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Writers for hire Do teams ever offer inducements for favorable publicity?Posted: Wednesday July 03, 2002 1:29 PM
Have a comment or question for Dr. Z? Click here. Before I solve all the problems of the NFL, may I digress for a moment and talk about the World Cup? I think I mentioned before that I'll watch any sport if the stakes are high enough and they don't get much higher than World Cup soccer. I would have watched a lot more of it this time, except that the TV situation was so weird. Is it my imagination or was the scheduling and presentation really fouled up? I never knew when matches were going to be on ESPN or ESPN2. Seems to me that it kept changing without prior notice. I never got to see the second half of Brazil-England, a pretty good contest, wouldn't you say? And when Spain-South Korea went into OT the announcers mentioned a disputed goal that was taken away from Spain. I didn't know what they were talking about, mainly because they hadn't shown that part of the game. Finally the final, Germany vs. Brazil. Scheduled locally for ABC at 7 a.m., with the replay at 12:30 p.m. that afternoon. All the papers had that. I took no chances. I set the taper for both timeslots. I watched the tape of the game played in the early morning. Then I was curious about the replay, so I punched that in, too. Guess what? No replay. It seems that ABC decided that us poor folks in New York and New Jersey didn't deserve it. It would have been nice if someone had mentioned that ahead of time. My favorite player in the World Cup? Tony Sanneh, the defender for the U.S. And now on to the serious matter of the gridiron (in New Zealand, incidentally, they refer to American football as "gridiron football"): The week's most intriguing query came from Obrey Brown of Redlands, Calif.: Do teams ever try to pay writers off, in one way or another, to write puff stuff about them? Yes, but a lot less now than they used to. Second part of the question: If I were offered a bribe, what would I do? That's not as easy at it sounds. If it were flat out cash or goods, I'd turn it down. But once upon a time, when my father had back problems, I got him in to see Dr. James Nicholas, the Jets' orthopedist. At the time I was covering the team as beat man for the New York Post. It wasn't easy to get an appointment with Jim Nicholas, but he found the time to see my dad and cured his bad back. Now what would have happened a few weeks later if I had found out that the doc had misdiagnosed a player's injury? Would I have broken the story, if I were the only one who had it, or would I have just let it slide until it was written by other people or possibly not discovered at all? I wish I could answer that question. I probably would have written it and reviled myself forever as a traitorous rat. But you never know. Thankfully, the situation never came up. In the old days, the payoffs were outrageous. There were NFL teams that would hand writers a per diem allotment for every trip. I'm talking about cash. I saw it myself. I wasn't involved in this, but the Jets did cover the plane fare for writers traveling on the club's charter flights. To my knowledge, the only paper that didn't go for this was The New York Times. Once I was on a talk show with Howard Cosell and we got into it, as usual, and he made a big hullabaloo about how I was getting my plane fare covered by the team. I tried to point out that I wasn't getting anything out of it, personally, because I just would have billed the paper for the ticket anyway, but my comments were lost in the tumult. Now the painful finale to all this. My first job, right out of school, was as a reporter for the Sacramento Bee. I knew nothin' from nothin.' One of my beats was the North Sacramento Hockey League, whose most powerful team was the Rexalls. On Christmas Day the owner of the Rexalls came to my house to personally give me a gift of a bottle of scotch. I accepted it. A short time later a young referee quit because he said the Rexalls had control over the officials. He sent a statement to the writers covering the league. It was a well-founded charge, but I didn't write the story and the Sacramento Union, our competitor, did. Spread it all over the first sports page. I was literally sick. I had sold out for a bottle of scotch. I vowed never again, but the incident still haunts me. I have nightmares about it. My comments about rugby prompted two responses. Dave of Durban, South Africa, has invited the Redhead and me to come down and watch the Springboks, and drink some good wine while we're at it. Someday, maybe. He also mentions the Tri-Nations test between the Springboks and the All Blacks on August 12. Oh yes, I'll watch if it's available on pay TV. I always do. Funny thing about the Springboks. That's the one team I always wanted to play against. Our club, the Old Blues, faced some good sides when I was competing -- Racing Club de Paris, Roslyn Park of England and many others. I even got in for a few wild moments when I was at Stanford and we played an exhibition against the Wallabies from Australia. But the great South African team, never. The finest rugger I ever played with or against was my teammate on the Blues, Stephanus duToit, who came from a great rugby family. He had been a junior Springbok and used to tell me stories about the club. A wonderful person, too. He's back in South Africa now, running the department of something or other at a hospital in, well, Durban. Maybe you've heard of him. My only other Springbok connection comes from the time when we gave two of them a "friendly," when we played at West Point -- gave them a game with our club side, which is a tradition of the sport, a thing you do for traveling ruggers. David Stewart, a centre, and a gigantic second row forward named Jan Pickard. I know you've heard of him. Had a reputation as a real bad boy of international rugby, although he was pretty calm that day -- except at the party afterward. Drank up all our beer. Hate to break this marvelous train of thought, but Dave actually has a football question. He wants to know what I think of the Jags' acquisitions of Wali Rainer, Bobby Shaw, Chris Naeole and Marco Coleman. Coleman is my favorite. He can still play. Naeole has turned into a solid offensive lineman. He'll help. Rainer is just fair as a MLB, kind of limited in his range, but they didn't get much from Hardy Nickerson last year. Shaw? Decent as the