SAN JOSE, Calif. - The San Francisco 49ers should be embarrassed and the NFL ashamed. Right-thinking fans should be saddened by how Terrell Owens intimidated the league into giving him his way after his agent gambled and lost millions of free-agent dollars.
In the end, it looks as if a player who thinks he's bigger than the game wrote his own rules, in Sharpie. That wasn't quite the case. But that was the message this sorry saga sent.
Make enough noise, get enough people to listen, and you can bring the NFL to its knees.
But as usual with John York's 49ers, the initial oversight was theirs. York's staff did agree to a final paragraph of an addendum to Owens' contract, which was signed by director of football operations John McVay on March 1, 2001. The paragraph clearly stated that Owens could void the deal on or before March 2, 2004. Apparently, these 49ers hadn't kept up with the collective bargaining agreement any better than they have their salary cap.
Yet several NFL executives and agents point out that every contract carries a standard paragraph that says ``provisions of the CBA will take precedence over conflicting provisions of this contract.'' Translation: Agree to anything you want, but if it doesn't comply with the rules, it won't stand up in court.
About five weeks before Owens' contract was signed, the players union agreed to a ``side letter'' to the CBA that effectively made the opt-out deadline Feb. 21, 2004. Period. End of debate. Owens' March 2 deadline was against the rules.
The league won that concession so teams would have a couple of weeks longer to decide whether to, say, use their franchise tag to keep a player who had filed for free agency. Yes, the ``side letter'' is written in brain-teasing legalese, but after a second or third reading its intent is unmistakable. No player or agent had questioned the date or procedure in 2002 or 2003.
Union chief Gene Upshaw said he faxed a reminder to Owens' agent, David Joseph, 11 days before the Feb. 21 deadline. Of the 10 or so players who had the earlier deadline, only Owens and Dennis Northcutt missed it. Northcutt's contract called for an even earlier deadline - Feb. 2 - so he and his agent actually missed two opt-out dates. Northcutt didn't argue and remains property of the Cleveland Browns.
Joseph apparently feared that if he showed his free-agent hand by Feb. 21, the 49ers would slap the franchise tag on Owens. So Joseph contended that Owens' contract specified March 2.
Bad gamble.
Other agents or plugged-in reporters could have told Joseph that the 49ers had realized they had no hope of signing linebacker Julian Peterson to a new contract. His agents, the Poston brothers, initially asked for a $30 million bonus. If the 49ers had been able to do a new deal with Peterson, then, yes, they would have franchise-tagged Owens and tried to trade him. Instead, they decided by season's end to use their tag on Peterson.
If Joseph had played by the Feb. 21 rules, Owens could have hit the open market before Philadelphia spent a huge chunk of its cap room to make Jevon Kearse the highest-paid defensive lineman in history. A bidding war between the Eagles, Baltimore and other clubs caught up in the initial frenzy could have made Owens much richer than the eventual $10 million bonus he received as part of a $42 million, seven-year deal.
Imagine this: The 49ers gave Ahmed Plummer, the fifth or sixth best cornerback on the market, a bigger bonus ($11 million) than Owens wound up with.
Upshaw initially said Joseph blew the deadline and indicated that the agent could be ``disciplined.'' The league signed off on the trade that sent Owens from the 49ers to Baltimore for a second-round choice. Obviously, league officials and attorneys believed Owens had no case, no matter the final paragraph of his contract.
So why did many reports indicate that the Management Council argued its case so poorly before special master Stephen Burbank? One theory from one team executive: ``By then, Owens had made such a stink, even invoking the name of
Rosa Parks, that the league just wanted it all to go away.''
Owens had whipped Eagles fans into a frenzy by repeatedly telling interviewers he was ``free,'' that he refused to go to Baltimore and that he would fight to be an Eagle. He compared himself to civil-rights leader Parks, threatening to turn a rules issue into a racial one.
Sadly, it worked.
Said the team executive: ``The league caved in and just wanted to compromise. They were fortunate to have three owners involved who went along with it.''
Baltimore's Steve Bisciotti is new. As Coach Brian Billick told CNN.SI: ``Steve Bisciotti got jobbed. It was almost, `Welcome to the NFL.' '' For patiently playing by the rules, letting free-agent receiver Marcus Robinson go to Minnesota and costing themselves shots at other receivers, Bisciotti's Ravens wound up with only a fifth-round pick.
The other two owners involved weren't exactly league-battling Al Davis and Jerry Jones. An NFL loan helped subsidize Jeff Lurie's Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. York needs league help to finance a potential new stadium.
Had Davis or Jones owned the Eagles, they surely would have encouraged Owens to wait for the special master's ruling. If Owens had been declared a free agent, the Eagles wouldn't have had to give Brandon Whiting to the 49ers.
