Good news in Green
Bay
Send a question to Peter
King
Posted: Thu November 27, 1997
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. In the spirit of the holiday,
I thought I'd throw a good-news story at
you.
CNN/SI website reader Ken Fost of Bloomfield, N.J.,
e-mailed to ask,
Can the Green Bay Packers' stock sale work at $200 a
share? While I was in Green Bay last weekend,
I got the lowdown on the stock offering. Team president Bob
Harlan was only too happy to tell me about this modern
variation of a barn-raising. This is cornball stuff, but
it's good.
The Packers play in the smallest town in major pro sports
(population: 96,000) and would therefore have trouble
raising the tens of millions of dollars it would take to
replace or thoroughly modernize Lambeau Field. So team
management figured, Let's
offer as many as 400,000 shares for sale at $200 apiece, with
the understanding that it is an investment in the Packers'
future.
It's not the first time the Packers have asked fans to come
to the rescue. In 1950, 1,900 people bought shares worth
$25 to prop up the team. No stock has been issued since.
(Harlan is one of the original 1,900 buyers.) With this
offering, the Packers
figure there could be as many as 30,000 new
stockholders.
"The reaction has been
extraordinary," Harlan said. "We have local companies buying 10, 12
shares to give to employees as Christmas gifts. Bart Starr
called me today from Alabama. He's got a bunch of friends
who want to buy some shares. It's just a
warm, very nice story. I think by the end of the year we'll have
sold our 400,000 shares and raised the $80
million.''
Why, I wondered, are the Packers so desperate to save
Lambeau?
"I'd been batting around the idea of fixing Lambeau or
building a new stadium," Harlan said. "And then,
this summer, I was leaving the stadium one day after a
training-camp practice. Just as I was about to exit, I saw
a big van with Kansas license
plates come into the lot, and I watched as the driver—a
middle-aged man—got out of the van. He kneeled on the
asphalt and bowed to the stadium, as if it was royalty.
I realized that maybe we don't quite appreciate the depth of
feeling that people have for
this
stadium."
So Harlan plans to use one chunk of the money, maybe $40
million, to modernize Lambeau as best he can. Then he'll
invest the other chunk so that 20 years down the
road—architects have told the Packers that Lambeau
probably has that much time left—the
team will be able to throw, say, $100 million into the kitty
for either a complete Lambeau renovation or a new
stadium.
Let's give thanks that there's still one bastion of
tradition in the what-have-you-spent-for-me-lately world of
pro
sports.
Time for the questions of the
week.
Now that the Rams have waived Lawrence Phillips
and
Emmitt Smith may be slowing down, can you picture Phillips
in Dallas silver and
blue?
—Yahahn C. Thompson, Jacksonville,
N.C.
Impossible. The Cowboys can afford only minimum-salary
players until the cap rises about $5 million after the 1998
season. Phillips is making almost $2 million a
year.
One other thing: Don't overrate Phillips. He never was the
back in pro football that he was at Nebraska. He's not a
fighter and when you have a struggling offensive line, like
the Rams and Cowboys both have, you must be a fighter. The
guy's a mediocre
player.
Do NFL owners think the league was too generous with the
Jacksonville Jaguars and Carolina Panthers when those
franchises started? Will future expansion teams be treated
as
well?
—J.R. Lennartson,
Pittsburgh
Good question. Paul Tagliabue told me three weeks ago that
if Cleveland gets an expansion team, it won't operate under
the player-allocation rules that benefited the Jags and
Panthers. Most personnel people have long held that the
1995 teams received a
huge, unfair advantage by getting double draft picks for two
years. The Jags and Panthers also had $20 million plus to
spend in the free-agent market so the salaries of guys like
Lamar Lathon, Mike Fox, John Kasay and Leon Searcy were
pushed artificially
high.
Next time the league expands there will likely be double
draft picks the first year and limited access to free
agents. In the second year, any extra draft picks could be
based on the team's
performance.
Which has been most detrimental to the Dallas Cowboys,
coaching defections or free-agent
losses?
—Bret Richter, New
York
A third element, I think: age. The offensive line has hurt
the team most of all this year, largely because the left
side, Mark Tuinei and Nate Newton, averages 36.5 years of
age.
Of your two factors, I think one coaching defection is big,
but you have to qualify that. If Jimmy Johnson had stayed,
would he have been the damn-the-torpedoes, aggressive guy
he was in his early Cowboys years? Or would have been
fighting with Jerry
Jones too much to be effective as a
coach/GM?
When will the
NFL announce plans for the new Cleveland Browns? Will a
decision be made at the annual meetings in March or will
the owners wait until next
November?
—Tim Mieyal,
Cleveland
Sorry, Tim. It's looking more like November 1998, because
too many uncertainties remain. The biggest
two:
- Will the Vikings move to L.A. or Houston or San Antonio,
or stay in Minnesota under new
ownership?
- The new TV deal, which won't get done, I don't think,
until February or
March.
In the end, though, I think Cleveland will get an expansion
team.
It's obvious Neil O'Donnell is not the future quarterback
for the Jets. What is your
assessment? How good do you think Glenn Foley will be? Will the Jets
will acquire another
QB?
—Mark Kelly, Selden,
N.Y.
The Jets owe Neil O'Donnell $2.75 million on Feb. 20, so if
he's not the No. 1 quarterback entering the offseason they
might waive him and take a huge cap hit. I like Foley very
much. If I knew he would stay healthy, I'd love him. But
he's had two
significant injuries now in, what, five NFL
starts?
This is not an enviable position for Bill Parcells to be
in. He's doing something very, very smart this offseason,
though: sending option threat Ray Lucas, the former Rutgers
quarterback, to the World League for professional
seasoning. Lucas could be a
nice insurance policy. He can run like Kordell Stewart or
Mark Brunell. If he can throw even reasonably well, he
could be a good pro backup in this era, when mobility is
vital.
What's the word around the league on Michael Westbrook?
Will he ever live up to his potential or does he just not
have the desire to be one of the NFL's best
receivers?
—Dan Hargett, Fairfax,
Va.
After Westbrook's pathetic finish against the Giants, when
he negated his offensive productivity with a 15-yard
unsportmanslike conduct penalty at the end of the game, I
think most league people view him as a very talented guy
who's a little fragile and
a big
baby.
Though the San Francisco defense has been riddled by
injuries, it has still managed to be the best in the
league. The Niners' defense has even been compared to the
'85 Bears. How good is this 49ers
defense?
—Chris Collins, Columbia,
S.C.
It's clearly the premier defense in the league today, and
one of the two or three best of this decade. No DT combo in
the '90s, when healthy, matches the talent and productivity
of Dana Stubblefield and Bryant Young. Defensive ends Roy
Barker and Chris
Doleman are both significant pass-rush threats. The
linebackers are better and more forceful than most people
think; Gary Plummer has played like the 1992 Plummer this
year.
The Niners have lost too much in the secondary to be
considered a premier unit. Tim McDonald is a warrior, but
he's hurt too much. Rod Woodson needs to make it through
the end of the season to beat the injury rap he's had in
recent years. Merton Hanks
is
terrific.
Despite all the good things I've said, I don't think these
guys are close to the 1985 Bears. I don't think many
defenses I've seen—other than the late-'80s Eagles, the
mid-'80s Giants and the early-'90s Vikings and Cowboys—are
close to those Bears in
ability.
Have a good
holiday.
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