Steelers' third or fourth wideout last year, but getting him hardly makes up for the loss of Keenan McCardell, does it? Virgil of New Orleans wants my take on the Saints' revamped offensive line. I think it'll be better than last year's but not as good as the unit of two seasons ago. Part 2: Will the season that Deuce McAllister spent on the bench help his stamina this year? I don't think so. I don't see him as a guy who can carry a running attack. And Part 3, my second rugby question: Why don't more rugby players make the transition to the NFL? Kickers do. I've talked to many NFL kickers who played rugby at some time. Gary Anderson, for instance, played it at a pretty high level. Offensive players? Well, it would seem that some of the forwards could use all that tight scrum work to become drive blockers, but I don't know how many would have the feet for pass blocking. Runners, for some reason, don't make the transition. A few years ago, when Charley Casserly was the Redskins' GM, he was very interested in signing the All Blacks' 250-pound winger, Jonah Lomu, but he couldn't get the contract worked out. As far as defensive players, uh, I don't think so. The tackling technique is different. In rugby, it's a wrap-around, in football it's a smack. I know one thing the ruggers do better than NFL players and that's recover a fumble. If I were a coach, I'd bring a rugger to camp to teach the skill. The ruggers reach over the ball and scoop it into their bodies, on the move, while footballers seem to bat it around. Not a really tough thing to teach, I would guess. Drew of Roswell, N.M. -- and I thank you for your kind words -- wonders how Steve Spurrier will do in the NFL. Depends on what kind of magic he can work with Danny Wuerffel. Very few head coaches understand the QB position. I know his offense will be imaginative, but if Wuerffel can't cut it, so what? A two-parter from Bill of Central Point, Ore.: Will Drew Brees bust loose in San Diego? I'm not sure. Don't forget that the John Butler-A.J. Smith combination rescued Doug Flutie from oblivion a few years ago. OK, assuming that they cut the cord and give young Drew his shot, I'm not sure that the supporting cast around him is conducive to instant success. Second question: How do I like the new NFL alignment? At first I liked it just fine. Scheduling more fair, etc. But then I read the comments from another e-mailer, Laremy from Miami, and it got me thinking. Laremy's point: With only two wild-card teams, some 8-8 winner of a weak division might beat out a good 10-6 wild-card club for a playoff spot. And his solution is to add a third wild card, award a bye to only the best division winner, the No. 1 seed, and let the other three face the three wild-card teams. I understand the point, but it would mean six wild-card games on a weekend, three in each conference, and I don't think the TV folks would go for it. On second thought, maybe if you had two in the afternoon and one at night, well, I'm just not sure. But it would also mean that in a 32-team league, 14 would be in the playoffs, which almost guarantees that an 8-8 entry would make it. Too many playoff teams, which is my gripe about the NBA. A final thanks to Bill for his sentiments about my well being, and to Laremy, I say that yes, I agree with you that it's a good question and I'm glad that Jimmy also agreed. You really got stiffed nine times? I find this hard to believe. Scott, a Bills fan from Rochester, N.Y., wonders how Buffalo will stop the run. He also asks why the Bills want to play a 4-3 when their D-line stinks and they do have some decent LBs. Well, London Fletcher is a good run-stuffer, but I don't see much in front of him, either. A 3-4 defense? I see one problem. Pat Williams can play the nose, but not all the time. Where's his relief going to come from? Nick from Atlanta wants to know if the Falcons have enough speed at LB to convert to a 3-4. I think so. He also ask whether the lack of premier wideouts will significantly hamper Michael Vick's offensive options? Probably. His best receiver is Warrick Dunn, a running back. Put Dunn in the slot, run him down the pipe, and you've got yourself a pretty good medium-range receiver. A deep threat? I can't find one, just like last year. Tim of Flagstaff finishes the sentence of my Eagles' capsule last week. It began: "But this is a team that came six points away from the Super Bowl last year, so you've got to... " His capper: " ...assume the Eagles know what they're doing." OK, I assume already, but I still don't like their minus vs. plus overbalance in free agency. More Iggles from Shan of Philly (and I appreciate your nice words), who points to those Jeremiah Trotter critics who claim that he jumped around so much last year he hurt the run defense. No, I don't think that's why he's gone. I think the most serious jumping came from his salary demands, which jumped off the table. He would have thrown the team's structure out of whack, and if we're going to take shots at the mindless free spenders then we can't also rip the people who want to keep the overall payroll in some kind of working order. Sam of Seattle would like to know which free-agent signings were the biggest bargains. Oh boy, are you really going to make me look through the whole free-agent roster, complete with numbers? OK, the Bears signed Chris Chandler for $4.5 million for four years, plus a $1.25 million bonus. Pro Football Weekly ranked this the 92nd most important free-agent deal of the offseason. I have been belaboring my poor readers with this Chandler stuff for much too long. An incessant drumbeat, right? I could be way off base here; he might ride the pine and the money would be wasted. Or the deal could be a bingo! I believe the latter. Here are a couple of other good ones that didn't exactly break the bank: Kevin Hardy to Dallas for one year at $2.5 million, plus a $1.5 mil bonus, and Grady Jackson to New Orleans for two years at $3.275 mil, plus $750,000 bonus. Meanwhile, the stock market goes down down down. Here I'm watching my life savings getting wiped out and I'm writing about multimillion dollar bargains. Go figure it. Finally, from Kevin of Coppell, Texas: Is Bill Cowher a good game day coach? I'd say he's middle of the road on game day. Bill Belichick outcoached him in the title game last year, but he outcoached everyone else all year, too. Have a comment or question for Dr. Z? Click here.
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