Ten Things I Think I Think

	Louisville's Michael Bush (broken leg last year) could be a viable RB option for teams drafting in rounds 2 or 3. Andy Lyons/Getty Images
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1. I think these are my quick-hit thoughts of my six-day spring-training tour:

a. Craig Biggio has some Tom Brady in him. Same kind of superstar -- accessible, team-first, thoughtful.

b. You know how many baseball players love the NFL? Vernon Wells (Cowboys), Roy Halladay (Bucs), Aaron Rowand (Bears), Jimmy Rollins (49ers), Chris Burke (Colts). And many more. "Will you please get away from him?'' Morgan Ensberg of the Astros said to me as I filled Burke with stories about Peyton Manning. "We're never going to hear the end of this Colts stuff today during stretching.''

c. My favorite interview: Jimmy Rollins. I love guys who say what they think. He's also about as normal a high-profile player as you'll find in any sport.

d. Second: Bronson Arroyo. Now there's a guy I'd like to have on my team. (Wait! He was on my team. And somebody traded him for Wily Mo Pena!) You'll get a kick out of the anecdote he told me for the SI baseball preview issue, which comes out in a couple of weeks. It's about him making peace with Theo Epstein. (I can't give it away here.)

e. Third: Brad Lidge. About as standup a guy as you'll find.

f. Ryan Howard has the presence of LaDainian Tomlinson. People just like being around him.

g. Mark Loretta. Drew Brees. Same guy.

h. I was a backup Reds beat guy from 1980 to '83 in Cincinnati, and I was so glad to see that three of the great people and excellent influences are still around the Reds. Tom Hume, the pitching coach and one of the most humble men I've met in the business, remains; he told me he still has the long feature I wrote on him somewhere in his garage. Ageless play-by-play man Marty Brenneman, who announced my daughter Laura's birth on the Reds game Aug. 23, 1983, told me how old he felt when I informed him Laura was in the working world in Los Angeles now.

And Hall of Fame beat man Hal McCoy is still at it. When I first worked the Reds' clubhouse at 23, Hal was the guy I looked up to, because every day was new and interesting to him, and he loved working every corner of the room. The other day, in Sarasota, as we stood in the middle of the clubhouse, I asked him what his story was for tomorrow's paper. "I don't know,'' he said. "It's best that way. Something always happens.'' And he went around chatting with players and coaches, finding whatever that story was. "I've never covered a bad clubhouse in all my years on the beat,'' he said. And that's the mark of a good reporter. Every year you don't have a great clubhouse. But with a guy like Hal, one of the best I've ever seen in any sport, you find the good guys, deal with the jerks, and make it a good clubhouse.

i. Sat with Bill Parcells and Ron Wolf watching Cards-Astros. They love LaRussa. Fun listening to them dissect Rick Ankiel and his chances to survive in pro baseball as an outfielder.

j. Good luck rehabbing from the concussion, Lou Merloni. You talk about football fans. Lou Merloni doesn't want to be Lou Merloni. He wants to be Scott Pioli. Huge Pats fan. The other day, Merloni, in camp with the A's, trying to make the roster as a utility guy, texted me thusly: "No Dillon. Can we get Bush in second round?'' Louisville's Michael Bush, he meant. And no. The second-rounder went for Wes Welker. But who knows? There could be another second-rounder on the way. Seven weeks until the draft, and the Patriots have been known to wheel and deal.

2. I think the Jake Plummer story isn't over. Not by a long shot. There are two key parts of the Plummer trade to the Broncos:

a. Denver gets a seventh-round pick in '08 if Plummer doesn't play or report to Tampa Bay or any other team by draft day '08. If he plays or reports anywhere in the next 13 months, Denver is owed a fourth-rounder.

b. I expect Tampa Bay GM Bruce Allen to give Plummer a couple of months to make a decision about whether he wants to return this year or next year. Maybe more than a couple of months. But at some point, I expect Allen to go after the pro-rated $7 million in signing-bonus money Plummer has assigned to each of the last three years of his contract -- '07, '08, '09.

There is precedent for teams to go after portions of a signing bonus if a player retires before the term of his contract expires, and I expect Allen would get this money from Plummer, which would be a heck of a good investment for a seventh-round draft choice. So the Bucs would be enriched by $7 million if they win what surely would be a grievance filed by Plummer, who wouldn't want to give the money back.

Confused? When players sign long-term contracts, for cap purposes, a pro-rated portion of the signing bonus is assigned to each year of the contract and made part of his cap number. In '03, Plummer signed a seven-year, $40 million contract. He's played four years of the deal. The assumption when a player signs a seven-year contract is that he's being paid a signing bonus commensurate with the total number of years in the contract. Now, a total of $7 million in pro-rated bonus money remains, even if Plummer chooses not to play.

There's no doubt in my mind that one of the reasons Allen made this deal is knowing that even if Plummer didn't play again, the Bucs would have the right to go after the $7 million. Remember a couple of years ago when Allen went after Keenan McCardell's $1 million roster bonus and won, when McCardell refused to play for Tampa Bay and forced a trade to San Diego? The history's there. In the end, even if Plummer doesn't play another snap in the NFL, this deal has the potential to be a very good one for Tampa Bay.

3. I think Lance Briggs should not be mad at the Chicago Bears. He should be mad at Gene Upshaw and the players' union. One of the big reasons management made this deal on free agency in '93 with the players is because they got the ability to franchise-tag an important player once a year and pay him the average of the top five players at his position.

Every year, two or three players go nuts about being franchised. This year it's Briggs. It's like I say every year when this happens: If players are mad about the franchise tag (and Briggs is, because he sees stiffs like Leonard Davis getting huge signing bonuses when he gets zero to sign and a salary of $7.8 million), then he should get active in the union and try to repeal it. Or he should take the six-year, $35-million deal he was offered by the Bears, with lots more guaranteed money, and just deal with it.

This system isn't perfect. It still pays the high first-round picks a stupid, insulting amount of money. And when owners have money to spend under the cap, they're sure to make lesser players than Briggs way too rich. But the system, in general, has been a good one for players and owners over the past 14 years.

4. I think if the Chargers were going to change their uniforms, which they did, they should have gone to the powder blues. I don't get that. Nicest unis in sports, and San Diego refuses to go to them full-time.

5. I think Oakland called the Broncos, looking to make a deal for Plummer. And if you've been awake and a sports fan over the last 15 years, you know that's what you call a fruitless phone call. Mike Shanahan will help the Oakland Raiders the day Al Davis leaves the organization. Not before.