Five Questions with Peter King
On the Packers, coaching moves and Terrell Owens
Posted: Tuesday January 05, 1999 02:22 PM
Sports Illustrated's NFL guru talked with CNN/SI about the latest news
from around the league.
What's next for the Packers?
On Monday three teams -- Baltimore, Seattle and Philadelphia -- called the
Packers to ask permission to ask to speak to coach Mike Holmgren .
In addition, the Chicago
Bears asked for and received permission to talk to offensive
coordinator Sherm Lewis , who's likely a longshot with the Bears.
Another longshot coaching candidate will be quarterbacks coach Andy
Reid , to whom the Eagles received permission to talk.
The Packers probably won't lose Lewis or Reid unless the coach who comes in
to replace Holmgren wants to make staff changes. Clearly it's a time of
uncertainty in Green Bay.
The Panthers hired George Seifert as coach on Monday. What are his
first priorities?
Seifert has to build a staff that will be headed offensively by Gil
Haskell , the Carolina offensive coordinator who will retain his job,
and by Seifert himself. If Seifert doesn't act as defensive coordinator,
he'll dictate the schemes, similar to ones he used in San Francisco.
It is likely that he will have the final say in every major personnel
decision, including free-agent signings and the draft. It will be
interesting to see, without the 49ers safety net, how great a personnel man
and scout George Seifert will be, because obviously he will have to be one
in Carolina to fix a personnel situation run amok.
His biggest problem will be solving the woes of the Panthers' front seven,
where he has a vastly underperforming Sean Gilbert. He has Kevin Greene either being
at the end or close to the end of his career. Lamar Lathon will probably
have to retire because of injury problems. He has an awful lot of holes to
fill defensively.
After New England's wild card loss to Miami, what's coach Pete
Carroll's future?
I think Pete Carroll's future is really in doubt right now. All Bob
Kraft has to come out and say is, "He is my coach for next
year." But he's been unwilling to do that over the past few weeks.
Obviously it means that he's thinking about making a change. He might
deliberate for a while, but he's not talking about it and not asking people
for advice.
Where does Terrell
Owens' catch stack up historically?
The catch itself will be the second biggest in 49ers history. Dwight
Clark's catch was more dramatic because it got his team into the Super
Bowl.
It will go down in NFL history as one of the 10 most dramatic plays of all
time because of the pressure of the moment, the pressure on Owens himself
because he'd had a horrible game, and the pressure on the franchise because
they had been knocked out of the playoffs for three years running by the
Packers.
So I think that everything taken together, it was just an incredibly
dramatic moment. People outside the state of Wisconsin will savor it for a
long time.
How much money did Owens make with the catch?
Owens is in a very, very interesting position. For years, NFL restricted
free agents -- three-year vets whose contracts have expired and whose teams
have the option to match any offers -- were almost automatically consigned
to their teams. He's still the property of the 49ers, but for a team to get
him they'd have to put in an offer much like the Jets did last year with Curtis Martin (6 years,
$36 million). They're going to have to give Owens some huge contract offer,
then hope the 49ers don't accept it. If they don't, a team would have to
give San Francisco first- and third-round picks as compensation.
Terrell Owens is the perfect guy. Because the unrestricted free agency
market is going to be very weak, I think teams will go after restricted
free agents who are very highly regarded -- particularly from teams that
are having big salary cap problems. The 49ers have contracts totaling $80.8
million assigned to their veteran players in '99. The cap is projected to
be about $58 million.
Take a team like Miami, which is desperate for a receiver -- it's by far
the single-biggest need in that organization. Let's say for a minute that
they want Owens and give him a front-loaded contract with a big bonus and a
big first-year salary. It would be very hard for the 49ers to match this
contract.
The Dolphins will probably pick somewhere around 23, 24, 25 in the first
round. If they do, a first- and third-round pick for Terrell Owens after
they pay him his contract is not going to be a ridiculous compensation
level.
Whether he had played great Sunday or not, Owens would still have been an
attractive free agent. It would be very hard for the 49ers to keep him, but
it's been very hard to keep a lot of their stars in the past and they've
managed to keep almost all of them.
Sports Illustrated pro football writer Peter King writes "Monday
Morning Quarterback" weekly during the NFL season for CNN/SI.
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