So much for the afterglow

Bucs make big mistake by angering Johnson with ploy

I can't decide if they were foolish enough to think they could get away with it or, worse, clueless to the message it sent, but I do know this: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have gone and done it now.

They've made the mistake of making Brad Johnson mad. Needlessly at that.

The Bucs' front office wants to believe that its ham-handed ways regarding Johnson's recent contract restructuring talks merely angered Johnson's agent, Phil Williams, who was in the market for a contract extension rather than a restructuring. Tampa Bay wants to pin it all on an overreaction by Williams and hope that its Super Bowl-winning quarterback remains as easy-going and genial as ever.

Uh, wrong. Nicknamed "The Bull," Johnson is fuming and seeing red. Trust me, he doesn't view this little saga as merely an agent-driven story that falls under the heading of "just business." For Johnson, it goes a little deeper than that, and it involves more than a decade's worth of trying to alter people's perceptions about his value.

Less than a month after he was one of the primary architects of Tampa Bay's first Super Bowl championship, a win that he said validated his entire roller-coaster career, Johnson is battling with those old familiar feelings of being underappreciated and overlooked. Why? Because the Bucs took a page out of their long-ago bumbling past at the worse possible time.

Here are the pertinent details: Johnson and the Bucs recently discussed restructuring the final three years of his contract to help ease the team's salary cap crunch, thereby helping Tampa Bay defend its Super Bowl title. It was a move Johnson was amenable to, and the scenario was going to be a familiar one: The Bucs would convert most of Johnson's 2003 base salary ($5.5 million) into the signing bonus of a new deal, thereby lowering his base to the veteran minimum of $755,000, which would dramatically reduce his 2003 cap value.

But while that's standard stuff in today's NFL, the Bucs also snuck in a little maneuver that the vast majority of the league's players and agents would have red-flagged immediately. Missing in the new deal was any mention of the $1.5 million of guaranteed 2004 salary that had been part of Johnson's original five-year, $28 million contract.

More than the actual dollars, it was the symbolism of that move that infuriated Johnson. Guaranteed money equals roster security in the NFL, and without it, Johnson's perception was that he was being told he was as vulnerable as the next highly paid veteran, starting as soon as next season.

The Bucs countered by telling Williams that Johnson's big new signing bonus of more than $4.7 million would compensate for the guaranteed money removed from 2004 and that the hefty cap acceleration of the new signing bonus -- if the Bucs were of a mind to cut Johnson next year -- would in effect act as his roster security blanket.

Sorry, but that cover story isn't flying, and the truth is that Bucs general manager Rich McKay and Co. knew it would be a non-starter as a point of negotiation. Despite the club's weak explanation, and hasty offer to reinsert the guaranteed dollars in 2004, the entire episode left Johnson cold. Case closed, and it looks like the post-championship afterglow is over.

At the very least, the Bucs' gambit was the absolute wrong signal to send to the quarterback who helped earn the first ring in the franchise's mostly star-crossed 27-year existence. Especially since Johnson has had a history of having the rug yanked out from underneath him, rendering him almost perpetually in search of respect and appreciation.

Whether you choose to believe the Bucs' reasoning for the disappearance of the guaranteed money, here's how Johnson heard it: This is a defensive-driven team. We won with defense, and we don't value offensive players anywhere near as much as we do the Derrick Brooks or Warren Sapps of the world. Not only are you not getting a contract extension after just two seasons of a five-year deal, but we're also going to mess with your head by yanking the 2004 guaranteed money out of the contract.

As someone who knows Johnson as well anybody in the media, the thing that shocked me about this story is that it revealed how little the Bucs' front office understands their quarterback and what makes him tick. A model citizen and exemplary team player, Johnson is also a man whose tremendous pride often has been wounded in the past, creating in him almost an instinctive expectation that good times will be followed by a hammer blow.

You know the pattern: Johnson was once declared the starter at Florida State, in Minnesota and again in Washington, only to see each situation turn against him. And now, in Tampa Bay, when he should be basking in his crowning achievement, another negative has followed a positive.

I saw Redskins owner Daniel Snyder and Ravens head coach Brian Billick needlessly injure Johnson's pride in recent years, and I saw Johnson distance himself from both of them in response. Snyder signed Jeff George in 2000 despite Johnson's coming off a Pro Bowl year, and one year later Johnson couldn't leave D.C. fast enough via free agency.

Billick made much the same mistake, giving Johnson the impression he would be happy with either him or Elvis Grbac in free agency 2001, rather than single-mindedly pursuing the player he helped develop in Minnesota. That's the single biggest reason Johnson is a Buc today.

In both cases, it's fair to say Washington and Baltimore weren't better off for their decisions.

Is another such wedge being driven between Johnson and the Bucs, just when everybody should be one big, happy family? It's way too early to know. This story could very well blow over as this offseason unfolds. Johnson, after all, isn't going anywhere with those three remaining years on his deal. Then again, there's always the option of a training camp holdout if the relationship deteriorates.

For his part, McKay isn't likely to either address Johnson's contract, or speak publicly about the issue. His stance will be to let time do its work, and it probably will.

But rest assured, Johnson will remember and use this incident to fuel his motivation. He'll file it away that a month after he delivered like never before, Tampa Bay tried to take something away from him. Maybe in the long run, the 2003 Bucs will even benefit from it.

Everybody knows Brad Johnson has always played his best ball when he's mad.

Don Banks covers pro football for SI.com.

 

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