Russ Smith said:
The problem is the reports are he asked for 100K and when the NFL said no, suddenly his family was the priority. If he is telling the truth about not asking for money, then I think no big deal. If he asked for 100K, I find it annoying that he made the decision based on money but is using his family as the excuse. I have no idea what the truth is, I do know when Joe was younger he was pretty notorious for demanding high appearance fees at things like memorabilia shows.
I worked for a company years ago that did interactive sports, we tried to get Montana to participate in a game once and he demanded so much money, we wound up using Roger Craig instead. Craig did it for free, well we gave him a free Tshirt.
So it wouldn't surprise me at all if Montana did demand the 100K.
Let me pose this situation to you that was brought up on the Dan Patrick show earlier today:
NFL contacts Montana about being at the pre-game, Montana advises them sorry I just can't do it I have to be at my kids games, NFL talks about what they are offering (i.e. $1000 spending money, 2 superbowl tickets, 2 pre game tickets, 2 1st class flights, cadillac rental, and hotel room, etc), Joe says sorry just can't I promised my kids I would be at thier games, NFL says what would it take to get you to stay, Montana says jokingly pay me $100,000 knowing the NFL probably wont pony up that money and even if they did he wasn't going to accept anyways, and says again sorry but my son's are more important then the hassle of being at the superbowl when I have allready made my promises. End of conversation, then someone at the NFL gets the idea of pressuring Joe by "leaking" the fact that Joe said he would attend for $100,000, and hoping that Joe will be embarressed enough to coem and play rather then have his image tarnished.
Now I'm not saying above is what happened or not, Dan just said he had talked with Joe on Friday before the Super Bowl and Joe had explained about leaving on Friday to him because he had promised his kids that he would be at their games and he was looking forward to getting out of Detroit and back home as soon as possible, so the Family angle was brought up BEFORE the article about the money, so at least the family obligation might very well be true.