The anatomy of Atwater's new deal
Posted: Thursday March 04, 1999 03:46 PM
So how did seven-time Pro Bowl safety Steve Atwater land with the Jets? It all started at 11:30 at night, five days before the Pro Bowl in Honolulu. Atwater, a late arrival because of the Denver Super Bowl celebration, knocked on the door of Jets coaching aide Eric Mangini, to get his Pro Bowl playbook. Atwater and Mangini then spent an hour going over Jets terminology so Atwater wouldn't be behind when practice began the next day. Jets assistant head coach Bill Belichick, subbing for his boss, Bill Parcells, returned from Hawaii raving about Atwater -- and Atwater figured this would be his best shot to get back to a Super Bowl after being released by the Broncos. The Jets, by the way, want to add free-agent linebacker Roman Phifer and guard Ian Beckles to their 1999 starting lineup.
Sign of the times
Maybe it's a sign of just how far football has come in the 90's that no one's making a big deal about a pretty startling development in this year's draft. Next month, three black quarterbacks could be picked in the first round -- that's as many as have been picked in all the first rounds combined since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970 (and there have been 49 quarterbacks picked in the first round since then). Syracuse's Donovan McNabb and Central Florida's Daunte Culpepper each had strong workouts this week, and Oregon's Akili Smith will audition Tuesday on the West Coast. All three should be among the top 15 players selected. Two other black quarterbacks, Tulane's Shaun King and Kansas State's Michael Bishop, should be taken by the end of Round 3. Just goes to show you the league is getting more color blind by the year -- and that colleges are producing better quarterbacks of all colors.
Lambeau's end begins
Very quietly, an NFL institution went into a coma this week. And the most storied stadium in NFL history, Lambeau Field, soon will die. Two seasons ago, the Green Bay Packers began to sell stock to the public at $200 a share. The club wanted to raise $80 million for a complete renovation of Lambeau Field, which would have kept it in operation until at least 2025. Buying Packer stock was the IN thing. Not IN enough, though. The sale raised just $24 million. The only way the Pack could go through with the renovation would be to bankrupt the football side of the business by taking away GM Ron Wolf's signing-bonus money for free agents like Santana Dotson and Antonio Freeman. So this week the team decided to take the $24 million and invest it. In 10 years, when a new stadium is needed, the Packers hope they will have $100 million on hand, which they'd use as their stake in a mostly publicly funded stadium in the Green Bay area. But it won't be Lambeau. And football in Green Bay just won't be the same.
Sports Illustrated senior writer Peter King covers the NFL and appears regularly on CNN/Sports Illustrated and CNN's NFL Preview.
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