But Owens didn't care that he cost his new team a four-year starter at defensive end. Owens got what he wanted. Disgraceful.
http://www.miami.com
In the end, it looks as if a player who thinks he's bigger than the game wrote his own rules, in Sharpie. That wasn't quite the case. But that was the message this sorry saga sent.
Make enough noise, get enough people to listen, and you can bring the NFL to its knees.
But as usual with John York's 49ers, the initial oversight was theirs. York's staff did agree to a final paragraph of an addendum to Owens' contract, which was signed by director of football operations John McVay on March 1, 2001. The paragraph clearly stated that Owens could void the deal on or before March 2, 2004. Apparently, these 49ers hadn't kept up with the collective bargaining agreement any better than they have their salary cap.
Yet several NFL executives and agents point out that every contract carries a standard paragraph that says ``provisions of the CBA will take precedence over conflicting provisions of this contract.'' Translation: Agree to anything you want, but if it doesn't comply with the rules, it won't stand up in court.
About five weeks before Owens' contract was signed, the players union agreed to a ``side letter'' to the CBA that effectively made the opt-out deadline Feb. 21, 2004. Period. End of debate. Owens' March 2 deadline was against the rules.
The league won that concession so teams would have a couple of weeks longer to decide whether to, say, use their franchise tag to keep a player who had filed for free agency. Yes, the ``side letter'' is written in brain-teasing legalese, but after a second or third reading its intent is unmistakable. No player or agent had questioned the date or procedure in 2002 or 2003.
Union chief Gene Upshaw said he faxed a reminder to Owens' agent, David Joseph, 11 days before the Feb. 21 deadline. Of the 10 or so players who had the earlier deadline, only Owens and Dennis Northcutt missed it. Northcutt's contract called for an even earlier deadline - Feb. 2 - so he and his agent actually missed two opt-out dates. Northcutt didn't argue and remains property of the Cleveland Browns.
Joseph apparently feared that if he showed his free-agent hand by Feb. 21, the 49ers would slap the franchise tag on Owens. So Joseph contended that Owens' contract specified March 2.
Bad gamble.
Other agents or plugged-in reporters could have told Joseph that the 49ers had realized they had no hope of signing linebacker Julian Peterson to a new contract. His agents, the Poston brothers, initially asked for a $30 million bonus. If the 49ers had been able to do a new deal with Peterson, then, yes, they would have franchise-tagged Owens and tried to trade him. Instead, they decided by season's end to use their tag on Peterson.
If Joseph had played by the Feb. 21 rules, Owens could have hit the open market before Philadelphia spent a huge chunk of its cap room to make Jevon Kearse the highest-paid defensive lineman in history. A bidding war between the Eagles, Baltimore and other clubs caught up in the initial frenzy could have made Owens much richer than the eventual $10 million bonus he received as part of a $42 million, seven-year deal.
Imagine this: The 49ers gave Ahmed Plummer, the fifth or sixth best cornerback on the market, a bigger bonus ($11 million) than Owens wound up with.
Upshaw initially said Joseph blew the deadline and indicated that the agent could be ``disciplined.'' The league signed off on the trade that sent Owens from the 49ers to Baltimore for a second-round choice. Obviously, league officials and attorneys believed Owens had no case, no matter the final paragraph of his contract.
So why did many reports indicate that the Management Council argued its case so poorly before special master Stephen Burbank? One theory from one team executive: ``By then, Owens had made such a stink, even invoking the name of
Rosa Parks, that the league just wanted it all to go away.''
Owens had whipped Eagles fans into a frenzy by repeatedly telling interviewers he was ``free,'' that he refused to go to Baltimore and that he would fight to be an Eagle. He compared himself to civil-rights leader Parks, threatening to turn a rules issue into a racial one.
Sadly, it worked.
Said the team executive: ``The league caved in and just wanted to compromise. They were fortunate to have three owners involved who went along with it.''
Baltimore's Steve Bisciotti is new. As Coach Brian Billick told CNN.SI: ``Steve Bisciotti got jobbed. It was almost, `Welcome to the NFL.' '' For patiently playing by the rules, letting free-agent receiver Marcus Robinson go to Minnesota and costing themselves shots at other receivers, Bisciotti's Ravens wound up with only a fifth-round pick.
The other two owners involved weren't exactly league-battling Al Davis and Jerry Jones. An NFL loan helped subsidize Jeff Lurie's Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. York needs league help to finance a potential new stadium.
Had Davis or Jones owned the Eagles, they surely would have encouraged Owens to wait for the special master's ruling. If Owens had been declared a free agent, the Eagles wouldn't have had to give Brandon Whiting to the 49ers.
But Owens didn't care that he cost his new team a four-year starter at defensive end. Owens got what he wanted. Disgraceful.
http://www.miami.com
