You know it's the offseason when ...

Wine talk fills the 'bag and rips are nowhere to be found

A nice slowball from Jay of NYC to help the poor doc along and get the mailbag off to a joyous start. "Any good wine stories/experiences/anecdotes to share from your recent travels? Are there any people in the NFL who are into wine as much as you are?"

OK, gimme room. I might eat up a whole page with my answer. What the hell, it's the offseason, right?

Last part first. I approach wine as someone who once wrote about it quite seriously (as a wine columnist for the New York Post, and other places) and now writes about it occasionally, which makes me a fringe wine person. But in the NFL there is someone who grew up with it and spent much of his early life in the midst of Napa Valley winemakers. I'm talking about Calistoga's own Dick Vermeil, of course. He puts out a Cabernet Sauvignon under the Vermeil label, and last time I spoke with him about it he was quite upset with the way it's being sold.

"I saw it on a restaurant wine list for $100," he said. "Can you imagine that? You can get it for $45 in a store, $27 wholesale, but I guess the restaurants use some kind of given mark-up formula."

The standard is 3.2 times wholesale price, but they must feel that Dick's wine deserves a little bit more of a boost.

John York, the husband of 49ers owner Denise DeBartolo York, heard me discussing wine with San Francisco Chronicle columnist Ira Miller at the league meetings, and became quite animated on the subject.

"You know we do quite a few things with wine at our home games," he said. "Do you ever get out our way?"

Smelling an invite to something rewarding, I assured him that I did.

"Well, we manage to entertain wine people in our owner's box. And we serve their wine. We had Dan Duckhorn of Duckhorn Vineyards there -- that's Joe Montana's favorite wine -- and everybody loved it."

York went on and on while I waited for the invite that never came ... "We had Thomas Keller of The French Laundry restaurant in Yountville, [Calif.] at one of our games," he was saying, "and would you believe that he had two hot dogs and three beers?" Yeah, I'd believe it, and that's where this rather pointless story broke off, with me getting invited to zero.

I was, incidentally, going to do a wine and food story on the French Laundry for the paper in which I write an occasional wine column, the Princeton (N.J.) Packet, the thrust of it being: Is this really America's No.1 restaurant? Many people think so. Others can't handle the miserable, arrogant way they deal with attempted reservations. Count me among the latter. After 20 minutes or so of trying to gain admission to their inner sanctum I got mad, yelled and slammed the phone down.

"I told you not to bother... I told you you'd just get mad," the Flaming Redhead reminded me, which is just the thing to tell someone who's being consumed by the white heat of anger. Maybe next year I'll give it a shot. Maybe not.

Where was I? Oh yes, wine experiences at the league meetings. Here's a terrific one. The Arizona Biltmore worked a very clever gimmick at the league party. As you entered the room, there was a table with five decanters of wine from Geyser Peak in Sonoma County. The five Bordeaux varietals -- Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot. You took a glass and poured some of each variety into it to produce your own Bordeaux blend. Then you tasted and adjusted it. Then you drank it. Then they filled a bottle, using the same percentage you had, stuck a cork in it and gave it to you to take home and drink at a later date. We drank ours three days later. I loved the Verdot so I loaded my blend with it, hit the Cabernet Franc hard and went easy on the other three. The Redhead went conventional and did the biggest number with the Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. I liked mine better. And for those of you who have managed to stay awake through all this, we now turn our sights to football.

Corey of Oakmont, Pa., agrees with my feeling that to expand the playoffs would be to cheapen them, and asks, "Do you suppose the majority of NFL owners will realize this?" The minority will. The majority is plugged into the profit motive.

Jason of Chicago agrees with me that the overtime procedure should not be changed, and if you lose the coin flip, you should suck it up and play tough defense. So that's Jason and me on one side and Commissioner Tagliabue on the other. I'm not sure I like our chances when this thing comes up for a vote again.

Jeff of Honolulu agrees with me that some of the non-reviewable plays should be shifted over to the reviewable category. And that's the hat trick for old Z, three straight agrees, and still no rips. I think the wine softened up the rippers this week. I'd like to help you out, Jeff, and make some of those supposed judgment calls subject to review, but that wouldn't help the NFL's all-important image, so it has no chance. Was that really pass interference? Well, let's review it. See that, he never touched him. So we're gonna take away that cheap 40-yarder and make you play some football. Yeah, right. Keep dreaming.

