Patriots Hearing with Jonathan Fanene Officially Over


The hearing is officially over. No not the one involving Aaron Hernandez, but the one that involves the Patriots going after the 3.85 million dollar signing bonus of Jonathan Fanene.

The next step in this process is for a single arbitrator to make a ruling based on the evidence that was presented. The Patriots still have another 1.35 million dollars of that bonus to pay and this hearing was set in motion so they wouldn’t have to pay that and so that they could recover the 2.5 million dollars they have already paid Fanene.

According to Nick Underhill of MassLive.com, witnesses included Fanene, Fanene’s wife, Coach Belichick, Fanene’s agent, Patriots team doctors and head athletic trainer. The arbitrator will have to rule on whether the Patriots were fooled by a pre-existing knee problem in which Fanene tried to hide from them at the time of his signing.

Some people have a problem with this as I read in the comments section of the initial story, but I don’t whatsoever. I have a problem when the Patriots are cheap with Wes Welker, not some smuck that didn’t even play a snap in 2012 for a team that paid him almost four million dollars. Sorry, but obviously he lied to the team otherwise why would they pay him that to sit on a bench.

Josh Brown