025 million. The same argument that could be made to avoid paying the signing bonus could, in theory, be used to avoid paying the balance of the salary. The team also could attempt to void the remaining guarantees. (Brown’s worst-case scenario would seem to be the recovery of four weeks of game checks as Termination Pay; he wouldn’t get the full year’s worth of salary because he wasn’t on the Week One roster.)If the Patriots decide to take an aggressive stance with Brown, who knows what will happen? Given that he has become anything but a sympathetic figure in recent weeks, an arbitrator could be inclined to find a way to prevent Brown from profiting from his own apparent wrongdoing. Your votes will determine who will advance."WhitePatriots News Opinion and Analysis Contribute! FanPostsFanShotsAbout the Site List of Patriots Twitter AccountsWrite For Pats Pulpit!New User Welcome and Commenting GuideCommunity GuidelinesMastheadTopics Patriots Off-Season CoveragePatriots Opinion/AnalysisPatriots NewsPatriots Draft CoverageSportfolio ManagementPatriots First ReadPats Madness: Voting for the Brady & Gronk Regions has started!New Jarrett Stidham NFL Draft ,9commentsYour votes will determine who will advance.ESTShareTweetShareSharePats Madness: Voting for the Brady & Gronk Regions has started!Below are the matchups in the Brady Bracket. Make sure to vote on every one of them!#1 vs #8 - Super Bowl 51 vs “We’re on to Cincinnati”February 5, 2017 - Super Bowl 51 - We all know the story here. The greatest comeback in Super Bowl history. Patriots down 28-3 late in the 3rd, down 19 in the fourth. There are about 15 plays that were the play of the game. We all remember the big ones: The Dont’a Hightower strip sack, the Julian Edelman catch, the Trey Flowers sack, and converting two two-point conversions. But there were so many others: the sack/penalty combo after the failed onside kick to knock the Falcons out of field goal range in the third, the Chris Hogan third down conversion on the final drive of regulation, and basically everything James White did are just a few. The Patriots had less than a 1% chance of winning, and won anyway. I’ve watched the fourth quarter no less than 20 times, and it’s still saved on my DVR. This game is Final Four material Jarrett Stidham Buffalo Bills Jersey , and, I think, is a good bet to be fighting for the championship. October 5, 2014 vs Cincinnati - “We’re on to Cincinnati.” The Patriots had gotten blown out the week before in Kansas City. Jimmy Garoppolo had come into the game in garbage time and played well. Trent Dilfer was declaring that the Patriots weren’t good anymore. The team, it seemed, was falling apart. Until Cincy rolled into town the next Sunday night. The Patriots showed their doubters that they were for real. I can still remember Rob Gronkowski at his locker after the game talking about Tom Brady and how happy he was to have “12” back out there. The team rallied around Brady, and each other and became the team we expected to see at the beginning of the season. The Belichick quote and the way the game turned the team around make this game deserving of a spot here.