Henry of Oxford, England (Are you really British, Henry? You don't sound like it. You're too hip on the NFL), agrees with me that the Geyser Peak Petit Verdot was the sleeper of the bunch ... check that, he didn't mention it at all, but he did say some nice things I'm thankful for. He's a Dolphins fan. He's tuned in to the idea of Junior Seau possibly joining the Fins, but then again Henry wonders whether adding Seau will just be another Thurman Thomas-Cris Carter deal. Well, I'm not as optimistic about Seau as you are. I think the gas is almost out of the tank, but you never know with these super-motivated guys. He just might put together one more dynamic year, simply to show everybody.

Last week's piece on the diversity program and African-American head coaches drew the most interest among e-mailers. Theo of Winnipeg wonders if the NFL has ever done any research into the dynamics of the situation, why the disparity between black players and black head coaches is so great. No. Not to my knowledge. Let me relate a story a club official told me, with considerable disgust, about something that happened at the league meetings.

"This PR expert came in to speak to all the coaches and GMs," said my informant, who didn't want his name used because he ripped the league. "[The expert] was so long that his speech went into overtime. He was supposed to be teaching us how to capture an audience, and of course he lost his audience because he was so long-winded. We were supposed to break at 11:30, but he went till 12:20, which gave us a short lunch period.

"The second speaker was Jack Herring, a sociologist and psychologist with a doctorate from the University of Illinois. He was speaking on diversity hiring, not only in football, but everywhere. This guy was really good. He made a lot of people uncomfortable. He spoke for half an hour and kept looking at his watch and at the NFL people in the room, and then he was rushed off the stage.

"You know what? This sums up the whole thing about the league. They're more concerned with spending an hour or more with some guy talking about the image and political correctness than dealing with the real issue at hand. It's a cultural problem, and not only in the NFL."

From Chad of Ithaca, N.Y., and the faculty of Cornell University comes a deep and searching examination of race relations in general -- and in the NFL in particular. He wonders why so many African-American players have shown so little interest in the problems at hand, and in the history of the civil rights movement in general. Because most football players, black or white, are generally lazy about things that don't concern their day-to-day living. It's a "been there, done that," brush off of anything much deeper than their designer fabrics. Sad but true. An example: My daughter, a union kid, like her daddy, is very upset that Jerry Rice has appeared in ads endorsing Cintas, the giant uniform company.

"Doesn't he know what kind of company it is?" she asked. According to a report by the laundry workers union, UNITE, the NLRB has cited Cintas 25 times for violations, which include, among other things, age, sex and race discrimination. "Could you speak to Rice about it?" she asked me.

Yeah, I will, but I don't know how much good it'll do.

En fin, a football question from Chad. "Do you think my beloved Raiders will be able to make it back to the Super Bowl?" No I don't because, statistically, the margin is too thin to produce repeaters. I think they'll be good again, but, as we all know, a year older.

Eric of Ashburn, Va., is upset because Matt Millen got in trouble for not interviewing a black candidate while Jerry Jones didn't get punished for doing the same thing. That's because Jerry did interview an African American, Dennis Green, who, as we know, has very serious credentials.

A thank you to John of North Branch, Minn., for his kind words. John has come up with a novel idea. Reward a club with a high draft choice if it hires a minority head coach. Sorry, but I can't go for this. Newspapers would jump all over a lollipop solution such as this one, and what if, God forbid, the guy loses a few games. Then he'll be dubbed the "draft-choice coach," or something else clever like that. What's my solution? John asks. A plan that's already been implemented -- a very strong training program for players who seems to show any coaching aptitude at all. Since 67-70 percent of the players are African-American, you'd have to believe that they'd be the greatest beneficiaries of such a program. Train players young and train 'em well, and pretty soon you'd have such a striking influx of young, black talent at the coaching positions that it would have to filter through and reach the head-coach level. How long would this take? Too long, but I can't come up with a simple, quick solution.

