I am currently job hunting and have three good offers. I verbally implied to both my external recruiter (headhunter) and point of contact (HR person) at Company A that I would accept an offer from them if they made their offer official. At one point, I even said "when I sign [the contract]." Someone at Company A (my potential boss's boss) contacted me and said "I've heard you accepted our offer. I'm excited!"
Company A sent me their official offer and it looked good. I was excited. Compensation was everything that we discussed it to be. But the contract included a non-compete agreement. I was aware that they had a non-compete agreement but I had never seen one and therefore did not know what it would involve. It's an extensive non-compete and I don't feel comfortable signing it.
I now know it was stupid to verbally accept an offer without seeing the contract. My question is this: how do I renege on my verbal acceptance without burning a bridge? I'm concerned that the HR person told others at the company that I accepted the offer.
RE:duplicates, I am aware that similar questions have been asked numerous times on stack exchange. However, I believe the following makes my question different: a potential future boss was notified of my verbal acceptance and the reneging is based on information that Company A only just provided and not on changes with my other offers.
Update: Thank you to everyone for the advice. I ended up approaching them that I was excited about the position but concerned about the non-compete. They explained that it unfortunately was not negotiable and so I turned down the offer. But the bridge has not been burnt (at least they haven't said it is) and they instead said "maybe next time." Thanks!