Thanks, Pat. I'm talking about the Pat from San Carlos, Calif. The Broncos fan. Worried about Jake Plummer. Me, too. I loved him in his first few seasons with Arizona, but now all his defects have been magnified and there are a lot of bad habits to unlearn. On a more local level, Pat doesn't see how the Niners' Dennis Erickson will be able to please all the diverse elements he'll be accountable to -- Walsh, Donahue, York, even his offensive coordinator, Greg Knapp, who differs from Erickson stylistically. Well, I talked to Erickson at the league meetings. He seemed to be delighted to have a job in the NFL. He looked like a guy who'll be easy to control, which Mariucci wasn't.

Scott of Rochester, N.Y., where they ask tough questions, puts it very bluntly: The Bills canned Ted Washington because they said they didn't like fat guys. So what are they doing with Sam Adams? Beats me. I thought he just went through the motions last year.

Udhaya of Tracy, Calif., wants to know if I agree with him that Jacksonville (Hugh Douglas, Jermaine Lewis) and San Diego (David Boston) have made the best offseason moves so far. Uh, no. Off the top of my head I'd say Atlanta (Tod McBride, Peerless Price, Tyrone Williams, Keith Newman) and the team everyone laughs at, Washington (Laveranues Coles, Randy Thomas, Brandon Noble, John Hall, Matt Bowen, Dave Fiore). Question No. 2 from Udhaya: "Is there any truth to red wines from even numbered years being superior?" That's a funny one. You've been reading too much Robert Parker-generated hype about the 2000 vintage in Bordeaux. The interesting thing is that once upon a time they used to say that about odd-numbered years in Bordeaux and Burgundy -- three great odd-year vintages in a row, 1945, '47', 49, a minor setback in '51, then bing-bang, here come the fabulous '53s and '55s. We'll forget 1957, but then voila! The wonderful '59s and '61s. And that's where it ends, clunk! Does that answer your question? What was that question again?

From Chris of Allenhurst, N.J.: "Does the Bus still have gas or will the Steelers finally make the move to go with Zereoue?" I think they've already made that move. Of course, you can never count out an old warhorse who has a fighting heart, so I won't completely write Jerome off, but he definitely looks like he's on the downside.

No question from Ron of Pittsburgh, a retired army topkick who's currently working with the military in Germany, just some well-deserved praise ... wait a minute, that came out wrong ... just some well-intentioned praise that I'm thankful for, uh, make that for which I'm thankful. Where you stationed, Ron? Anywhere near Landstuhl, or Kaiserslautern? If you are, ask 'em if they still remember The Beast of K-Town, also known as der Putzfrau Gangster? Geez, guys, I'm just kidding around. Lay off with the handcuffs already.

Brian of San Francisco presents the following what-if: What if the Bengals pass on Carson Palmer and use the No. 1 overall pick on knock-'em-dead wideout Charles Rogers, figuring they can draft quality QB in the second round? I'd say the downside potential is too big. What if Palmer turns out to be great? It'll haunt the Bengals for 15 years or so, but Mike Brown need not worry because by then the Cincy fans would have kidnapped him and stashed him away in a cabin somewhere in Montana.

Wow, we've gone through a whole mailbag without a single rip to answer to, and now here's the final e-mail ... from Moshik of Jerusalem ... oh oh, this could be serious ... and let's see ... is it a rip or a chip? The envelope, please, Jimmy. And it's a ... it's a note that leads off with a compliment, and that keeps the slate clean. I won't have to yell at the Redhead for that French Laundry "I told you so" thing. The question -- what should the Giants do with Ron Dayne, who our good-natured boychik, Moshik, feels can actually be a contributor. Yeah, he'll contribute. If they hold up a can and tell him it's for The March of Dimes or Easter Seals. You know that I don't like to rip players as a rule, but this guy has done zip since he's been in the NFL. He just doesn't have the instincts. Can't run over anybody or make people miss or even pick out the right hole. Sorry to be so harsh. Just my opinion.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Paul Zimmerman covers the NFL for the magazine and SI.com. His "Inside Football" column and Mailbag appear weekly on SI.com. To send a question to Dr. Z, click here.

 

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